Dia de Muertos celebrated in a small way in Corrales

CORRALES — Day of the Dead, also known as Día de los Muertos, has been a tradition in Mexican culture for thousands of years.

People continue to honor that tradition. One shop owner in Corrales, Yessica Sierra-Zamora, who owns Indigo House, invited the community and vendors to her small celebration Nov. 2.

“It’s a Mexican tradition or culture; my mom and I, we come from a line of curanderas, so we wanted to share that with the community about honoring the dead. In Mexico, the relationship with death is very different. We are connected in a place of spirit and we welcome them back as opposed to stepping away from that. Today is All Saints Day, but really Day of the Dead is like a continuous week and even celebrated throughout the year. So we just wanted to bring the community together and share a little bit of our culture, do a little bit of a community blessing and kind of just participate in the day,” she said.

For Sierra-Zamora, the small celebration was only a small part of what Día de Muertos actually means.

“I miss the the way we used to celebrate it in Mexico, where it’s a whole parade and people spend the night, the day at cemetery with your loved ones, and even though I know they’re around us all the time, it’s just nice to honor them and burn some copal and invite them back,” she said.

For the Corrales celebration, it was a small gathering of businesses on top of a community blessing.

“They’re all organic crystalline-fused and intention-based, so that means they have like a meaning of luck or love or protection and they’re infused with crystals, essential oils and all organic things,” Herbals and Insights owner Jacqueline Vigil said.

Vigil was selling her candles at the small Día de los Muertos event.

“It’s important to me that we celebrate our ancestors, and I think it’s a very special, important tradition,” she said.

For a lot of people, death is a grief-stricken experience.

“It’s just kind of welcoming it and not seeing it as a scary part of life, more than a part of life in our daily practice and the healing that comes from accepting that,” Sierra-Zamora said.

The Day of the Dead is a holiday traditionally celebrated Nov. 1-2, though other days, such as Oct. 31 or Nov. 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and remember friends and family members who have died.