Archive for the ‘All Souls Procession’ Category
The All Souls Procession Weekend Honors the Ancestors and our lost loved ones and Celebrates Life — Photo-Artistry by kenne (11/04/12)
What is the All Souls Procession?
“The All Souls Procession is one of the most important, inclusive, and authentic public ceremonies in North America today.
The Procession had its beginnings in 1990 with a ceremonial performance piece created by local artist Susan Johnson.”
This weekend (November 4-6), Tucson will honor the dead and celebrate life with the 33rd Annual All Souls Procession.
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A THIN moon faints in the sky o’erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it’s turn of the year and All Souls’ night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
— from All Souls by Edith Wharton
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All Souls Dragonfly — Infrared Image by kenne
November in the Sonoran Desert.
Land of indigenous cultures
Whose names are true to nature.
Ghosts whose shadows grow wings
Standing in the graveyard
That has become a holy vortex.
The owls of the night carry
Voices whispering death is alive.
Dragonflies rest on dead stems only
To fly away, circle, and come back
Recognizing all the souls of the dead.
— kenne
(Inspired by lines in Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Tijuana Book of the Dead)
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Photo-Artistry by kenne
Life is like a candle wick
Lit by a spark in the beginning
Burning long and bright,
Providing light for every act.
Slowly, the wick gets shorter.
The light begins to dem,
Only to become a flicker
Signaling the end of life.
— kenne
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All Souls Procession, Tucson, Arizona — Photo-Artistry by kenne
After being canceled last year because of the pandemic, the Tucson All Souls Procession took place the past weekend.
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Elementary School Class In Sabino Canyon (February, 2012) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Since March of 2020 Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN) have not bee working with students on field trips
in the Tucson area. We are hoping to start offering nature classes again this fall. Meanwhile, SCVN has developed
a series of videos called The Canyon Classroom covering some of the “Fun Facts” covering the history, geology,
ecology, and wildlife of Sabino Canyon.
(Original image provided by the teacher.)
— kenne
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Remembering The Dead from COVID-19 — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
— from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
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Desert Marigold — Grunge Art by kenne
Desert wildflowers
Can make you a believer,
Bloom on my beauties.
— kenne
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Vermilion Cliffs National Monument In Northern Arizona — Image by kenne
Take a leaf off a tree. Is it still a tree?
Take a single twig off a tree. Is it still a tree?
Remove an entire branch from a tree. Is it still a tree?
Take off half of the branches. Is it still a tree?
Cut down the whole tree, leaving only the stump. Is it still a tree?
Many people would say no, it is no longer a tree,
though the roots may still be in the ground.
Well, where did the tree go?
Removing a leaf, it remains a tree,
but not by removing all of the branches and the trunk?
In the real world, there aren’t any things as we commonly think of them.
A ‘thing’ as we refer to it is only a noun. A noun is merely an idea, a mental construct.
These ‘things’ exist only in our minds. There is no tree, there is only the idea of a tree.
—Anonymous
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Joy and Kenne at the 2015 All Souls Procession — Images by kenne
Over the past year and a half Joy’s mother (Virginia) and my brother (Tom) passed away. To honor them, last night we participated in Tucson’s version of the Day of the Dead where tens of thousands of people in elaborate costumes walk in one of the nation’s largest processions honoring the deceased. The All Souls Procession is a uniquely Tucson community event that was launched 26 years ago as a way for people to publicly grieve their lost ones in an artistic way.
kenne
(Click on any of the gallery images to see larger view in a slideshow format.)
MIDNIGHT has come, and the great Christ Church Bell
And may a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls’ Night,
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
For it is a ghost’s right,
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
I need some mind that, if the cannon sound
From every quarter of the world, can stay
Wound in mind’s pondering
As mummies in the mummy-cloth are wound;
Because I have a marvellous thing to say,
A certain marvellous thing
None but the living mock,
Though not for sober ear;
It may be all that hear
Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
— from All Souls’ Night by William Butler Yeats
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Becoming is Superior to Being 
“The whole content of my being shrieks
in contradiction against itself . . .
Existence is surely a debate.”
— Kierkegaard
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