all souls' day
every year i carve a pumpkin and put it to glow on my windowsill feeling like i must be the only one in this entire country doing it. i feel nervous that i'm offending my neighbours, who tomorrow will be ritually mourning their dead loved ones. this year i feel, even more than ever, that maintaining my north american habits in this foreign culture serves no point.
but i love carving jack-o-lanterns....
i decided to try my hand at journalism. for a long time i've been wanting to write an article, and i decided, as "all souls' day" was approaching, to do a bit of reportage, or "personal journalism," on the subject. so i wrote an article, edited it a million times to try to "tighten it up" as much as possible, and shopped it around to the newspapers that are most familiar to me back home.
well.... the national post wrote back immediately (like 30 seconds after i had sent the email query) saying that they had no interest in such an article. the vancouver sun (whom i thought might be interested in publishing it in their weekend supplement) never responded, and neither did the globe and mail.
sigh. oh well. perhaps eastern europe holds little interest for vancouverites. i just wish they had given my article a chance. i didn't even get a chance to send it to them.
maybe i don't know how to write a good query letter.
anyways, i can't, after all, expect to know how to write an article that a newspaper would be interested in when i so rarely read newspapers myself! you have to know the genre inside and out to do it well.
i think my article would probably be more suited to a literary journal that publishes non-fiction, anyways, since, despite my "tightening up" it's still rather heavy.
not fluffy enough for the vancouver sun, probably. an old friend of mine who writes freqent articles for the weekend edition of the vancouver sun is a professional "puff" journalist.
so.... what is all souls' day like in poland?
On November 1st, the city of Krakow, Poland, will become silent and still. Not a single shop will be open, and the only people doing business will be the flower and grave-candle sellers on street corners throughout the city. Beginning in the early morning, people will make pilgrimages to the cemeteries. The cemetery visits will continue all day, even late into the night, and such great numbers of people will flock to them that many of the city’s electric trolley-cars, which are the main form of public transport in Krakow, will be re-routed to carry them, with “Cemetery” printed on the destination card over the driver’s window. All of this is in anticipation of November 2nd, All Souls’ Day - when it is believed in Poland that the spirits of the dead return to earth.
Like all religious holidays, every Catholic country has its own variation of customs associated with All Souls’ Day. Polish tradition doesn’t venture anywhere near the lively, colourful observances that take place in Mexico, where All Hallows’ Eve (whose origins are connected to those of Hallowe’en), All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are collectively observed as “Los Dias de los Muertos” (The Days of the Dead). There, the Days of the Dead are a time marked by festivities that include spectacular parades of skeletons and ghouls. In Poland, the Days of the Dead (November 1st and 2nd) remain a very sombre, melancholy holiday, the only link to the observances in Mexico (and other Roman Catholic countries) being the belief that it’s a time when souls return to earth for a visit, and a time to contemplate death.
In Poland, this takes the form of relatives gathering and having a large dinner together. At this dinner they often share their memories of deceased family members. Little shrines are set up in homes, with candles and flowers placed in front of photographs. Requiem masses are attended in church. Then, there’s always the trip to the cemetery. If relatives are buried in various places, several cemeteries must be visited.
On the first All Souls’ Day I witnessed in Poland I felt compelled to go to the main cemetery in Krakow to see what this holiday was like. I set off at 9:00 p.m. Getting there wasn’t hard - extra trams had been added to the route, arriving every few minutes. The tram was packed. When I got off at the end of the line, across from the cemetery, I was shocked by the huge number of people swarming through the gates. Police tape and barricades blocked the street off from car traffic. Police officers were stationed along the sidewalk every few feet, directing the thick crowds. People were dressed in sombre, but elegant clothes: men in dark suits, dressed as if going to church, and women in their best dresses. All along the street for many blocks there were temporarily raised kiosks full of grave candles of all different sizes and colours, and abundant with flowers wound into huge wreaths. I joined the crowd and let it carry me into the cemetery.
The cemetery paths were packed with people. And yet, despite the crowds, there was a thick silence in the air. Though we were walking through a pitch-black, moonless night, a bright glow surrounded us and continued on in all directions as far as the eye could see: the cemetery was ablaze with candles. People had begun placing candles on graves early in the morning, and it had continued all day long and would continue all night. The smoke from thousands of candles rose up and hovered like a strange fog far up amongst the bare tree branches. The graves of more notable Polish figures buried in the cemetery were heaped with flowers and ablaze with candles, often set up in elaborate patterns. Throughout the cemetery, people stood solemnly at the side of graves, staring at the candles, sometimes bending down to light more. At a monument to Polish victims of World War II, the vast collection of burning candles on the pavement surrounding the monument was breathtaking. Many of the candles had already burned down and were joining the sea of multicoloured melted wax bubbling between the glass candle holders. All around, people were bending over to add more flames. A huge crowd stood perpetually at the monument, singing hymns in unison.
Here and there throughout the cemetery there were solitary musicians. I could hear the ghostly notes of a violin rising up somewhere along a less-travelled path; after following the sound, I found a lone violinist standing next to a grave, playing against death’s stillness with all the force of his vitality.
Unlike most of the others who had a family plot to visit, I had no destination, and wandered the cemetery paths randomly, often ending up on narrow side paths with no other living souls around, with only the stone angels and candles to keep me company. Although I felt moved to witness this massive public ritual, an uncomfortable feeling remained lodged in the depths of me. In North America life has become so secularised that the idea of death has been shuttled off to the status of a distant rumour, something that one is never forced to consider with much seriousness, or for any considerable length of time. Poles’ ability to face death straight-on is astounding. The religious life of most Poles keeps them within a mental realm in which death is contemplated often, as something that our earthly life must prepare us for. But even for more secularised Poles who have strayed away from the Catholic Church, there’s still this annual holiday to remind them of the inescapable presence of death. For a North American there is something alarming in having death brought so close and made so tangible. My North American mind keeps balking, shying away from contemplation of what this all really means.
A newcomer to a country is faced with the difficult dilemma of whether to attempt to maintain some of his native traditions abroad, or whether to abandon them in favour of those of the new country. In the case of a Canadian in Poland, the latter is impossible (Polish culture is nearly impenetrable for an outsider, and one can’t hope to ever be more than an observer), and the former is difficult: in the case of Hallowe’en, for example, tracking down a pumpkin can be a challenge. A few can be found at “Stary Kleparz,” the outdoor market-place where genuine Polish peasants, with missing teeth, kerchiefs on their heads and dirt under their fingernails, arrive daily from the countryside (often in horse-drawn, wooden carts) to sell their homegrown vegetables.
The farmer chuckles as you handle the pumpkins, holding them up to examine the shape of each one. Carrying your pumpkins home, passing Poles with bags of candles and wreaths of flowers, supermarket billboards overhead promoting grave candles at extremely attractive prices just as they would microwaves or sides of beef, it’s impossible not to feel like a complete cultural enigma, a savage burdened down with pagan symbols, about to carry out an ancient and arcane ritual. How will the neighbours react once they see the illuminated representations of human heads staring out from your window? Will they call the police, suspecting satanic activities?
There’s a certain stubbornness you feel, too, in insisting on carrying on with a somewhat baffling tradition when you are the only one in your neighbourhood doing it. While carving the pumpkin you begin to wonder what the whole thing is about. What meaning does this ritual have? Defamiliarised by being removed from its context, ritual takes on a new significance, or at least demands that its significance be re-evaluated.
Walking through the streets of Krakow the afternoon of November 1st is like strolling through a ghost town. Everything is closed up, there are almost no people on the streets, even the crows seem to have flown off somewhere. To give you an idea of how unthinkable this is to a Canadian, I will give you the example of “Buy Nothing Day.” Somebody in Canada noticed that the act of shopping was the single motor that kept the entire country running, and hoped to subvert this through a national anti-holiday, a day in which people stayed away from stores. The day, however, has been a failure. In Canada a day without purchases has proven too unthinkable. And yet there I was in the historic and commercial centre of Krakow, and everyone had stayed home and closed all the shops for the day over an idea as abstract and intangible as death.
I have heard the opinion more than once from my Polish friends that November 1st in Krakow isn’t what it used to be, that the graveyards have turned into more of a fashion show than a genuine occasion to be with one’s family and contemplate death. When I hear this I want to tell my sceptical friends about the poor, failed “Buy Nothing Day” in Canada, or transport them to Zimbabwe, the Arctic, or even Vancouver, Canada, for just one November 1st so that they might be the only ones buying flowers and candles in little plastic cups (obtained with much difficulty), and therefore re-orient themselves on the value of ritual.
On October 31st this year I will boldly place my jack-o-lantern on my windowsill to glow as a lonely pinpoint of light on my street full of dark windows. And then, on November 1st I will join the cemetery crowds. Not having any family graves here and thus unable to take part in the Polish ritual, I have developed my own ritual: I buy one grave candle and seek out a grave that remains dark. This is difficult and always takes a while, but eventually I find a moss-covered tombstone with a worn-away inscription, belonging to someone no longer held in any living memory. I light my candle in honour of this unknown soul, taking part in this adopted holiday in my own way.
but i love carving jack-o-lanterns....
i decided to try my hand at journalism. for a long time i've been wanting to write an article, and i decided, as "all souls' day" was approaching, to do a bit of reportage, or "personal journalism," on the subject. so i wrote an article, edited it a million times to try to "tighten it up" as much as possible, and shopped it around to the newspapers that are most familiar to me back home.
well.... the national post wrote back immediately (like 30 seconds after i had sent the email query) saying that they had no interest in such an article. the vancouver sun (whom i thought might be interested in publishing it in their weekend supplement) never responded, and neither did the globe and mail.
sigh. oh well. perhaps eastern europe holds little interest for vancouverites. i just wish they had given my article a chance. i didn't even get a chance to send it to them.
maybe i don't know how to write a good query letter.
anyways, i can't, after all, expect to know how to write an article that a newspaper would be interested in when i so rarely read newspapers myself! you have to know the genre inside and out to do it well.
i think my article would probably be more suited to a literary journal that publishes non-fiction, anyways, since, despite my "tightening up" it's still rather heavy.
not fluffy enough for the vancouver sun, probably. an old friend of mine who writes freqent articles for the weekend edition of the vancouver sun is a professional "puff" journalist.
so.... what is all souls' day like in poland?
On November 1st, the city of Krakow, Poland, will become silent and still. Not a single shop will be open, and the only people doing business will be the flower and grave-candle sellers on street corners throughout the city. Beginning in the early morning, people will make pilgrimages to the cemeteries. The cemetery visits will continue all day, even late into the night, and such great numbers of people will flock to them that many of the city’s electric trolley-cars, which are the main form of public transport in Krakow, will be re-routed to carry them, with “Cemetery” printed on the destination card over the driver’s window. All of this is in anticipation of November 2nd, All Souls’ Day - when it is believed in Poland that the spirits of the dead return to earth.
Like all religious holidays, every Catholic country has its own variation of customs associated with All Souls’ Day. Polish tradition doesn’t venture anywhere near the lively, colourful observances that take place in Mexico, where All Hallows’ Eve (whose origins are connected to those of Hallowe’en), All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are collectively observed as “Los Dias de los Muertos” (The Days of the Dead). There, the Days of the Dead are a time marked by festivities that include spectacular parades of skeletons and ghouls. In Poland, the Days of the Dead (November 1st and 2nd) remain a very sombre, melancholy holiday, the only link to the observances in Mexico (and other Roman Catholic countries) being the belief that it’s a time when souls return to earth for a visit, and a time to contemplate death.
In Poland, this takes the form of relatives gathering and having a large dinner together. At this dinner they often share their memories of deceased family members. Little shrines are set up in homes, with candles and flowers placed in front of photographs. Requiem masses are attended in church. Then, there’s always the trip to the cemetery. If relatives are buried in various places, several cemeteries must be visited.
On the first All Souls’ Day I witnessed in Poland I felt compelled to go to the main cemetery in Krakow to see what this holiday was like. I set off at 9:00 p.m. Getting there wasn’t hard - extra trams had been added to the route, arriving every few minutes. The tram was packed. When I got off at the end of the line, across from the cemetery, I was shocked by the huge number of people swarming through the gates. Police tape and barricades blocked the street off from car traffic. Police officers were stationed along the sidewalk every few feet, directing the thick crowds. People were dressed in sombre, but elegant clothes: men in dark suits, dressed as if going to church, and women in their best dresses. All along the street for many blocks there were temporarily raised kiosks full of grave candles of all different sizes and colours, and abundant with flowers wound into huge wreaths. I joined the crowd and let it carry me into the cemetery.
The cemetery paths were packed with people. And yet, despite the crowds, there was a thick silence in the air. Though we were walking through a pitch-black, moonless night, a bright glow surrounded us and continued on in all directions as far as the eye could see: the cemetery was ablaze with candles. People had begun placing candles on graves early in the morning, and it had continued all day long and would continue all night. The smoke from thousands of candles rose up and hovered like a strange fog far up amongst the bare tree branches. The graves of more notable Polish figures buried in the cemetery were heaped with flowers and ablaze with candles, often set up in elaborate patterns. Throughout the cemetery, people stood solemnly at the side of graves, staring at the candles, sometimes bending down to light more. At a monument to Polish victims of World War II, the vast collection of burning candles on the pavement surrounding the monument was breathtaking. Many of the candles had already burned down and were joining the sea of multicoloured melted wax bubbling between the glass candle holders. All around, people were bending over to add more flames. A huge crowd stood perpetually at the monument, singing hymns in unison.
Here and there throughout the cemetery there were solitary musicians. I could hear the ghostly notes of a violin rising up somewhere along a less-travelled path; after following the sound, I found a lone violinist standing next to a grave, playing against death’s stillness with all the force of his vitality.
Unlike most of the others who had a family plot to visit, I had no destination, and wandered the cemetery paths randomly, often ending up on narrow side paths with no other living souls around, with only the stone angels and candles to keep me company. Although I felt moved to witness this massive public ritual, an uncomfortable feeling remained lodged in the depths of me. In North America life has become so secularised that the idea of death has been shuttled off to the status of a distant rumour, something that one is never forced to consider with much seriousness, or for any considerable length of time. Poles’ ability to face death straight-on is astounding. The religious life of most Poles keeps them within a mental realm in which death is contemplated often, as something that our earthly life must prepare us for. But even for more secularised Poles who have strayed away from the Catholic Church, there’s still this annual holiday to remind them of the inescapable presence of death. For a North American there is something alarming in having death brought so close and made so tangible. My North American mind keeps balking, shying away from contemplation of what this all really means.
A newcomer to a country is faced with the difficult dilemma of whether to attempt to maintain some of his native traditions abroad, or whether to abandon them in favour of those of the new country. In the case of a Canadian in Poland, the latter is impossible (Polish culture is nearly impenetrable for an outsider, and one can’t hope to ever be more than an observer), and the former is difficult: in the case of Hallowe’en, for example, tracking down a pumpkin can be a challenge. A few can be found at “Stary Kleparz,” the outdoor market-place where genuine Polish peasants, with missing teeth, kerchiefs on their heads and dirt under their fingernails, arrive daily from the countryside (often in horse-drawn, wooden carts) to sell their homegrown vegetables.
The farmer chuckles as you handle the pumpkins, holding them up to examine the shape of each one. Carrying your pumpkins home, passing Poles with bags of candles and wreaths of flowers, supermarket billboards overhead promoting grave candles at extremely attractive prices just as they would microwaves or sides of beef, it’s impossible not to feel like a complete cultural enigma, a savage burdened down with pagan symbols, about to carry out an ancient and arcane ritual. How will the neighbours react once they see the illuminated representations of human heads staring out from your window? Will they call the police, suspecting satanic activities?
There’s a certain stubbornness you feel, too, in insisting on carrying on with a somewhat baffling tradition when you are the only one in your neighbourhood doing it. While carving the pumpkin you begin to wonder what the whole thing is about. What meaning does this ritual have? Defamiliarised by being removed from its context, ritual takes on a new significance, or at least demands that its significance be re-evaluated.
Walking through the streets of Krakow the afternoon of November 1st is like strolling through a ghost town. Everything is closed up, there are almost no people on the streets, even the crows seem to have flown off somewhere. To give you an idea of how unthinkable this is to a Canadian, I will give you the example of “Buy Nothing Day.” Somebody in Canada noticed that the act of shopping was the single motor that kept the entire country running, and hoped to subvert this through a national anti-holiday, a day in which people stayed away from stores. The day, however, has been a failure. In Canada a day without purchases has proven too unthinkable. And yet there I was in the historic and commercial centre of Krakow, and everyone had stayed home and closed all the shops for the day over an idea as abstract and intangible as death.
I have heard the opinion more than once from my Polish friends that November 1st in Krakow isn’t what it used to be, that the graveyards have turned into more of a fashion show than a genuine occasion to be with one’s family and contemplate death. When I hear this I want to tell my sceptical friends about the poor, failed “Buy Nothing Day” in Canada, or transport them to Zimbabwe, the Arctic, or even Vancouver, Canada, for just one November 1st so that they might be the only ones buying flowers and candles in little plastic cups (obtained with much difficulty), and therefore re-orient themselves on the value of ritual.
On October 31st this year I will boldly place my jack-o-lantern on my windowsill to glow as a lonely pinpoint of light on my street full of dark windows. And then, on November 1st I will join the cemetery crowds. Not having any family graves here and thus unable to take part in the Polish ritual, I have developed my own ritual: I buy one grave candle and seek out a grave that remains dark. This is difficult and always takes a while, but eventually I find a moss-covered tombstone with a worn-away inscription, belonging to someone no longer held in any living memory. I light my candle in honour of this unknown soul, taking part in this adopted holiday in my own way.