Día de Muertos Gathering – hosted by Earth Centered Spirituality – October 25th
Friday, October 25, 2024,
5:30 – 8:30 pm
First Unitarian Church of Dallas
Channing Social Hall and Courtyard
All are welcome
✨ Join Spiritual: Earth Centered Spirituality in Realm to RSVP and sign up for potluck items and volunteer slots.
The Day of The Dead (Feast of the Ancestors) is about remembering our loved ones, as the weather turns to frost, the first death of the year as the seasons change. In our Unitarian Universalist tradition, we honor and celebrate every culture the world over, as beloved and sacred members in our one, human family.
Our community altar for that reason is round, to symbolize our unity and our oneness. But it will also be blank, because it is waiting for you to bring your art, your spirit, your love for your family to help it shine. In Mexico, the holiday is called Dia de (los) Muertos. In Poland, it is called Zaduszki. In Ireland, it’s known as Samhain and in Haiti it’s called Fet Gede.
Our evening together will be festive to celebrate life, and also solemn to remember those who have passed over. There will be many opportunities for you to lead activities (if you want to!), or just come as a special guest. Bring a food dish if you’re able. If not, come and eat, and help us stay late and clean up after.
Get ready for a special evening for all ages full of culture, music, ritual, and intergenerational connection! We are so excited for our 1st Annual Día de Muertos Gathering.
Please read through the following details carefully. Community effort and intention will make this event even more meaningful. Please plan to attend as a co-creator of the experience:
This is our most elaborate gathering of the year and group leaders will be purchasing supplies in advance. We plan to use any supplies purchased this year to repeat and expand this event next year. We have created an Amazon wishlist for help purchasing supplies if you are able or you can send contributions via Venmo to @SharonNissen or Zelle to 970-817-0726. Contributions are not required, but much appreciated.
🧡 Bring yourself, even if that is all you have time to bring. For those with limited time, grab 1 family photo of a loved one and bring 1 tealight and just come!
🎶 If you have time to do more, help us bring the music! We will have a YouTube music playlist for our party, solemn and festive. If you know your family’s genealogy, tell us what your great-grandparents ethnicities are in the comments of the event (we’ll look up their music to include it). We will have music from Mexico, Ireland, Poland, and Haiti…. but we’d like to include your family’s music, too, and not leave them out.
🍴 If you enjoy cooking, bring a favorite food that a loved one used to enjoy, for our potluck. If your grandma always cooked a certain dish, make it and bring it to honor her memory. If you need recipe ideas, Google famous dishes from the countries that your family is from…. give one of them a try.
⚫️ Our community altar will be a circle in three levels, to represent the unbroken interconnection of all our families to each other, and to honor the Heavens, the Earth, and the Underworld. It will be a blank canvas, so we will need your help to decorate! Bring as many family photos as you like, framed or unframed, and art and decorations. The Altar will have 40+ linear feet to decorate (18″ wide), so we need as many decorations as you can bring to fill it up. Common altar items from a variety of cultural traditions include: a bowl for water, a salt holder, Soul Cakes or Pan de Muerto, a bowl of ashes or soil, a loved one’s favorite food/candy, harvest vegetables (corn, squash, turnip, papaya, dried beans, etc), fresh flowers, and any spiritual/religious iconography that is meaningful to you.
For ideas about decorating your space on the community altar, visit these sites for inspiration:
https://polishhousewife.com/a-day-of-the-dead-ofrenda
https://www.artmexico.co.uk/pages/how-to-make-a-day-of-the-dead-altar
https://www.lunionsuite.com/haitian-haiti-fet-gede
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/zaduszki
https://images.app.goo.gl/oxpV7QtUQhsoWjnS8
https://images.app.goo.gl/i354v8cFkP5Kh9Tj7
https://images.app.goo.gl/o6D37msC6Xq2Qx1A8
If you want to REALLY go all out, sign up to help on one of our Event Teams. Not required, but appreciated.
Clean Up Crew – Stay a little later to help put things away (tables/chairs) and clean up after around 9pm with extra special clean up music provided.
Storytellers – 8 people. Bring a favorite story of a loved one who has passed away, share it with the people at your table during dinner and help others at your table share their favorite family stories.
Decorators/Set Up (5-5:30) – Be at the church at 5pm to help setup our sacred spaces and decorate.
Bonfire Leader (7:30) – Help build the bonfire at 7:30, bring firewood/kindling.
Fire Watchers (7:30-8:30) – Take turns staying by the fire to keep an eye on kids throughout the end of the evening
Marshmallow Station (7:30-8:30) – Bring everything needed for s’mores with the kids, after dinner
Skull Masks Station (5:30-6:30) – Help participants create their masks with markers and crayons (art supplies provided for you)
Sugar Skull Decorating Station (5:30-6:30) – Supervise participants as they decorate sugar skulls with glitter glue (supplies provided)
Greeters (5:30-6:30) – Greet people as they come in, tell them where to place their things.
Potluck Organizer (5:30-6:30) – Help keep the potluck table organized as people bring their dishes, refill water pitchers
✨ Join Spiritual: Earth Centered Spirituality in Realm to RSVP and sign up for potluck items and volunteer slots.
Email Sharon Nissen, snissen@dallasuu.org with questions.
