Paradise (re)Discovered on Día de Muertos: Remembering Who We Are

🌼 Paradise (re)Discovered on Día de Muertos: Remembering Who We Are

Here in Querétaro, the air in early November hums with quiet reverence and celebration. Streets and homes glow with candles and marigolds. The scent of cempasúchil and copal smoke lingers in the evening breeze. It is Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a time when Mexico opens its arms to welcome the ancestors home.

Everywhere, I see ofrendas: small altars of flowers, candles, photographs, and favorite foods, humble invitations for loved ones to visit once again. It is not a morbid observance, but a tender act of remembering. It is, in the most human way, an affirmation that love transcends time, that connection does not die, and that memory can be a bridge between worlds.

In my upcoming Paradise (re)Discovered, I write that death, literal or symbolic, is never an ending but an awakening. Each time we shed an old identity, belief, or story about who we are, we return a little closer to our Source, that original, unguarded truth that existed before the world told us who to be. Día de Muertos teaches us this too. It reminds us that to honor the dead is also to live more fully, to remember ourselves back into wholeness.

This year, that message feels especially alive. Many people, in the United States and beyond, find themselves afraid to live or speak authentically. The cultural winds often punish honesty, difference, or conviction. And yet, the call to “remember who you are” has never been more urgent.

Perhaps that is where our ancestors can help.

The departed know the truth of impermanence. They understand that courage and authenticity outlive the body. Their whisper across the veil is one of reassurance, that being true to ourselves, even when the world resists it, is not rebellion but remembrance.

When we light a candle tonight, we do more than honor their memory. We invite their wisdom to steady us. We allow their presence to remind us that the soul’s freedom does not depend on the world’s approval.

My grandmother Rosie used to tell me, “You’re all right, kid. The world’s all wrong.” It was her way of saying: Stay true, even when it’s hard. Her words feel like a blessing whispered through time, one I imagine many of our ancestors would echo.

And so, as marigold petals guide the spirits home tonight, may they also guide us home to ourselves, to our inner integrity, our compassion, and our courage to live authentically no matter the climate around us.

For paradise, as I have come to understand, is not a place we arrive after death. It is a way of being, alive, awake, and unafraid, that honors both the living and the dead.

So tonight, I will light a candle. For Rosie. For all who have walked this path before us. And for everyone who, in remembering who they are, helps to keep the world a little more honest, a little more alive.

And perhaps, as our lights flicker together across time and space, the ancestors will smile to see that their work continues through us.

Dr. Mark A. Arcuri
Querétaro, México