Il Giorno dei Morti

This is the day when family and loved ones are remembered with special celebrations. Prayers and food are left on the doorstep, doors are left open and additional chairs are put out. The fireplace hearths are clean and fire lit.

People visit the cemetery taking flowers and candles to the graves of dead relatives and friends, and children find presents ‘brought’ to them by the muorti.

Various Italian traditions express strong attachment to life and to their families, both those who are alive and those who are no longer with them. They create and reinforce links between children and their ancestors. Parents tell their children that if they behave correctly, “i bonarmuzza re muorticieddi” (the good souls of the dead) might bring them presents. 1st of November, children go to bed in the hope to be remembered by dead members of the family while parents prepare the presents and hide them around the house.

The morning search begins as soon as they wake up and after having found them they get ready to go to visit the cemetery. This is not a sad day in any way, it is a day where two worlds meet to celebrate life. As usual, food is a big component of this festivity and traditions vary from town to town, the most common are “pupi i zuccaru”, frutta marturana e “ossa ri muortu”.

It is a celebration related to the deceased and death. It is the time of year during which the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead is more subtle allowing us to get in touch with the dead, death is as much an end as a beginning.

It is the end the season of green and begins the life of the seed. The time of the last harvest, the last fruit, the sweeter and richer that will support us in the long winter. The inner time of the preparation of the dark. The time in which the seeds are staying quiet in the land.

The darkness from where it all begins, the silence from which arise the first vibration, the initial vacuum that must be, before birth can take place.

Death and life, the open door between the dimensions of time and lives.

In this dance of life, the chance to go into the depths of our being. We need to strip ourselves of what is outside, let go of those attachments and aspects of us that do not belong to our essence, to find our center.

The end of the agricultural cycle and the final harvest. Anything left in the fields is forbidden to pick it up as it now belongs to the Earth. Nothing can be taken less something given.

Now is the time to prepare for the darkness to come.

Let the light go and embrace the darkness. Do it with joy, because we know that is just another turn of the wheel of the year. This time of year the gates between the worlds are open. We call upon our ancestors, our loved ones because they pass through these gates and join us. We invite you to celebrate with loved ones.