Hello. My name is Eliseo "Cheo" Torres. I'm a professor and an administrator at the University of New Mexico, and today's program is part of a series of classes that the university offers with traditional medicine of Mexico in the Southwest. Today we have a colleague of mine, a friend to come here, Dr. Torres Arismendi from Mexico City. Dr. Torres has been part of the faculty at the University of New Mexico for a few years. He went back to Mexico, but he comes back once a year to help in this summer class on traditional medicine, and the theme of today's class is Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead and how you can heal grief. This is a wonderful tradition in Mexico. We're going to relive this with some students that are in the class that you'll meet in a few minutes. But with that I'd like to ask Dr. Torres Arismendi to tell us a little bit about this wonderful theme and how you can deal with grief in Dia de los Muertos. So Anselmo, it's all yours. Thank you very much, thank you and thank you [inaudible] for inviting me again to work on this incredible academic effort to promote the traditional medicine. The Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, is one of the most strongest celebration we have in Mexico. Why? On October 31st, November 1st, and November 2nd, we celebrate death. Seems strange and maybe we can think that this is strange, but it is not for us. According to the cosmovision of the native cultures that we still have in Mexico. There was this cosmovision was form of a system in which many gods we have in this cosmovision. According to this culture, we have the two kinds of worlds in this part of the country, especially the center and south and Southeast of Mexico. These two worlds, the first one was the horizontal one, which is the Earth, and that other world was the vertical one. Vertical one was formed of 13 skies and nine on the worlds. Well, we do or what these cultures used to do in Mexico in before the Spaniards came in in the 15th century is that they celebrate it during these three days according to their calendar, but it matches to the calendar we have now. They celebrate the coming of those who passed away. What do we do when we have visitors at home? Of course, we have to invite them meals. We have to invite them to drink. We take them for a tour to the city, we dance with them. We talk to them. In a few words we celebrate with them. According to the tradition, during these three days, October 31st, November 1st, and November 2nd, what we do is, we celebrate because the gods let them to come to us. Come and be here with us, and share with us. Of course, they don't do it in the physical world, but they do it in the spiritual way, which is marvelous. So we celebrate it with them in two different ways. Physically, because we have action. We at home, we placed altars. We go to the cemeteries, we placed altars at the cemeteries as well. In these altars, we placed meals that they used to like, we placed drinks. We placed candles, we placed flowers, we placed a pictures. We placed the schools, as you can see. Then, we celebrate it in the spiritual, it's a spirit to spirit celebration. We do it for three days and then we let them go back again. How this helps with the healing process. It helps in two different ways, on one side, is on the personal side, which is to help the person working on the grief, on the different stages of the grief in which if we had a blocked emotion with somebody who has passed away, we know that we have during these three days the opportunity to work on these blocked emotions. So we can share with them. We live with them again in this spiritual way. We're happy because we're with them again. This is one way. The other way is the collective way, the collective side of the celebration. That means, the whole population of the center and south and Southeast Mexico, we got together and celebrate them and we welcome them back to Earth. This is the way we can relate the Day of the Dead celebration to the healing process, to help the person or the people to deal with the grief. I would like to, or maybe you're going to see some pictures now on your screen. Some pictures, I have seen before of different times where Dr. Torres and I have been to Mexico, in some parts of Mexico, and being in different parts, celebrating for example, [inaudible] in Southern Mexico and Mexico City [inaudible]. We have really many places looking for different ways of celebrating. We have realized that they're pretty similar with the same root, which is marvelous. I would like to invite you to now to see how we celebrated here in this stage with the students of the class and we're going to organize the altar in this table. So will you please come and set the altar for us, please? [inaudible]. Okay. Maybe we can open it up. Yeah, I don't know how to use. Okay. This wouldn't work. [inaudible]. There's something missing. Will. I'd like to invite all of the students to please come up here on the stage and around here because we're going to talk a little bit about this. We may ask you to give us some comments of what you experience today. [inaudible]. So, maybe Dr. Anselmo can explain a little bit about what we are doing, and then have you make some comments, a few of you. So, please come and stand behind us and around us. This looks beautiful. This is just wonderful. It's incredible what you've created here to honor your loved ones. As you can see in this altar, we have many elements of the altar of Dia de los Muertos. For example, first, we have candles. That means the light that they come through. We have flowers, which is offered to them. For example, we have toys. That means that we're celebrating the children who has passed away. We have toys over there. Also we have meal, which means that we're receiving the people who used to like, for example, in this case, cookies. But we can also have mole. We can also have enchiladas we can also have a bottle of tequila. Yeah, of course, because we're receiving them. We have visitors. They're our guests. We have bread, for example. At the same time, we have pictures of those who has passed away, which is we're bringing in their souls and being here with us. We also have an specific papel, which is made especially for these days, which is the papel picado, full of colors, and we place all over the altar, be careful with the light. Which is placed all over the altar, which means the body. Also, we have the skulls, which means death. Also, we use sugar skulls. After the celebration, we eat them because of the amount of sugar. You can see, we also make some specific coffins of toys, of paper. We play with them. This is a way we play with it. We celebrate it. For us, death is another way of life. It's not the end. That is the one point that is very specifically on the stage of the grief because it's not over. We can be with them every year or whenever we want. We just have to place an altar. In this case, in the particular level, we can make it every year. But in the collective way, we do it just once per year, during three days. So, I would like to ask our students for testimonies of the celebration of today, for example, and how they feel about it. Maybe two or three students, if you want to make a comment. Yes. My husband died seven years ago. Somewhere down here is his photograph. He was a cigar smoker much to my dismay, but I put a cigar in front of him and I'd like to say that grief is never over. Today, as everyone was assembling their own personal altars, I had the proverbial lump in my throat. I felt the presence of spirits and I felt the honoring and the respect that all of you were giving to those that you love. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. This is the way we thank them. This is a butterfly applause because we don't want to close the energy this way. We want to open the energy. So, thank you. Anybody else? My grandmother Maria, she was also a smoker. I have a picture of a cigarette there. She also love flowers. She had a beautiful garden. This kind of reminds me, brings back good memories of her, and I found this a wonderful experience as well. Wonderful. Thank you. Anybody else on this side? I'll say my father lived with me the last 10 years of his life. His favorite flower were Gladiolus. His favorite color was red. He was a Boy Scout Master for most of my life. I have some pictures of him there, and his favorite dog, Jackson, is in it with him. Today's ceremony brought the closure and I was able to cry for the first time since his death 12 months ago. Bless you. Liberation. Yes. Liberation. Anybody? Yes, right over here. I have pictures of my padres when they were young and, of course, separately, mi antepasados, my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and so forth. I lost them both to illness and it's been very hard. Once your parents are gone you feel like you're abandoned, you're an orphan, una orfana. That is, which way to go. You don't have anybody to guide you. This is a way for me to come back to honor them and to tell them I'm still going. I still have my family. I have my daughter who's there on the other side with the baby coming on the way, and it's a way to be able to bring back the new generations coming on. Bless you. Thank you. Very nice. Somebody else? One more comment? I'd like to share. Okay. Okay. We have two of them. We have two of them. Here, then you. Okay, please? A picture of my wonderful angel dog, Silver. I adopted her about a year before I was diagnosed with breast cancer. She got me through the cancer experience in a way that no human could through medicine or hugs or love. She loved me unconditionally and helped me to understand the grieving process, to grieve my life before cancer, and made me smile, and helped me recover in a way that, honestly, no one else could. What this process today helped me to do was realize that she is fulfilling another purpose up in heaven teaching other angel dogs how to work with us, two-legged to get through experiences like cancers. Wonderful. Thank you. Yes, pets are part of this grieving process definitely. You have an- Yeah. This is a billfold from my father. He cared carried it with him during World War II. It has the original pictures of it of my mother and his mother, and there's a picture of him. Then, my grandparents on both sides are there. They were all homesteaders in South Dakota. But what I would really like to say is, what this experience was for me was to give me a deep appreciation of this culture because this is not something we do in my culture. I had a young man come up to me and asked me about the pictures during the time that we did it. I was telling him about all my relatives. It was so magical just because he came up and asked me to tell my story, and nobody's ever done that before. So, I can see how this is such an important celebration in this culture. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Just one more right here. HI. Right in the front where you see semper fi. Right there, the red one. My dad was in the US Marine Corps. He quit school at age 17 to be on the World War II. He went to Iwo Jima, which was one of the fiercest battles ever. He just tapped my shoulder and said, "Please tell them," because he was so incredibly proud. I have to say that even with Alzheimer's all his life, even at the very end, he could tell stories about that. He loved my mom dearly as he's with my mom right now who died 13 years ago. I just feel very loved and protected. Thank you. Thank you. So, thank you for your testimonials. Dr. Torres, thank you for your excellent presentation. Thank you. Thank you for being with us to celebrate Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos. Goodbye. Bye-bye.
