Dia de Los Muertos: A Place at the Altar

There is an intimacy in remembering someone through the smallest things: the way they prepared food, a phrase they always used, a song that brings their voice back into the room. Our cultures give us ways to tend these relationships after death—to prepare something, gather, speak their names, and make a place for them.

Rooted in my Ecuadorian lineage and the sacred observance of Día de los Difuntos, this evening is an invitation to honor our beloved dead and explore the lives, traditions, and stories we carry. Together, we will create a community altar with photographs, flowers, and objects of remembrance. We will share cacao, drum, and sing, allowing our voices to become part of the offering.

We will also make room for the complexity of lineage: the tenderness, the silences, grief, joy, the distance from our homelands, the traditions interrupted or forgotten. Core themes we explore: gratitude, grief, unfinished relationships, or a longing to know more about where people come from.

The altar gives these experiences a place in our communal life. As we remember together, we can ask what we wish to keep practicing, what we want our children to know, and how we might carry our inheritance with greater care.

Participants will be invited to bring a photograph or small remembrance for the community altar. I will provide the cacao, drum, ritual guidance, and core altar elements.