Día De Los Muertos, October 2023

I am sitting in the United Lounge in Houston after our Day of the Dead photo workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  SMA is one of Ari’s favorite places on the planet. Its red and yellow walls match his colorful spirit and it is where we met almost 20 years ago. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is credited with being a perfect example of an integration of different architectural styles (Baroque to the Neo Classical) in a 16th century metropolitan plan in the Americas. The historic center has a fabulous core, La Parroquia, the parrish church that built by an indigenous bricklayer, Zefferino Gutiérrez Muñoz, and it soars above the town. The Jardin, the town square, lays directly in front and from this garden blossoms mariachis, mojihangas and incredible restaurants. San Miguel de Allende has rightly earned its reputation as the ‘friendliest city in the world’.

This is the second Día de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead photo workshop that we have run here. It is a very special time as the city comes alive with altars and catrinas. Papel Picado (colored flags) fly high over many of the streets encouraging the spirits of those that have passed to visit friends and family still here in this realm. The shops, hotels and restaurants decorate their entrances with cempasúchil (marigolds, the flower of 400 lives) and calaveras (skulls). Rather than being a time of sadness, the Mexicans use this holiday to celebrate the lives of those they have loved and lost.

The Hotel Concepción, our home for the week, allowed us to build our own altar and everyone brought photos to adorn it. Carmen Salmeron, one of the coolest and most knowledgeable Mexican wise women you will ever meet, introduced by Ari's Mexican mom, the lovely Camie Fenton, led our ceremony. Everybody shared memories and stories of those they missed and not a dry eye was left in the house…