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 15th 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.
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