Día de las copas rotas

My friend Carol just sent me an email inviting me to a Día de los Muertos party that will be on Nov. 8th – a week after its official date (Nov. 1st). Except I am not allowed to touch her wine glasses.

I’ve been looking forward to this because I plan to make a nicho (miniature shrine) for my dog Silke, who died in May. Carol picked up the tradition when she lived in Denver. She invites people and their kids over to make refrigerator magnet nichos, supplying beads, sequins, trim, glue, etc. Three years ago, I made one for my dog Molly, who died just a week before the party. It has her picture and little round dog treats and white stones the same size that I picked up on the beach near my folks. She loved the beach. I haven’t decided on things for Silke’s yet.

Attached to Carol’s email is one someone sent her that says, “The next Full Moon in Scorpio at 8:15 pm, EST, on Saturday 11/8/03, exactly coincides with a significant cosmic event called by one astrologer ‘The Harmonic Concordance in 2003’… It’s the ‘bookend’ to the Harmonic Convergence that took place in 1987.”

This is why I am not allowed to touch Carol’s wine glasses. In 1987, when we were working together at DEC, a woman in our group took off to Mt. Hood to celebrate the Harmonic Convergence at some energy vortex or other. We thought it was a bit peculiar, but whatever. We all have our oddities. I am seriously interested in astrology, but I like my astro stuff down to earth, so to speak. Clear, practical, specific, maybe with a sense of humor. (It’s a Virgo thing.)

So we were out having dinner at Legal Seafood and we were talking about “what’s all this Harmonic Convergence stuff anyway?" And suddenly, for no apparent reason, my wine glass (or hers?) shattered. It was just sitting on the table, with wine in it, and no one was anywhere near it. And it just spontaneously shattered. Bwa-ha-ha!

I guess I’ll be drinking my wine out of a paper cup this year.

Update (11/02/03 8:30pm):
Carol just emailed me with a clarification and her POV:

It was your wine glass, it had white wine in it...  We were talking.  The damn glass was just sitting there, sweating, cool as could be. And...Ping! Just like there was a soprano hitting the E above high C. We looked at each other and were like, *whoa*!

 

When I think back on it, it reminds me of the minature Stonehenge in This is Spinal Tap. You know, they designed it on a cocktail napkin, and the fabricator thought it was inches, not feet? It's like, everyone was all worked into a lather about the Harmonic Convergence and the changes it was going to make, like maybe tsunamis or earthquakes or the End of the World or something, and after all that buildup, the *only* thing in the *entire solar system* that happened was that *your wine glass broke.*

Muertita - Art by Patrick Murillo

Frenzy Art Magnet at FrenzyArt.com

See here for info on the Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos.

Update (11/11/03 4:30pm):

Here's the nicho I made for my dog Silke (12/26/88-05/04/03) at the Día de los muertos / lunar eclipse party last Saturday. (More like a picture frame, but what the hey.)