Día de Muertos - Laura González

What if death isn’t an ending, but a return to rest—and a reason to feed ancestors with flowers, fruit, and favorite foods? We invite Reverend Laura González to guide us through the deeper roots of Día de Muertos, far beyond costumes and candy. Laura opens the door to a pre‑colonial worldview where time moves in cycles, not lines: the blooming of flowers, the falling of fruit, and the seeds we leave for those who come after us. We unpack Mictlan as a place of dreaming rather than dread, and why skulls symbolize transformation, not horror.

Together we trace how colonization compressed forty days of indigenous honoring into two Catholic feast days, and what survived that shift: offerings, story, and communal care. Laura walks us through building a meaningful ofrenda—marigolds, fruit, coffee, chips, toys, and the exact foods your people loved—explaining why taste is memory’s shortcut. We talk about what to leave off the altar, how to avoid appropriation, and where to buy papel picado, sugar skulls, and clay figures directly from artisans who keep the craft alive. If your grief feels unfinished, this practice can become a yearly way to tell the stories, say the names, and let love do its work.

We also share Laura’s ongoing work: decolonizing goddess teachings, on‑demand classes, and a forthcoming series on the Tonalpohualli day signs. Come for the history, stay for the healing, and leave with a clear, respectful way to honor your dead and nourish the living. If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so others can find the show.

Bio: Rev. Laura González is an Ixtlamatketl, Pagan Priestess, Spiritual and Community Healer, writer, podcaster, social justice and religious freedom activist, Priestess of the Goddess, and Minister of Circle Sanctuary. Learn more at bluewitch.org.

Chapters

• 0:00 Finale Setup & Guest Intro
• 1:08 Why Día de Muertos Matters
• 3:47 Pre‑colonial Calendars and Cycles
• 6:20 Mictlan: Rest, Dreaming, Return
• 10:59 Skulls, Sugar, and Transformation
• 14:30 Colonization and Date Shift to Nov 1–2
• 19:50 Elements on the Altar: Then and Now
• 23:40 How to Build a Respectful Ofrenda
• 28:20 Stories, Memory, and Ancestral Presence
• 32:07 Respect vs. Appropriation
• 36:02 Mourning, Closure, and Healing Practices
• 40:07 Courses, Community, and Ongoing Study
• 45:00 Decolonizing the Goddess Series
• 49:15 Future Teachings: Tonalpohualli Days
• 53:10 Fair Compensation and Closed Practices
• 1:03:00 Closing Gratitude & Final Message

Transcript

Granddaughter Crow: 0:01

Welcome to Believe Being Beyond with your host, Granddaughter Crow. As the Fail of the Series. Join us as Granddaughter Crow interviews spiritual leaders in rivening conversations about this time of year. Hi everybody, Granddaughter Crow here, and this is the final episode of As the Veilfin series. We have had such a wonderful time. And if you haven't been able to catch them and you just started here, they they're archived on the YouTube channel. No problem anywhere you can get a podcast. But if you are at this point, I've got a very special guest that I've been waiting. So before I introduce, I'm gonna say thank you for joining Granddaughter Crow with As the Veil Fin series. We have had a wonderful time with Jenny C. Bell talking to us. We've had Jamie Waggoner come up. We've had Nikki Wardwell Sleath. And today we have the blue witch herself, Laura González . And she's gonna talk to us about a word that I am trying my best out of respect to get, and maybe she'll help explain this. Dia del Mertes. Muertes, Mertes. Trying so hard. Let me, without further ado, go ahead and give you a little bit more about who Reverend Laura González is, my sister cousin, and I love her so much. She's such a powerful being who is brought in my eyes, she's brought here at this time in our life, in this world, to kind of give us guidance, to encourage us and empower us to stand up. So Reverend Laura Gonzales is Ish Lamarquette, which she can help me say better. She is a holy elder. Okay, she is a holy elder. And in my tradition, that's huge. And I have been looking forward to this. Also, pagan priestess, again, holy elder, but nonetheless, spiritual and community healer, which is I'm so glad that because we need that. She's a writer, podcaster. Gotta check her out Lunatic Mondays. I love the show, been on the show. Uh, also social justice and religious freedom activist. You cannot tell this woman anything except for we are gonna do better. Let's go, people. I'm just kind of riffing it because I she just gets me so excited. Anyway, she's also the priestess of the goddess and the ministry of the circle sanctuary. Learn more about her on bluewitch.org. Bluewitch.org. Laura, sister cousin, I know that you're family, but I'm still all like starstruck a little. I'm so glad to have you on the show. Maybe you can help us understand how to celebrate this season with the day of the dead. Help us explain it. And if you wouldn't mind, like how can we even celebrate without appropriation? What is the respectful way to celebrate? But I just kind of showed up today going, teach me what is this, what is this magic that you know? I love the yeah, I love it. So tell us a little bit about Muertes, Muertes.

Laura González : 3:46

Día de Muertos. Día de Muertos is a holiday that is celebrated throughout the whole Mexican, you know, continental Mexico. Um, and it's it's a very emblematic holiday that we celebrate right around Halloween, right around Sawin, right around Old Hallows Eve. That was by design that was in those days. It's not uh an accident, it's part of the colonization and the evangelization of the colonizers' church because the actual origin of the holidays is pre-colonization, pre-invasion, pre-contact. And it is believed that the actual tradition is 2,500 years old, and and obviously how we celebrate it now is a lot, lot different than our ancestors used to celebrate. So the celebration of those who have passed, of those who died, it was huge with our with our people. So, in order to understand the day of the day, you have to understand how our people were obsessed with the calendar, with counting the days and seeing the astral movements of the stars and all that. And they have a lot of calendars, not just the Mayan, not just the Aztec, they have many calendars, they have like a religious calendar, they have a day-to-day calendar, and they have other calendars, right? And and and different pueblos, different peoples, different regions, they will have different counts and different calendars to this day. People like us who are trying to um reclaim the traditions and to revive a little bit of this, um, not to revive, but to reclaim because it's never been got dead. Um, we have many official calendars, you know. You have the cuenta of this group, the cuenta of that group, different counts, because people can agree with one calendar, and that is not necessarily a conflict, it's part of how it's always been, it's always been many different calendars. So the one that I follow, the calendar that I follow, and the majority of people, even though they start on different days, it has 18 months of 20 days. So there are 18 cycles of 20 days, right? That makes roughly 360 days, and then there are five days dedicated to the void, the nothingness, the you know, kind of like a time of re-accommodation, reflection. It's a very sacred time of the year, it's called Nemontemi, and then you start again. So, this sacred time, by the way, called Nemontemi, it has nothing to do with dead, it has nothing to do, you know, it has to do with reflection and and restarting, and it falls roughly right before spring equinox, but not always at spring equinox, but it's roughly on that time of the year. But the months that we are gonna talk about, which is Tlashochimako and Shoko Witsin, happen in what is mid of July to August, so mid-July to mid-August, and then mid-August to early September, per se. Uh, it's roughly always around that time of the year, and there are two months. So the first month is called Lashochimako, which is uh the blooming of the flowers, and it's all about flowers, and it's all about um blossoming and blooming and life and uh sensual and sexual and all that kind of thing, and then shokoetsin, which means the falling of the fruit, and that falling of the fruit is you know culmination, a finish, an ending. You eat the fruit, you plant the seed, and you know, rinse and repeat, like nature is all full with cycles, right? So on these two months that they celebrate the blooming and the falling of the fruit, they would celebrate those young people who passed away before blooming, who passed away because before reaching a full flower, so 13 years and younger, they will celebrate their lives on Tlashochimako, and then other people who reach becoming a fruit will be celebrated on the next 20 days on Shokowet Sin. And the celebrations will be filled with color, with flowers, with fruit, with dancing, with celebration, and with imagery of the dead um icons, right? This this imagery of two uh teteo, we call them. The the name is teot one, teteo, two or more, and coincidentally, I have them on my arms, you know. So this is Miklan Tekutli, for those who can't see, and this is Miklan Siwat, the lore of the lady. So they are the Lord and the Lady of Miklan. Miklan not being a physical place, but rather being a space on on the universe where one goes to rest. So you and I, Sister Cousin, and everybody who's watching and and listening, we all go to Miklan every night when we go to sleep, right? As a matter of fact, I was taking a nap a few hours ago, yeah, and I was traveling through Miklan, right? Because it's the resting place, and eventually we're all gonna go to rest forever, right? So Miklan is the place of dreaming, the place of uh slumbering, the place of you know where your mind goes to rest and where your body is resting, and your body is recuperating and re uh regenerating and all of that, which science has cut up with that knowledge, right? We know that we go to sleep, we regenerate and all that. Well, our people knew that 2000 years ago, and so the dead go to Miklan, but there is a process, right? Because nothing is easier for our people. So once you die, it takes it takes time for the so-called soul, right, to reach the Miklan. And because it takes time, we remember them in the ceremonies, and we offer them flowers, songs, food, etc. So that all is ancient, traditional, and old. Now, our people used to use a lot of the imagery of the um cranium, right? Last of the imagery of the cranium, which now has evolved into the sugar skull. But before it was the sugar skull, it is said, I don't know if this is true because I wasn't there, or maybe I was, but don't remember. But it is said that sometimes it will be the real cranium of a person who passed away. Now, there are places in Mexico where people who passed away are not buried on the ground, they are buried on crypts, and every year the family goes and they clean the bones and they fix the crypt and they put them back. So eventually those people who have died will become bones. So I don't think it was too far-fetched to believe that there will be real craniums or real bones over dead loved ones, and there was nothing macabre about it, right? It was like they're they're the bones of the person because you know they were alive and then they were not, yeah. And and dying was not a finite process, you know, dying was yet another part of the cycle because her people understood that when you have a seed, it's because of fruit has died, but that seed goes into the ground and begins a process, and from the seed becomes a seedling, and from it becomes a plant, and from the plant becomes a bulb, and from the bulb you get a flower, right? And for the flower to become a fruit for for the for the plant to become a flower, the seed dies. And for the flower to become a fruit, the flower has to die, and for the fruit to become a seed, the fruit has to die. So we understood from way back when that death is just one more part of the cycle of life. So when we think about us dying, we really truly, I believe this to my bones that we are the people that are not afraid to die. I mean, you just have to look at us. We are so courageous and inventive and imaginative, right? And we are not afraid of dying. A lot of people say, Well, you Mexicans aren't scared of anything. No, we're not, because we know dying is just part of the process, and we know that the relationships change, they don't end. That is not finite. We are not a lot of us who are reclaiming this knowledge, we don't abide by the uh teachings of the colonizers, right? That say you're dead, you're done, you're gone, you're that's it.

Granddaughter Crow: 14:05

Um, so much so that they don't want they don't even want to talk about that, they don't even want to mention which is why I'm doing this series, and which is why I want you on here to help us to decol I should have named it as the veil thins, decolonizing death. Right, right? Well, next year, next year next year.

Laura González : 14:31

Wow, but so the thing is um these two months were were dedicated to these faults that have died, whether they die very, very young before they reach full bloom, right? Or when they died after certain after 13, where they were already blooming and some of us fruit, and some of us fruit, who has left their seed already. You were asking earlier about the Ishlamachit, right? That my my title, uh my the honor that I have been bestowed um by our group, and Islamakit is that is is the elder, and I know 52 is not that old, right? Because in pagan communities, uh you become a crone at 60, 65 when you retire, when you're not raising kids anymore, la la la. But for us, because the count goes from 13, 13, 13, 13, so 52 is four times 13. So at 52, you reach elderhood, right? And in this case, in my group, I'm not the eldest. There's there's a few folks that are older than I am, but because I was part of the founders of this group, etc. You know, they bestow that title on me on the elder, and it's a huge responsibility, you know, I'm sure to carry the wisdom, and but I think that the best part of being an Islamachet is to be able to tell them, I don't know, and I must oh wise one. Because that is a teaching that they don't teach you in colonial ways, you know, you can't be wrong. That's that's that's wrong. So um so once you become, you know, of certain age you believe in your seeds everywhere. It's not necessarily children that you raised that you birthed, you know, because in my case I never birthed a child, but I have so many seeds. I mean, just my podcast is 10 years old, you know. So there's hundreds of hundreds of seeds out there, and my voice, thank you, goddess, is gonna be resonated long after I'm gone. Hi from the McClan. If you see this one I was dead, hi from the McLean, you know. So, what are the seeds that you're gonna leave? What are the flowers that you're gonna leave? What what kind of flowers, what kind of accomplishments, you know, because our people didn't speak straight anything, they uh always embellish the language and they use metaphors and mythology and allegories, and it's just beautiful, it's beautiful, beautiful. That's why we speak this way. That's why we Mexicans always embellish our stories, and we go 30 times before we tell you the you know, the actual meaning of the story. It comes from our ancestors that embellish everything that they say. So part of the embellishment is the flower and the blooming, the blossoming as a metaphor of an accomplishment. What have you accomplished? What is the flower that you are living for your people? What are the flowers that you are sharing with your community? And even more so, if you if you were able to reach older age, what are your seeds? What is that you're planting, right? So, like you and I at this moment are living flowers, are living seeds, you have your apprentices, you have your people, you have, you know, and everything and anything you do, you say you you accomplish, not just it's not just for you, because that idea that influencers are few and far in between is a lie. All of us are constantly influencing each other, you know. So, what are your flowers? What are those flowers that you are given? So, this two months celebration, where to honor the living and to honor that flower as a metaphor for accomplishments, but also as a joy and sensuality, and sexuality and reproduction and all that implies a flower, right? And also those little baby flowers that are gone before they could fully blossom or become a fruit, and then the second month, another 20 days, right? So 20-day period of the falling of the fruit, and same. How are you nurturing your community? How are you nurturing yourself? What kind of food are you gonna become? How are you feeding those around you? What are the little tastes of you that you are leaving in your community? And I think that's beautiful. So at that time they will celebrate uh those who died of an older age, you know, 13 and up.

Granddaughter Crow: 19:46

Wow, this is so I had no idea. It is so much like the way that I do shamanism.

Laura González : 19:54

I'm like, oh see, this is beautiful, and and you're not gonna believe me, but I hope you all believe me that I'm telling you the truth. I don't why why would I lie to you? I've been teaching this for 40 years because when I was 12, we had a expo on our school for Day of the Dead. You know, um, I don't know, like you have we'll have a festival here for Mother's Day, or you know, in Mexico we have them for Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead is one of the biggest festivals everywhere, including at school. Even as all schools, the majority of schools in Mexico be secular, we have an observance for day of the dead because it's a tradition, it's not a religion. And so I was in charge of explaining what we have built. And I was telling my teachers, my teachers who were my age now, I was telling them this that it originates on, you know, Mexica people, the ancient times, 2000 years, blah blah. And my teachers who were adults that were my age were dismissing me. They were saying that that that is not true, that this was a Catholic holiday, and I'm like, uh, no, I'm sorry you drank the Kool-Aid, but I haven't. And believe it or not, sister cousin, I made it my point to teach this and to talk about this since I was 12 years old, because we have to remember that we have traditions that predate pre-contact pre-colonization, yes, that are very much a liable and wealth. So unfortunately, contact happened, colonizers come, and when contact happens, they come through with their fear, their superstition, their I mean, I feel now in 2025, I feel sorry for the people on the 1500s because they had just got the plague, they had just had a lot of deaths on their countries, which they should have stayed, and they had um all this fear, all this terror, yeah, for everything. Yeah, I mean, an ankle will terrify them, a breast will terrify them, you know. The smile of a woman will terrify them. Forget about the smile, the laughter of a woman will terrify them because they see the devil everywhere, right? Because one C11 is, but uh, they'd be terrified of everything, and so when you have just filled your temples with the bodies of your dead, and you have all these amazingly impressive cat comes, and you know, and then you come to a land and you see a lot of uh craniums, a lot of skulls. Why do we put the skull? Why do we do put the skull because people speak with symbols, and the skull is the symbol of transformation, right? That cycle of death, life, death, right? So the skull represents transformation and rest. So everywhere in our cosmogony, we have this message of work, laugh, rest. When you see the image of Quatliqu, a modern stylized image is right here behind me, and you have hands and you have hearts and you have a skull, right? This necklace is basically like a clock that is telling you be active. That's why we have hands, because hands are actions. Then we have the heart that means be joyful, right? And then the skull that says and make sure you're rest, right? So these are the teachings of our people that spoke symbolically, right? So enter the colonizers who are afraid of everything, and they see all the skulls everywhere, they ah, they enter in panic, right? Obviously. Then they were like, Are they humans? Are they not? I mean, this is a debate that has been going on for 500 years, right? Like, are we humans or are we not? I mean, I think we are, but you know, they still aren't sure because colonizers will colonize, and so they say, wait a minute, wait a minute. We had a similar situation in Europe when these heathens, these pagans were celebrating uh Sawin in the middle of October, and we told them, no, no, no, you cannot be celebrating this holiday of harvesting in the middle of late September, mid-October. You have to celebrate the end of summer at all Halloween. Um, in order to convert the old pagan peoples of all Europe, and I'm saying pagan loosely because I don't know their tribes, their people, their names, Indo-European people that would celebrate the end of the end of summer, the harvesting time, were colonized by their own people into Christianity, and their whole their their holiday, their sacred day, was moving to all Hallows Eve. Because what the Catholic Church wanted to do was to repress that practice. And then what they did is they make it bigger because now it's sanctioned by the church, it's called Old Hallows Eve, right? And we know how good it has uh worked that a Halloween is the highest holiday in the United States. Yes, people celebrate other holidays, but none is bigger than Halloween. TV celebrate 30 days of Halloween, this and that, and the other regional temporary stores pop everywhere. I mean, it's huge. So me thinks the Catholic Church should have learned the lesson, not to try to commodify holidays, right? But no, they come to America, America from Alaska to Patagonia, one country, one uh continent, yes, uh, geopolitical Mexico at the time, and now still geopolitical Mexico, and they say, So, what do you celebrate? Well, we celebrate the young dead and then the old dead, and it's 20 days, 20 days, and it's Lashimaco and Cerco Westin. And they're like, huh. So it's almost like Old Saints Day and Old Souls Day, and our people are like kind of a not because it's 40 days, right? Catholic church, like about two days, and we're like, no, it's 40 days, and of course, they got away with with what they decide to do, and so that's how Clash O Chimaco I have to see it because I never remember because these are Catholic holidays that I don't partake of. So November 1st will be All Saints Day, and now in Mexico, November 1st is where we celebrate the young people, right? The babies, the infants, the toddlers, people who die before they reach the their teenage years. Yes, and then on November 2nd is All Souls Day, and the logic that they use behind it is a saint is a saint, is someone that hasn't been touched by sin. So those are the children. Oh, okay. So they took a 20 or 20-day month, cramp it on one day, that's it. And then they took the second day, the second month, and put it on the second day for all the souls, everyone, sin or haven't sinned, we celebrate them. And that's how we got them now back to back to back. So we have the ancestral pagan sowing, celebration of summer, harvesting, etc., on the 31st, because you know, if you move it, nobody's gonna remember and it's just gonna die out. Uh-huh. And then you grab Tlasha Chimako and Shoko Wetsi, move them to November 1st and 2nd. Don't tell anybody it's gonna die, it's gonna die out. It's gonna die out. They're they're gonna forget, they'll never celebrate this way anymore. Yeah. How's that working for you, Catholic Church? So with that, and the the origin, right? That's the origin, that's where it comes from, and that's how it was moved to November 1st and 2nd. So now enter the Catholic Church with the Catholic Church teachings, right? The colonizers. Never forget they came with the colonizers, they are the ones that condone slavery, uh, indoctrination, evangelization, all the churches, all the killing, all the all of that. It had the paper bull, it has it, it was condoned by the Vatican. And in that, they say, Yeah, you're gonna celebrate, but you're gonna celebrate like. Like we do with all these sacred elements, okay. Right, and so we have the papel picado, which is those beautiful um those beautiful artisan paper made uh things. If you see the movie Coco, that is the beginning of the movie, how they explain the introduction. That is called papel picado. Oh wow, so the church said you're gonna use the paper to represent the element of air, right? And then to purify the space to invite the souls to come. Then you're gonna use the sacred vessel of water for them to drink, for them to wash, from them to purify the space with water, right? And then we're gonna have candles, we're gonna have all this fire, the element of fire to purify, to to bring a light for them to be guided into this place and to and to purify themselves. And then for the element of earth, we're gonna have all these flowers, and we're gonna have all this bread and food and um all the things to purify, right? So the Catholic Church brings air, earth, fire, water, and spirit. How pagan of them?

Granddaughter Crow: 31:26

I know, right? That's what I was thinking. I was like, really? Huh, that's interesting, yeah.

Laura González : 31:34

Because when Catholicism reaches America, the continent, it already has a lot of pagan traditions under DNA.

Speaker 03: 31:45

Okay.

Laura González : 31:46

The Catholics tried to destroy pagan traditions, what they ended up doing is they ended up absorbing them. So when you have the four elements represented on the altar, right? So our of our offerings went from flowers, fruit, and food, and that was it. It was set up on the floor. Uh it's called Tlamanali, it's an altar, right? And on the Tlalmanali, you will put flowers, a plethora of flowers, fruit, um, and food. That was it. That that is a very traditional, and the imagery, the um clay figures of the Lord and Lady of the land. So when the church comes through, this guy gets this patch out. So now we put graphic sticks, boom, made a cross. That's it, and uh fruit and flower. Yeah. So if you want to celebrate, put some flowers, bring some fruit, put a photo of your loved ones. That's it. Okay, you don't need any imagery of any saints on every any deities or nothing. Her image is really hard to come to. Uh, his image is easier to find on like Mexican artisanal stores, but don't be confused and don't be buying saints or other effigies that have nothing to do with the day of the dead. So it's better that you don't put any saints or any gods or goddesses.

Granddaughter Crow: 33:31

I love that. Thank you for that.

Laura González : 33:33

More more on that before we end. So, what is now the modern day altar? It has to have food. I mean, food is the most important part of it. Food is the most important part of it in the modern context of it, right? Yes. What's your favorite food, sister, Custom?

Granddaughter Crow: 33:54

Um, I hate to say it, but Mexican food. I mean, I'm not trying to be cliche, but tacos, burritos, green chili, all of guacamole, all of it. I could eat that forever.

Laura González : 34:08

So if you and I were to go to the Micklan, which we will eventually, right? Go to the Miquelan, and somebody wants to celebrate you and I after we're gone, yeah, they could probably put a big old plate of guacamole and some chips. You know, and that guarantees that we're gonna come.

Granddaughter Crow: 34:33

We'll be there, people. When those of you are watching this in the future, that's what we want, and we'll show up.

Laura González : 34:40

Yeah, and and lo and behold, mine has to be mild because I don't eat a lot of hot spicy food. Yeah, I'm one of those basics that don't eat a whole lot of spicy food, which we exist, we are not a feature of your imagination. Some of us don't eat all that uh spicy stuff, so of course you have to have flowers, you have to have fruit, you have to have food, and then following the modern Catholic teachings, if you want to make it more fancy, then you put some candles, you put a thing of water, you put I for my mom. I always put her cup of coffee, you know, on a big old piece of sweet bread because she loved her bread, and my mother loved potato chips, but she will eat, she will open the bag and find the foldy ones, and she will eat only the folded ones because she said they were more crunchy. I love it. So I go and I buy me a big old bag of lace and I open it up and I pick the folded ones and I put that on the altar. Now, my mom and my stepson, who passed away in 2011, um, they both they never met, but they both like dominoes and they both like poker. So we set the dominoes there and we set uh uh thing of cards, you know, and we gave each other a couple of coins, a couple of change, you know, to you know what if they come and they come at the same time and they wanna, you know, play. Yeah, yeah. And this year, for the first that this is the first year that we are also celebrating my my doggy who died in December. So, of course, we're gonna have a hamburger for him, and we're gonna have his toys. Oh, yeah, and we're gonna have some doggy treats, and those have to be on the floor, right? Because I don't know, he his food needs to be on the floor, I think. I don't know. But but those how do how do you say your altar nowadays, you know, some people, some witches, some practitioners of diverse spirituality, um, abide by some of the Catholic traditions. So I will say, well, if you need to put a cross on your altar, if you need to put, I know a lot of people, Mexican people, even if they're not Catholic, they resonate with the image of the Virgin Mary. So if you want to put a Virgin Mary on your altar, go for it. Like, I am not gonna ever tell anybody what to do or what not to do. My goal is to tell people where this comes from and what I think is like a very basic for your altar. So again, flowers, and pasuchi, if you can get the the original Marigold, orange bright from Mexico, get that. Oh, but I don't know where would I buy it? Go to a Mexican neighborhood around the time of Day of the Dead. I promise you, there's gonna be a viejito, a viejito, an old lady, an old man selling you a bunch. Buy it from them if you want to buy fresh real flowers, even though you can go to them stores that sell their artificial flowers, or you can buy fresh flowers if they are not the marigolds, right? Flowers, but why flowers, Laura? I explained for 20 minutes why flowers, fruit, great, right? Uh, what kind of fruit? Well, yeah, orange is kind of a thing, you know. So maybe an orange, maybe an apple, maybe um guavas, maybe uh the prickly pear, right, that is from Mexico, or whatever fruit your ancestor, your loved ones want, right? I, for example, I was just eating some pineapple. So I don't know, maybe put some pineapple there for me, right? Or I really love oranges. So if you can find like a nice big naval orange there for me, that would be great. Um, I like apples, but you know, the peculiarity about me is when I eat that kind of fruit, I like it chopped up. So if you really want to be intentional, how do your ancestors eat their fruit? Did they put lime and tahine? Make sure you have that. No, they just they just bit the apple, then you just put the full apple there. You know, it it's the the idea is not about the aesthetic of how is it gonna look. The idea is what do you want to convey to the soul of the ancestor that is visiting, right? And yeah, put an image if you want, put a put their photos if you want, but you don't have to have a photograph. You know, some people get freaked out with the photographs. If that's not your thing, don't do the photographs. Our ancestors didn't have photographs, they have the skulls.

Granddaughter Crow: 39:55

We're just saying they had the skulls, people.

Laura González : 39:58

You know, and then there's a there's of course a lot more, you know. Uh you can do layers of the altar, you can do a three-layer altar, some people do a nine-layer altar, some people just do it on a table. That's very less common. Some people who are trying to really reclaim the indigenous waste are doing it on the floor because that's how we do it. Uh, whichever way is not about the presentation, but it's about what you're feeling, right? And the most important thing, Sister Cullen for me, is when I set up my altar. My grandson is 17 right now, so he don't want nothing to do with us. But when he was little, when he was five, six, seven years old, he will come to the house and we will set up an altar for my mom and his dad. And I will be telling him stories, the stories of them. Well, my mom liked dominoes, just like your daddy. My mom liked coffee, just like your daddy. Uh, my mom liked to dance a lot and laugh a lot and say a lot of jokes. Oh, just like my dad, yeah, just like your daddy. You know, they were not too different, and you know, my mom, you're not related by blood to my mom, but she was my mom, so you are related to her by love, right? Yeah, and some people believe why would they come? They don't come. That's a myth. That's right, you know. If they don't come, they don't come. If you believe that that is a children's tale imagination, and they don't come, all right. But when you uh evoke their life, when you have a memory, when you have a tear on your cheeks that is falling out because you remember whether they're making you cry or they're making you laugh, they're here, and in your bones, in your DNA, they are your ancestors, yes, whether you knew them or not, right? And that is what we're celebrating the seed, the dirt, the plant, the seedling, right? Yes, and and so I think it's it's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful way to celebrate. So to do very respectfully for your people, right? Yes, I will say, please, please, please. This is let's let's get the trash out of the way, okay? Yes, please, yeah. Um it's not a Halloween costume, so let's not be a sugar skull for Halloween this year. It's incredibly disrespectful, and it has nothing to do with Halloween. It's not Mexican Halloween. Again, we don't say trick-or-treat, we don't go out, you know, asking for stuff. This is a very sacred holiday that is older than Christianity, right? In which we are honoring our ancestors, but we are also honoring life, and that is the thing that we have to remember always life and death are two sides of the same coin, right? Yes, without death, there is no life, without life, there is no death, right? And big old movies, big old uh toy companies. I don't want to say the names because they don't pay me, but you know, the biggest doll uh creator and the biggest uh little pieces creator of toys, yeah, uh they are making stuff for the other dead, right? Okay, those big companies have nothing to do with our culture. So, what you do is you walk yourself to the Mexican neighborhood and you buy traditional things that are made by the hands of Mexican national people, right? You wouldn't buy your beaded. I I was looking at your earrings, they're beautiful. You wouldn't buy those at a big box market, you'll buy them from an artisan boy or girlfriend of yours, right? So the same goes for your day of the dead needs. Don't it it is very attractive to want to buy from big box stores. No, no, no. Go to a real artisan. The majority, the majority of artisans that are creating things for day of the dead nowadays are Mexican or Mexican-American women, and 99% of them, they are uh the household head of the family. There's an absent father, so they uh all the responsibility falls into this women, and you will be supporting directly those women and their children, needless to say, right, in this day and age, yeah, 2025 United States if you really must incorporate this beautiful celebration in your spiritual practice, let me ask you something. The teacher, hi Zelda add blue witch at blue witch.org, or um buy from the people support uh old mom and pop's restaurant, you know, march if you can remind people that we're human. Last month, old or the whole Hispanic Heritage Month. I was posting every day. My wish for Hispanic Heritage Month is that people treat us like humans because we are, yes, you know, and on the last day I say, remember that you are human, remember your humanity. Because a lot of people have forgotten their humanity, you know. Yes, and we go online and we say all these kinds of things that we really you wouldn't tell me that to my face, right? And tell me you're an animal, I want you to die, right? I have heard that right. So um, we were saying earlier not to get too political, we cannot not get political, our existence is political. So, yes, please partake. Yes, please treat this as you will treat your grandmother's handkerchief, as you will treat your grandmother's jingle dress, as you will treat your grandmother's uh lace tablecloth with love, with respect, with honor. If you remember when you call into this energies, when when you call into this energy, they answer, they reply, they come, so don't just you know wing it. Right, continue learning from people who are indigenous, continue learning indigenous wisdom from indigenous people with fair prices, with fair payment. Enough has been extracted from us. And remember that this holiday, though it originated in Mexico and it's mostly Mexican people who celebrate it, is part of the world in the uh year 2008. It became an oral oral and intangible heritage of humanity by the United Nations, you know. So this is not just, you know, we we say with love, it's a holiday that belongs to all of us, like all indigenous knowledge belongs to all of us, but don't appropriate it. And this year, more than ever, yeah, the big old toy companies don't need your money. Juanita in the corner who sells the little sugar skull, she needs your money. Before we close, I wanted to um just tell y'all uh the sugar skull and the bread that we make for day of the dead. There are various various different kinds of breads. If you go to a Mexican panaderia, you'll find it it says pan de muerto or bread, bread of Day of the Dead, or or Day of the Dead bread or whatever. Uh, those are very traditional, and they used to be put on the altars right after the Spanish came. You know, they they tell us how to make the bread, and we made the bread with that with those indications. And the sugar skull is also um amalgamation of we celebrate with the skull and uh Spanish um sugar confection candy. So they started making them the sugar skull, so it does have Spanish DNA, whether we like it or not, because of the working with the sugar candy. But the tradition comes from our indigenous people, you know, to create that connection, and uh, and there is much, much more that I could talk about it, but we will need another three days for that. Yeah. Well, I think I I'm open to qu I'm gonna try to be in the chat.

Granddaughter Crow: 49:46

Oh, yes.

Laura González : 49:47

Really, I'm gonna try to be in the chat.

Granddaughter Crow: 49:49

You've got though, you've got stuff coming up because this will release, and you've got you've got so much stuff that you're doing. Can you like okay? First, you guys go to bluewitch.org, immediately sign up for newsletters. Um, it's it's absolutely amazing because what else do you have that you offer to the community? Because what you're sharing with us, it just hits my soul. There's a couple of times I'm like, no, Granddaughter Crow does not have a cold. I was tearing up listening to this because it just touched my soul and it made me think about how many, how much healing energy is gonna happen when people listen to what you're saying and they're like, oh, you mean Aunt Fred or Uncle Fred? Yeah, maybe I should get him a Budweiser or whatever it is, you know, tequila or whatever. Maybe I could buy, I mean, it's sacred. And I want to say thank you so much for that, and then talk about what else you're doing on your website.

Laura González : 50:58

And thank you for saying that because I didn't want to forget and I forgot. In a in a world where everything is sanitized, and you know, we don't want to talk to the, we don't want to see the dead, we don't need we barely bury them, you know. It's like we don't want to have anything to do with it.

Speaker 03: 51:16

Right.

Laura González : 51:17

Uh in our culture, those relationships don't end. I believe they don't end, period. But culturally for us, they don't end. And if you are having a hard time mourning, because a lot of the times it's really hard, especially when there is no closure, when there was no visitation, when there was no cleaning of the body, when there was no singing to the body, when there was no, you know, when it was too too too sterile and clean, um, it's really hard to have closure. And that mourning becomes uh intense mourning and a long-term mourning. So if you were to adopt the celebration for day of the dead, I believe I'm not a therapist, okay, but I believe that it's a very healthy way to commune with the spirit, to understand that the spirit is just not physically present, but it's spiritually present, and it's also a way of understanding, but they never die because they are always with us and within us, right? And I think it helps heal the wounded heart of mourning. You know, it's a very healthy way of mourning or death because it's a celebration, it's a celebration of life with flowers and fruit, you know. Anyway, that that is the guacamole and guacamole, you guys. And guacamole, please, for the love of the divine. So guacamole. I love French fries. This is so ironic because I love French fries and chicken tenders, which I call chicken toast. And since I became vegan, I don't eat chicken tenders. But when I die, there have to be the best chicken tenders on a mountain of French fries with a big old bottle of ranch.

Granddaughter Crow: 53:16

Ranch, okay.

Laura González : 53:18

There we go. That's my favorite food in the whole wide world. And then I'll have some of your guacamole as well. Okay, yeah, you can. The classes that we're doing, uh, when you go to bluewitch.org and you first of all, when you go to blue witch.org, thank you. Please sign up to the to the newsletter so you can see all the things that I'm doing. Um, sometimes information comes a little bit late, so just walk on through the calendar and then you'll see everything and anything that is happening there in the calendar. Shout out to Andrea, my business manager. She's doing a great, great uh work with the uh website. And when you go to the learning area, uh you you're gonna find various things. You're gonna find sell paste wisdom that is there recorded. You can sign up and you can watch your own paste. You get access forever. I've now I will never withdraw the access. Once you pay me for the class, you pay me for the class. I don't care. You can come back and watch it 20 times if you want. Um, so we have a course on um tarot and divination. So it's an introductory course, which is kind of the base introduction before I go into a one-on-one series with people. Um, and that is $200, and it's nine hours of me yakking about tarot and divination and all that kind of stuff. And then there's another series that we did in 2023 that is called the Spells Series, and each month I talk about the technology behind spell work, and when it's very um focused on different elements. So we have ancestors spells, we have nature spells, we have sun spells, we have moon spells, we have candle spells, we have oil spells. So all your witchy needs on your heart, and you can buy that as a series and just watch it at your own pace, or you can buy them on demand, you know, that's $30 a class, it's still very affordable. And those are kind of like the two pre-recorded that don't have anything to do with indigenous knowledge, other than it's an indigenous woman teaching it. But the ones that are, you know, the where where I got my marching orders that no, you gotta teach indigenous wisdom because I'm tired of you not teaching it. That was literally what the goddess did to be in 2024. Um, 2023 to start in 2024. So we started this series called The Colonizing the Goddess. And in the Colonizing the Goddess, we are talking about all this siwa, the teo. So they are see what this feminine teteo is the word that we use in lieu of God because we don't have a word for God or goddess. So the sacred or the divine given force, feminine given forces. And the first year, uh 2024, there's 11 classes, and in those 11 classes, we talk about um kwatlique, sitlali nique, shilonen, chikome koat, koyoshauki. Those are these are all these goddesses, forces of nature that represent motherhood, represent warriorhood, that represent um conflict between mother and daughter, and all kinds of uh mythological stories that are allegories of nature, but also of our human behavior. So, what I'm doing in these classes, Sister Costin, is I I introduce the person to the to the goddess, to the name, and then we talk a little bit about the mythology, we tell we tell their story, we tell their origin story, and then we in some we compare and analyze with other uh European goddesses that are more known. Okay, and in some we have skipped that because why we talk about the colonization, um, and so we talk about bringing those elements and that energy into the 21st century. So the slogan that I was gifted for those classes was pulling threads from the past to build a beautiful tapestry into the future, right? How we pull from indigenous knowledge into the 21st century, how can we integrate and rethink and recreate and reclaim the knowledge of our ancestors into our present and beyond because we have to carry it for the next generations, right? Yes, so the first year there are 11 classes, they're there for you to take. You can pay for the whole series and watch at your own pace, or you can buy them on demand, right? And for the year two, we are just about to finish because we just did October and we're gonna do uh November, December. So we have two more classes coming. However, you can still buy the whole year and come and join us on the live ones, November, December, and then go back to the beginning and watch at your own pace, or you can buy them on demand. I just want to learn about La Soltea, I just want to learn about um I don't know, um Plant Cut and Alciwa, or I just want to learn about any particular right. And um in December we finish the The Colonizing the Galaxy series for now. I'm not gonna say forever because I don't know. And on 2026, this is the first time I'm saying this publicly, so here it comes, the exclusive. Um, remember I was I started telling you about the 18 months of 20 days? Okay, so each one of those days has a name, and each one of those days has a teteo attached to them. So we're gonna talk about the 20 day signs, sipatli, koat, kali, kuspalin, nosomatli, etc. etc. All the day, the 20 days of the month, and this the teteo could be a siwa teteo or a tlakutlic, it could be a tlatekutli, it could be I'm saying that wrong. I better don't say it. It could be a feminine or masculine teot, and how they are attached to the day, right? So in a calendar day of 20 days, in a calendar month of 20 days. Days, we're gonna talk about each one of the days. So that's gonna be a two-year series. We're gonna do it on 2026 and 2027. We're still working and structuring it. Um, what we know most likely is that we're gonna start in March, and it might be an introduction class in March, and then we go day by day by day, one class a month, because I don't want to break that rhythm that people are coming to my classes just once a month. And uh I'm very excited. So that that calendar is called the Tonalpawali, so that's what I'm gonna be teaching the days of the Tonalpawali.

Granddaughter Crow: 1:00:49

That sounds absolutely amazing. And people, I don't know where you stand or how political or not political you are. I canceled Hulu and I'm looking for something to replace it. I mean, why not replace it with this? Absolutely, Laura. You are absolutely brilliant. And if you guys didn't catch everything that she was saying, go to bluewitch.org, sign up for the newsletter, you'll get the information, tip the teacher, absolutely. It has been, you know, this, it has been a treasure having you talk about this and the fact that you've been teaching this since you were 12 years old.

Laura González : 1:01:37

I mean and and worry now because we left things on the binders, so next year we come back and we tell you the rest of it, or you know, and and really important that um we need fair compensation for indigenous people, right? Enough is enough. I mean, they have taken enough from us. Uh, the extraction of knowledge is rampant. Quite often when I finish my classes, people will ask me, recommend a book, and I'm like, nope, because the books are written by people that go to Mexico, extracts the knowledge, comes back here, repackages it, and sells it to you at exorbitant prices. I saw some ridiculous people the other day doing uh a ritual with uh Tlaloc and Chanchuklique without even knowing what those words mean and wearing some ridiculous wannabe feather adornments that we don't fancy ourselves that way. Um we cannot not be political. And another the other side of of that is when people ask me, you know, but aren't this close practice? Isn't this just for native people? No, if I'm teaching you is not part of the close practice. The close practice is over there, close, where it needs to be. It's not gonna be coming out of my mouth because no, what is close is close, and you know you want to learn the close practice, come and join us in our calpoli, come every week for the ceremonies, you know. Then you will know all the things that are closed. But if I'm tea if if you hear it from the blue witch, it's not something that was close practice. If you buy a book from Mr. Smith or Mr. something or another, owns yeah, I I cannot guarantee it. You know, I love it. We always go over time.

Granddaughter Crow: 1:03:44

It's so rich, it's so rich, and I I just want to say thank you. I love you, sister cousin, so very much, and um because I do this like she does in respect and honor, I always say see you on the flippity flip. But today we're going to say you are loved. As the Veil Ven series. Join us as Granddaughter Crow interviews spiritual leaders in riveting conversations about this time of year.