Day of the Grateful Dead

Greetings all,

I am sorry to be late again.  I am really trying to not make this a habit, but events as you will see sometimes mess with our plans.  So this weekend was one of my teacher's Day of the Dead celebration.  It was a glorious festivity.  I brought a carload of friends to the party.  I was snagged the moment I walked in the door by my teacher to decorate a sugar skull.

There are a few things about the Mooneagle you should know.  If you give me colors and something to decorate I bliss out.  I love making things!  I love spending time with friends.  I love good food (it was a potluck and there was deer chili yum!!!).  I also love ceremony and we did that up right too.  We did despacho ceremony to honor our ancestors and ask for their blessings.  Despacho is completely different from gazpacho, the former means gift, the latter is a cold soup. (I suppose you could cook gazpacho but like revenge it is a dish best served cold).

Each of us added to the despacho, both items and prayers.  When they are assembled they are very colorful with flowers, candies, chocolates, ribbons, wine, and sugar.  You can get very creative with them.  So yes they are a blast for someone like me.  They are also very sacred when done with respect (which does not exclude laughter around the table).  Any chance I have to participate or create one I jump at.  I love working with the spirits and making them presents.

So the bonfire accepted our despacho package.  We sang, we beat our drums, rattled our rattles, didjed our didjeridus.  The night wore on and we went to work painting our skulls (again more colors more bliss).  Everyone was having a blast.  Then life decided to step in and one of my dear friends took a false step off the ramp on the porch and fell down…hard…very hard…so hard I was terrified she might have broken her neck.  The party was definitely over.

Funny thing about this was earlier that day I had put a new battery in my car.  It had been giving me warning signs that it was on the way out.  I am grateful, usually it is a complete surprise when the battery goes dead with this car.  I also put a full tank of gas in the car.   Well my friend had a compound  fracture and needed to goto the hospital and ended up having to have an operation.  The hitch was they lived in a town about two hours away.  So one of the friends I gave a lift to offered to help me get the car back to her house so her husband could drive it up later.  We drove most of the night.

I wondered today after I finally slept about the ceremony and the ancestors.  Where were they when this happened?  Well now that I look at the situation I can clearly see their hands all over it.  No they didn't push my friend off the porch, but they did guide her fall so that she didn't break her neck or back.    I had several warnings that I needed my battery replaced and hadn't been stranded in the process.  I had just enough people riding with me to be able to bring my friend's car back to her husband.  Spirit kept me safe and alert on my midnight drive, and we made it down to her place in fairly record time without speeding.  It was rather unbelievable.  We even managed to sing a bit to keep our morale up.

So what in the world does my day of the dead escapade have to do with you?  Well is there any situation in your life that isn't ideal but perhaps is getting you ready to deal with something else in a way to mitigate disaster?  Are the spirits softening the blows just enough so you can get what you need done?  Are you recognizing you are protected even in the midst of calamities?  I for one am grateful for the dead.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle