A journey into archetypes of death

Tracey Turner | illustration by ted barker

We’ve begun our descent into the dark. From horror movies to masks, with archetypical themes of darkness and death and the seasonal desire to be frightened out of our hides. Just what is our fixation with death at this time of year? In Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell writes about the diurnal transition between day and night as an “ineluctable factor of experience” and that “at night the world sleeps, dangers lurk, and the mind plunges into a realm of dream experience, which differs in its logic.”

The balance is shifting from a solar-filled, awakened, green world to one that has weight, depth, throws us off balance, and takes us into realms unknown, to a place below. The air has become crisp and still, and as the Earth momentarily rests, we begin our descent. Known as the “Blood moon” to the ancient Celts, October’s full moon brings us to into this darker time, to reconnect with loss — loss of life, loved ones that have passed, the little deaths of unrealized dreams and potential, and for women the monthly loss of menstrual blood. It’s no coincidence that seasonal celebrations at this time of year like Halloween have themes involving death and darkness. These themes persist, recalling ancient peoples’ traditions and rituals.

Night of the living ‘dead bread’

Skeletons are everywhere at this time of year. In Mexico and Latin America, Nov. 2 is known as the Day of the Dead, “El Dia de los Muertos.” In present day Mexican folk cultural practices an attitude towards death and its imagery arises from the fusion of pre-Hispanic Meso-American polytheistic spirituality with Spanish religious beliefs and traditions. Here, the death archetype is everywhere: stores full of edible sugary skulls, decorated tombs in cemeteries, home-made altars, ceremoniously painted merchant doorways with dancing skeletons, and papier mâché skulls. The Day of the Dead motifs and imagery symbolically mock death. In Mexico at this time mortuary imagery permeates shops and street stalls and the media.

One can buy “dead bread”: a soft bread shaped in skeletal form, known as “pan de muerto,” which are bone effigies of males or females, traditionally consumed at this feasting time. In the home, families set up altars in honour of their returning deceased ancestors, adorned by candles, flowers, photographs, personalized candied skulls, tobacco, and the favourite food and drinks of the departed. In family cemeteries, gravesites are groomed, painted and adorned with flowers, crosses, and wreathes. On Nov. 2, families gather at gravesites with picnic baskets, tequila, and mariachi bands to celebrate departed ancestors. In the spring 1998 issue of Ethnohistory, Berkeley scholar Stanely Brandes writes that it’s “the prevalence of skulls and skeletons and caskets of all types that has made the Mexican Day of the Dead famous throughout the Western world.” The images of skulls recall a more ancient Mexico, where special archaeological stone structures called Tzompantlis — skull racks — were used to house and display the skulls of sacrificial victims. Mexicans confront death at their doorsteps, joke about it, and eat it during this festival.

Celtic New Years

The Celtic festival of Samhain (“summer’s end” in Gaelic) is celebrated Oct. 31-Nov. 1. For the Celts who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, Samhain marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year, and was believed to be a time when the separation between the world of the living and the world of the dead was diminished. It was believed that this was a time when our ancestors could return to assist those of us living on the earthly plane. In ancient times, people set out offerings of food and hollowed out turnips with candles to help guide their ancestors home.

With the ancestors closer, this was thought to assist in the practice of divination, a way of applying some sense of order to a life intimately tied to the unpredictability and often ruthlessness of the natural world. Prophecies provided reassurance and guidance throughout the long, dark period that followed Samhain. The ancient Celts were known to wear costumes, often made of animal heads and skins. Traditional feasting to celebrate the end of the harvest, bonfires, altar-making and rituals marked this sacred time. To close the ritual, participants would relight their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred community bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

While it may seem a bit odd to have the Celtic New Year beginning in the fall, it speaks about the polarity of dark and light that Joseph Campbell often refers to. Following the ancient Hermetic law “as above, so below,” this dark time symbolizes a journey into our fears in which one emerges at the next turn of the Celtic seasonal wheel, “above,” into the light, into guidance and confidence, at “Yule” or the winter solstice as the sunlight gradually comes back to the Earth.

As above, so below

This Hermetic theme can be seen in the classic Greek myth structure of the story of Persephone and her “ritual love death.” In Greek mythology, when playing in the flowering meadows Persephone “the maiden,” daughter of Zeus and Demeter (goddess of all growing things), came upon a plant that enchanted her. When she paused to smell and pick the blossoms, the Earth opened up and a golden chariot whisked her away into the underworld to Lord Hades. Hades fell in love with Persephone, and after eating a pomegranate, she realized that the dark, the underworld, the place of death and letting go was a place of transformation and hope.

So, like Persephone, we journey into the underworld, revisiting death archetypes through the practices of Halloween, Samhain, and “El Dia de los Muertos,” sharing in an ancient heritage of honouring our ancestors, and the dichotomy of dark and light. The coming of winter brings a time of shadow and darkness to explore our creativity, to restore ourselves and ponder endings and, most importantly, new beginnings. Like Persephone, we revisit the ritual love death . . . descending into darkness to emerge into the light.