The Celebration of All Souls

Amanda Mourelatos, Co-Editor of Cougart and Community Builder

Tucson’s All Souls Procession is an event that all started with Susan Johnson’s desire to honor her father. This event is held downtown in Tucson to celebrate life and death together. Johnson said she wanted to show homage to her father, a World War II veteran, and also wanted to “process kind of the insanity we lived with.” Susan Johnson created this event to give people a comforting vibe where you can grieve and connect with anyone in an emotionally meaningful way. She strongly believes in this one thing her grandfather always told her,”Everything that lives, dies. And everything that dies gets reborn again or goes through a transformation to become something else.”

With music, dancing, and vibrantly painted faces, Tucson surely came to life on November 6th this year.  People write down wishes, names, and memories to be put into an urn, which leads the march. This beloved event all started with a loss, but created many gains within Tucson’s atmosphere and culture.

Below are some photos from the event this year taken by my aunt and uncle, Kate Spiderman and Adrian Ramirez. You can find more of her photography on eyeem.com and her user is justanothersuperhero.

Sources: Arizona Daily Wildcat; KGUN 9