by Aaron S. Reisfield

(I tap clink on my favorite vintage juice glass.)

We've postponed today's chemical cabaret, but I have something to say, before I forget, concerning the ceding of Nature's big asset, which is just another way to say, the payment of Nature's big debt. Tulíp, we hope, will arrive shortly.

"So when have you last seen Saffron?" Licorice says.

Whereas the patroness saint of death, Santa Muerte, is to be celebrated today with a procession, there are nonetheless several such annual ceremonies in succession, so it's hard to keep track of them. It turns out that Muerte Querida is very sought after, constantly petitioned to bestow different kinds of assurances and protection.

"There is a big affair here each year for Day of the Dead, but that single event, for all its solemn manner of revel, can't satisfy the legendary level of cultural interest in the central theme of death."

In most of these ritual pageants, death will assume certain distinct identities, particular spirits, often skeletal personifications, viewed as souls of beings who are beckoned back for a visit, to interact with the living, back from the monotonous never-never land of abstract nothingness to the dazzling variousness of vital concrete specificities, from the forever land of empyreal sameness to the peculiar Earthly entanglement of physical processes bearing fluctuating forms in situational interactions, back to the lively wild untidy World of aliveness, of natural Life.

"To embrace the particularity of passing away is to deny the fortune of universal lifelessness in store for each of us."

The Church of Mexico hasn't been too amenable, denouncing devotion to the venerable Señora de las Sombras (she's designated by a variety of names) as incompatible with Catholicism. The government likewise destroys shrines dedicated to her. As a result, she has become an underworld folk saint of sorts, said to be attentive to social outcasts and those who live on society's margins.

"By personalizing death we resist death, whereas invoking the supernatural invites death-ness into our World as an organizing principle of reality."

Hopefully it's a tall story, but supposedly there are no black cats or black roosters to be found around here because they're snatched up for sacrificing to La Santísima.

"…whoosh, pass the message—the orange sample from Ivory Coast is pressed from rinds—nuances indicating oil juice pith wax flower soap and fruit are all proportionately balanced and how—the Brazilian is thinner the Guinean softer the Haitian fruitier—whoosh, pass the message—the sample of distilled lime breaks up like a prism of molecular pronouncements, some radiant and medical, some crisp and sparkling—some more like splashes of peels and pulps—or flourishes of eau de cologne or dehydrated grass—some like fading perspiration or powdered cumin—"

…psst, pass the message—the big fiesta, actually a desfile, is to begin shortly, dozens of hooded grim reapers are assembling, robed children bonking each other with those scythes, Baltazar is wearing a skirt, or maybe to mark the occasion that's a ballet tutu pulled over his bloodstained Hilfiger sweatpants—psst, pass the message—those masquerading as grinning craniums bearing owl feathers and necklaces made of eyeballs now push forward rhythmically, loads of botched tattoos are on display, some submissive junkies with their pants falling down, mariachis as always with pressed suits revealing their bulging bellies propped up with belt buckles, chavos zipping around on bikes, making busy use without reserve or pretense of their new gifts of celulares—psst, pass the message—Tulíp is barefoot and draped with flowing rebozos as she sneaks up from behind and grabs Baltazar's hands to dance, he's trying to follow her lead? alongside near-naked campesino bailarines with Aztec headdresses and hooded Sagrada Muerte specters with bony hands blowing tobacco smoke in each other's faces, the procession is now moving, we're stepping over huelepegas, here come the papier-mâché mojigangas with their exaggerated features fifteen feet tall and wobbling, next is the ice cream truck blasting that repeating loop of carnivalesque music, turned up we're told to wake the dead—psst, pass the message—Tulíp spots Licorice in front of the narco tiendita and tugs her arm, so now the three together are bouncing around to sounds of the rickety local orkesta of beat-up horns and violins—psst, pass the message—everyone is invited but the parade mayordomo favors neighborhood notables with a prominent escort: the one-legged woman repeating the same short motif on her harmonica with hardly ever a break, the bawdy barrio transvestite who oddly has the greatest rapport with all the locals, the blind panhandler whose bird drops feces on his shoulder—psst, pass the message—through dark-tinted windows of a black Lincoln Continental passing, I spot Saffron in the passenger seat?—psst, pass the message—along the route, tables are being lined up by groups of welcoming yet no-nonsense women with big pots of steaming sopas, taquitos and tamales with mole and red salsas and chicharrones and aguas de tamarindo and jamaica—psst, pass the message—lots of paraphernalia, not only for Santísima Muerte but also San Judas Tadeo, Santa Margarita, and Jesus Malverde, amulets and sachet powders, prints and scapulars and bath crystals, malandros (so-called) lifting up statues honoring these patron saints of lost causes or misfortune or dimwittedness or disability or drug trafficking—psst, pass the message—more faces are painted than not, particularly those of women, many dressed in finery, their heads exuberantly decorated as Catrina skulls, some other skeletal characters don black ski masks, some are on stilts, some carry coffins—psst, pass the message—most costumes appear to be reflections on death, a denying or a summoning or a solemnizing or a mocking or an invoking by interpreting and reinterpreting—psst, pass the message—now a dark blanket of vapors from the ladrilleros' fires passes overhead, the smoke descends over all the various animated bare-boned figures, a low hovering dense cloud filters out the sun, the opaque effluvium is unmistakably of combusting eaux de parfum and eaux de toilette, the fumes enter the adjacent dry ravine to follow the trail that descends between graffiti-sprayed cinderblock walls, past construction debris of cement aggregate boulders and bent rebar, over broken bottles and old bicycle frames, ripped skirts, syringes, felt-tip markers and panties, passing lots more trash where the trail ascends, beer cans, used condoms, sneakers and empty tubes of glue and clumps of newspaper near mounds of excrement, the gases then reach the top of the arroyo and wind around to engulf some horses eating grass—psst, pass the message? really? a disclosure about reconciliation? in the matter of our demise? no matter, for rather, we face a more dire matter, being the full-on unconditional assault against Life and any alive thing that heralds vitality—psst, the end.

**************

Aaron S. Reisfield resides in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where his endeavors involve the creative arts and perfume. Previously, he has collected plants throughout montane Mexico and served as a Visiting Scholar in Botany at The University of Texas in Austin. He has published a book series, The Perfume of Life trilogy, premised on the idea that the story of Life on Earth is best related in the language of molecules—the language of perfume. He founded Avant Garde Aromatica, a program of workshops, salons, and guided studies in the poetry and science of plant perfumes. He distills plants for their fragrant oils and waters, and is producing the line of artisanal extracts called Impossible Oils and Waters.

Discover Lokkal: Mission

Visit SMA's Social Network

Contact / Contactar