Awareness of daily losses builds a container for grief

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Patty Bueno is a certified grief counselor, dying consciously teacher, and creator of the Amorté podcast on death and grief education.

She's currently training to become a somatic experiencing facilitator. Having accompanied three of her grandparents and later her mother through their dying process as a primary caregiver was an initiation and powerful call to serve and assist others in her community.

She's the mother of two beautiful men who are married and she just became a grandmother.

She lives in Mexico City and has been supporting terminally ill patients and their families on their dying and grieving journey for the last fifteen years. She offers workshops, teaches Death Rites and offers one on one bereavement sessions.

Her website and offerings can be found at pattybueno.com

She spoke of her training at the Four Winds School and her current work studying to be a somatic experiencing facilitator in a program with Peter Levine

The poem we read at the end was (first in Spanish, then in English):

A veces el colibrí, a veces el cuervo,

A veces el búho, viene a decirnos cuando es nuestro momento de irnos. Pero los mexicas no morimos, sólo nos mudamos a una nueva casa, a un nuevo cuerpo. Y cada año volvemos a visitar nuestro antiguo hogar.

Sometimes the hummingbird, sometimes the crow,

sometimes the owl, come to tell us when it is our time to go. But we Mexica do not die, we only move to a new house, a new body. And each year we come back to visit our old home.

- A Nahuatl poem

Patty also shared with us “The Legend of Day of the Dead Cempasuchil Flower”

This legend tells the love story of two Aztec youths, Xóchitl and Huitzilin, whose romance gave birth to the cempasuchil flower, known as the Day of the Dead flower.

This wonderful love story began when the two young Aztecs were still children. They used to spend all their free time together, playing and exploring their town. Although Xochitl was very sheltered, her family allowed her to join Huitzilin’s adventures, and their love blossomed over time.

They particularly enjoyed hiking to the top of a nearby mountain where they would offer flowers to the Sun God, Tonatiuh. The god seemed to appreciate their offering and would smile from the sky with his warm rays. On a particularly beautiful day at the top of the mountain, they swore that their love would last forever.

When war broke out the lovers were separated as Huitzilin headed to fight and protect their homeland.

Soon the dreaded news of Huitzilin‘s death reached Xóchitl. She felt her world falling to pieces, her heart completely torn. She decided to walk one last time to the top of the mountain and implore the sun god Tonatiuh, to somehow join her with her love Huitzilin. The sun moved by her prayers and threw a ray that gently touched the young girl’s cheek. Instantly she turned into a beautiful flower of fiery colors as intense as the sun’s rays. Suddenly a hummingbird lovingly touched the center of the flower with its beak. It was Huitzilin who was reborn as a handsome hummingbird. The flower gently opened its 20 petals, filling the air with a mysterious and lovely scent. The lovers would always be together as long as cempasuchil flowers and hummingbirds existed on earth.

This is how the cempasúchil flower came to be the Day of the Dead Flower. Cempasuchil is the name given to Mexican marigold flowers. It comes from the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and means twenty petals flower.
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