COUNCIL BLOG - TAMANTHA BOWMAN

Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that has grown to include the United States in recent years. The animated movies The Book of Life and Coco have showcased its beauty. It didn’t take long for major retail stores to put out merchandise designed for the holiday to be seen along with Halloween decor. It is not Mexican Halloween- it is a celebration of our passed loved ones which includes special days for our pets, small children, and all of our loved ones lost.

COUNCIL BLOG - BRI BARGER

Veiled in secrecy and stigma, the practice of sin-eating has drifted from whispered ritual into the realm of legend. The sin eaters themselves? Arguably, they martyred their own souls for the salvation of others. Yet rather than gratitude, they received suspicion. Rather than honor, exile. They were seen not as saviors, but as living vessels of sin.

COUNCIL BLOG - BRI BARGER

Horror, being a popular genre, can be found throughout all corners of human culture and media - normally residing in dark crevices and buried in cobwebs. But something special occurs when nerdom meets spooky vibes: they infect each other, morphing and oozing together like some kind of Cronenberg monster straight out of David Lynch’s meditative state. Gimme. Gimme all of it, or I might bite.

COUNCIL BLOG - RACHEL DEMICCO

In today’s day and age, we mourn the dead very differently, but the Victorian era’s expressive and intimate rituals remind us of a time when grief was worn on the sleeve and sometimes woven into a ring.