Throughout the Southwest, from San Diego to San Francisco Dias De Los Muertos is being celebrated this weekend. In San Diego County the Museum of Art, the Museum of Man, Sherman Heights Community Center, the Center of the Arts, in Escondido, to name a few are celebrating the return of the souls through community programs, art, and lecture. Dias de Los Muertos Tradition Day of the Dead is an occasion for celebrating, cleaning and decorating graves, dancing and making music. All over Mexico families gather to welcome souls of the dead on their annual visit. On these days it is believed the dead come from the beyond to visit with the living.
Special foods are prepared, such as mole, and special breads are baked.
It is believed that the souls of the dead gain strength with the vapors they breathe from the food. Once the dead has had his spiritual food, the relatives of the deceased eat heartily. This is a time for visiting the cemetery, cleaning the graves, repainting, repairing headstones, and embellishing the graves with flowers. Dia De Los Muertos is a convergence of the Catholic Church and Aztec traditions. Five centuries later All Souls Day, November 2, was established in the Roman Catholic calendar as a day to pray for the souls of the faithful dead in purgatory, to lighten their suffering.