Memento Mori

Photo by Elisa Divoux at a Haitian cemetery 2014

Memento Mori:  Remember Death.  In much of the West, where cultures obsess about youth, we go out of our way to skirt the topic of death. Not so in Haiti, where the deceased are still very much involved in the affairs of the living.  Voodoo practices engage the dead for blessings or curses. Cemeteries serve as meeting places for religious rituals. Such prayers evoke celebration as often as fear, in the awareness that generations living and dead remain linked.  In the words of a Haitian proverb: "When we dance, it is not only the living who are present." Think about that tomorrow night on Halloween, the eve of All Saints.