Tucson has one of the most wonderful events I’ve ever experienced: the All Souls Procession.  At its most basic, it is simply a parade celebrating the Day of the Dead, but it always ends up feeling like so much more.  Participants (and anyone can participate) dress up in all manner of costume, create bicycle or human-powered floats, or spend months building massive skeleton puppets that they carry on their shoulders or on carts.  Everyone sort of dances along in time with the various musicians scattered throughout the two mile long procession and the whole thing ends up feeling like you stumbled into this huge, disorderly group of surprisingly cheery people honoring the dead while looking somewhat dead themselves.  Because both Halloween and the Day of the Dead are coming up soon, this week I give you my Dragonfly Woman costume that I wore in the All Soul’s Procession in 2004:

Dragonfly Woman. Photo by Heather Dominick.

I loved this costume, but those wings sticking out on the sides really were a bitch to maneuver through a crowd of 15,000 people!

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