Editor's note: This story was originally published on Oct. 29.
In a year heavy with grief, we have been robbed of a way to communally express it: The All Souls Procession, which last year drew more than 100,000 people, has been canceled.
But organizers know what we need, so they have made it virtual.
There will be a ceremony with music, dance and the cathartic burning of the offerings placed in the mausoleum.
“It will be filmed with just the tech crew and a handful of performers in attendance,” said Nadia Hagen, one of the forces behind the event. “The ceremony will be live-streamed.”
It’s not quite the same, says former Tucsonan Allegra Frazier. Frazier’s mother, Darin, died in 2015, and every year she joins her family here to walk in memory of her mother. This year, COVID-19 has canceled the annual trip.
The time with her family is “more important than Christmas,” says Frazier, who now lives in Carbondale, Illinois.
“I do think I can support my family and friends remotely, but it’s a change,” she says. “There’s something magical about being there. It’s such an experience to be with 100,000 people who are holding some sorrow with you.”
Hagen knows that, and the organizers are incorporating as many of the traditions of the ceremony as possible into the virtual event.
The mausoleum now sits in front of the MSA Annex so that people can go there to submit their offerings. On a screen behind it, photos of loved ones submitted through the Ancestor’s Project slowly stream by.
Those photos will be part of the final ceremony. There will also be “stilt walkers, music and a 200-foot scroll with names submitted by local organizations of people who have died,” says Hagen.
And the burning of the prayers, notes, names and other offerings will be, as in the past, the climax of the event.
“When the urn is burning, that moment is so magical,” says Hagen. “There’s no other word for it. It’s very still, it’s the breath of 100,000 people or more. That moment makes it worth it.”
To-Reé-Neé Wolf, director of urn attendance spirit group, searches for an art pen while working on one of the four figures for the virtual All Souls Procession inside Wolf’s studio in Tucson. The theme for this years All Souls Procession is “Nature: Healer, Grounder and Disrupter,” which is shown through these figures using flowers, plants and butterflies.
The procession is “different, but almost more potent and powerful and very, very needed,” says artist To-Reé-Neé Wolf, one of the volunteers.
The coming together in the virtual world is as important as an in-person gathering, she says.
“To me, there’s a whole level of grief for what has gone before. We are in the midst of the great unknown around the world. So it feels even more important that we come together with this ritual. It’s a talisman for those at home — that this is still going on. The prayers will still go up.”
Bob Byars, front, and To-Reé-Neé Wolf, director of urn attendance spirit group, work on figures for the virtual All Souls Procession inside Wolf’s studio. These figures represent the people who attend the procession but are not able to because of the pandemic, Wolf said.
An altar in memory of late Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias on display in the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum, 196 N. Court Ave.
Ex-Tucsonan Allegra Frazier will miss the procession. “There’s something magical about being there,” she said. “It’s such an experience to be with 100,000 people who are holding some sorrow with you.”
Josh Linam walks with his son, Jonas, through La Calavera Catrina exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, on Sept. 16, 2020. La Calavera Catrina is an exhibit of large-scale skeleton sculptures by Los Angeles-based artist Ricardo Soltero. It’s one of several events related to Dia de los Muertos.
Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum, 196 N. Court Ave., is displaying altars submitted by community members.
