Sunday September 22 was Calgary’s 2nd Equinox Vigil in Union Cemetery.
We DID it! Another awesome and awe inspiring Equinox Vigil. I am so grateful to everyone who gave their heartfelt inspiration, care and connection to make this event meaningful on such a deep level. For us, for the artists, for the participants, for the public to all gather at a wonderfully beautiful and tranquil place in the middle of our city – is a most sublime experience.
And then to top it off by talking to each other to remember and feel the sorrow and loss that death brings. And to do this together as a community of old, young and in between. And to find a peaceful quiet moment to contemplate in solitude or gaze at a shrine and its beauty rendered by hours of a deft artists’ hand or carefully crafted idea.
To listen to live music; free form and compelling and softly resonating through the headstones.
Video projection and digital projections draw eerily into the night and light the night sky with messages and images.
The walk up through The Threshold on the grounding path to the vista marked with waving and fluttering red, gold and yellow gossamer flags.
To hear poetry, sit on the bench next to the poet, to not just hear poetry but to feel poetry.Many visitors wept and wept while the poet read aloud. When was the last time someone read to you so intimately about such personal but universal thing as death.
And Harry – Harry the Historian. He knows the Union Cemetery dead buried in the ground but not buried from memory.
The tea tent – what could be more welcoming than an apron wearing volunteer offering the age old comfort of tea drinking and heart pouring.
Sprinkle all this with the faint drifting windblown voices of the Union Choir, leading 50 people at a time in the candlelit dark down the winding road, leading them with songs we all know and with candles glowing orange into the faces of memories and portraits of tender feelings.
Thank you to the artists, the art production team, the volunteers and to the 80 donors for making Equinox Vigil 2013 succeed.
I’m looking forward to presenting Equinox Vigil 2014 on Saturday September 20.
Recent Comments