The Amber Adventure for October was a trip back to the Botanic to check out their Glow at the Gardens for Halloween.
Since tickets sell out well in advance, you roll the dice on your date. We picked Thursday night, the last night of the event, October 28.
The Wednesday night option happened on the day Denver broke another heat record.
So, naturally guess what happened on Thursday?
yep, that's snow.
Started snowing late afternoon, just in time for rush hour. Oh! And this was the also the afternoon VP Pence was in town, with the brilliant idea to have rolling closures of the highway as they ferried him across to Lockheed and back across to the Denver Tech center, also right at rush hour.
Double sixes, we did not roll.
Amber and her family went earlier and then Jan and the boys headed home and I joined in at 7:30.
To be honest, I loved the snow. It wasn't heavy and let up soon after I arrived. The ground was so warm, there was sticking on any of the sidewalks, just a lovely white little blanket to make things sparkle.
Shooting in the dark is always a fun challenge. How much glow and how much no are you going to get?
The pumpkin sculptures were something to behold. My worst shot of the night, but also the most challenging, was through the field of "sunflowers". These are pumpkins stacked on top of one another and carved out.
In the Romantic Gardens area, where the Chihuly resides, were the Victorian ghost projections, as well as a very friendly looking set of eyes, peering down from the windows onto guests below.
There was an area to sit with your purchased food and drink, but as it was snowing and hovering around 32°, there didn't seem to be any takers.
The snake pumpkin sculpture
glowy walkway lights across the El Pomar Waterway
the prancing pumpkin wolves
and the pumpkin stallion
Both were in a particularly dark portion of the Gardens, with little luminaria along the pathways and nothing more, thus the noisy orange sky effect in order to see them.
In the enclosed pavilion there were a variety of activities, costume contests, dance party, kids coloring activities, and a make your garden in a mason jar spot that was sold out. I think I'll try my hand at that one next year.
There was also a display of carved pumpkins that was impressive.
The art installation at the moment are the eight larger than life La Calavera Catrina sculptures by artist Ricardo Soltero. They are comprised of mixed media, from recycled materials, wood, fiberglass, and papier-mâché.
La Calavera Catrina can be translated as The Elegant Skeleton. She was originally
La Calavera Garbancera, a reference to the high society native Mexicans who tried to appear European. She was the creation of print maker Jose Guadalupe Posada, first appearing in 1910 as a satire on the upper classes during the Mexican revolution that toppled the reign of dictator Porfirio Díaz. But Posada drew her from ancient Aztec mythologies, specifically from the goddess of death and the underworld, Mictecacihuatl. She presided over the month long festivals. The overlay of Christian influences that co-opted the festivals, created what we now know as The Day of the Dead.
Catrina as Mictecacihuatl, in Aztec garb
This celebration is, at its core, a celebration of life, particularly when it faces its inevitable finale. Death is, in the Mexican culture, familiar, in that word's most basic etymology: intimate, part of the family.
The European dress and hat are central to the class consciousness that divided the country between the wealthy elite 1% and the grinding poverty of the masses. The idea that death was the great equalizer is satirized by Catrina's elegant dress and hat on her skeleton.
The Monarch butterfly is central to Mexican culture's belief that they are the spirits of their departed loved ones returning to them. Monarchs make a 3000 mile trek to Mexico in late October to November and settle, by the tens of millions, among the highlands of central Mexico for the winter.
But a butterfly's average life span is only a month and the trip takes twice that. So each generation completed one part of the leg of the long trip between Canada and Mexico, and the mystery remains as to how they know where to return, each and every season.
Catrina with Marigolds
The African marigold is known as cempasúchil, the flower of the dead. Their vibrant color and scent is used to lure the dead back to visit the living. Flowers in general are central to the symbolism of the fragility and fleeting quality of life.
The sombreros (in place of European hats) calls back to the economic classism of Mexico itself. The hats, are designed, by name (sombra/shade) to protect its wearer from the sun.
But peasants and common folk found the giant versions impractical for real work.
The bigger the brim, the taller the cone, the "bling" additions that add shiny and shake, the richer you are.
This part of the symbolism extends to the Mexican tradition of tossing your sombrero to the floor to declare you love for someone. If you are willing to sacrifice the symbolism of your wealth for her, you must really be in love.
Catrina as The Artist
Art for the Day of the Dead altars include Papel picado, delicately hand cut and decorated tissue paper, as fragile as life itself, and representative of the wind, which is necessary to carry the spirits back to the living on this sacred night. It is believed when the winds pick up and the papel picado is moved, the spirits are attending.
Clay art is also central to the totems placed at the altar designed to attract the dead, particularly skulls and skeletons made of clay, symbolic of both the dead and of the living made of and returned to earthly soil. Clay figures of the skeletons doing their normal activities in life are often a part of the altar: children playing, men with guitars or work implements, and woman baking or cleaning. You are hard pressed to know a gender as skeletons except by their accompaniments.
Toys are also common on the altars, something for the departed to entertain themselves with on their visit, regardless of age.
Catrina as the fruit vendor
This vocation is central to the celebration, as fruit is one of the special items used to tempt the dead to revisit the living on their one special day.
Mourning and sadness are not a part of the Day of the Dead, as it is believed tears make the spirit's way slippery and harder. Joy and memory are central to the celebration, thus a variety of foods come into play.
Fruit, as always, was prized for its sweetness and the abundance of the earth.
Sugar, even more elemental, is used in the shape of skulls and presented to friends as gifts and as a reminder to cherish the vitality of life, both those living and those dead. The designs on them are personal and brightly colored, tailored to the remembrance of the specific departed that is being lured home for the night.
This is also why the departed's favorite meal is prepared and left on the altar. Tamales are at the top of the list for many.
Pan de Muertos are sweet breads, representative of the soil and usually formed in the shape of bones and sprinkled with sugar.
Pumpkin seeds or amaranth seeds are traditional snacks placed on the altar, the amaranth once used in ancient Aztec culture in place of sugar.
Bottles of alcohol are offered on the altar as a toast to the journey of the departed and their arrival. Whichever spirit was your departed's favorite should be used.
And always a glass of water. The departed will be thirsty after their long journey back, and water is the primary element of life.
Additions to the food and flower offerings must include light and often canines. The lights are part of the lure to the spirits: candles in particular, representative of fire and the land of the living. Dogs are the companions who greet the dead upon their departure and accompany them to the afterlife.
Incense in the form of copal (a tree resin) is symbolic of the physical transformation of the departed to the supernatural realm and its ability to visit the living, who are still rooted in one spot and unable to make the opposite journey until they shed their corporeal form.
Most importantly, a photograph of the departed soul is placed on the altar, a remembrance of their corporeal form as the living remember them and as the living might want to be remembered by their own future generations who will honor them in the same way.
The Botanic had its own altar spaces, sold out, with some of the traditional markers.
although I'm pretty certain these weren't all traditionally cut by hand
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