day of the dead

 

Dia de los Muertos (the day of the dead) is celebrated on November 2, right after Halloween.

Día de los Muertos originated in ancient Mesoamerica (Mexico and northern Central America) where indigenous groups, including Aztec, Maya and Toltec, had specific times when they commemorated their loved ones who had passed away. Certain months were dedicated to remembering the departed, based on whether the deceased was an adult or a child.

After the arrival of the Spanish, this ritual of commemorating the dead was intertwined with two Spanish holidays: All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Soul’s Day (Nov. 2). Día de los Muertos is often celebrated on Nov. 1 as a day to remember children who have passed away, and on Nov. 2 to honor adults.

Today, Día de los Muertos is celebrated mostly in Mexico and some parts of Central and South America. Recently it has become increasingly popular among Latino communities abroad, including in the United States.

The holiday is actually a celebration of life, not death. Ancient Mesoamericans believed that death was part of the journey of life. Rather than death ending life, they believed that new life came from death. This cycle is often associated with the cyclical nature of agriculture, whereby crops grow from the ground where the last crop lies buried.

A big part of the day is the ofrenda, which is a temporary altar on which family members leave objects related to the departed to serve as a reminder of their lives.

https://www.si.edu/stories/5-facts-about-dia-de-los-muertos-day-dead

When I lived in Evanston, I attended an ofrenda at a local church, and my contribution was 50 cents and a bag of oranges.

The link below will explain why:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2010/10/50-cents-and-bag-of-oranges.html

A holiday similar to Dia de los Muertos is celebrated in China every year. It’s called Qingming, or Tomb Sweeping Day, and it is celebrated on        the 15^th day after the spring equinox – and it is a national holiday.

During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional reverence of one's ancestors in Chinese culture.

Because it is a national holiday, government offices are closed. As a result, I got stranded in Hong Kong for 4 days in 2004, when I traveled there to renew my temporary visa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival

All of us have felt, at some point in time, that it would be nice to have another conversation with one of our departed family members.

A year or so after our dad passed, our mom drove to Ft. Snelling cemetery to talk with him about replacing his aging 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Although she also enlisted the help of the brother Bernard, the “conversation” with dad resulted in the purchase of a Plymouth Horizon.

After mom passed, my sister inherited the car, and it was driven for a few years by her husband Michael, who called the car “grandma”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_K_platform

When our parents were still alive, my sister Mary interviewed both of them, and recorded their thoughts on a cassette tape. Over time, the tapes disappeared, but before then, it WAS fun to listed to the folks again after they were gone.

If you have read Dan Brown’s book, “Origin” you may be familiar with the concept of artificial intelligence. You also may be aware of the fact that artificial intelligence, in recent years, has been able to create art.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/art-created-by-artificial-intelligence/2/

This morning’s Washington Post had a story about an even more remarkable use for artificial intelligence.

Connecting grieving loved one with the deceased.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/12/artificial-intelligence-grief/

In 2020, a Korean documentary team invited on its show a mother who had lost her 7-year-old daughter to an incurable disease. The girl’s death was so sudden — she died a week after being diagnosed in 2016 — the mother, Jang Ji-Sun, did not have a chance to say goodbye. For three years she was obsessed with the loss of her daughter.

 

The producers of the documentary, “Meeting You,” created a digitized re-creation of the child that the mother could see through a virtual reality headset (the TV audience was also able to see the image of the daughter).

 

On the show, the virtual girl, Na-yeon, appeared from behind a woodpile and runs toward her mother, calling, “Mom.” The mother burst into tears and said, “Mom missed you so much, Na-yeon.” A video of the show reportedly received 19 million views. While the experience was painful, the mother told the Korean Times that she would do it again if she could; she finally got a chance to say goodbye.

 

People have always craved post-death contact with their loved ones. Efforts to remain in touch with the dead have existed for eons, such as photographing deceased children, holding seances and even keeping a corpse in the house for posterity. But artificial intelligence and virtual reality, along with other technological advances, have taken us a huge step closer to bringing the dead back to life.

 In June, Amazon unveiled a new feature it’s developing for Alexa, in which the virtual assistant can read aloud stories in a deceased loved one’s voice after just hearing a minute of that person’s speech. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) “While AI can’t eliminate that pain of loss, it can definitely make their memories last,” said Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist for Amazon Alexa.

And several entrepreneurs in the AI sphere, including James Vlahos of HereAfter AI and Eugenia Kuyda, who co-founded AI start-ups Luka and Replika, have turned their efforts toward virtual representations of people, using data from their digital footprint to craft an avatar or chatbot that can interact with family members after they’ve passed.

 

Many of us baby boomers are still leery of modern technology, which is why I am not upgrading to Windows 11 until I can’t avoid it any longer. The fact remains, though, is that technology can due remarkable things – including bringing dead people back to life.