In December 2022, musician Eden Reyes received a message from her friend Roy Hawes that the decommissioned pipe organ at Mount Auburn Cemetery was being removed and would be destroyed if not picked up.
“On a whim, I decided to bring hundreds of pipes and put them in my house. I had no idea how pipe organs worked. I loved pipe organ music and knew several players. But I had no idea how this was going to turn out, it was just a gut feeling and a split-second decision to go for it.”
She ultimately collaborated with metalsmith Willie Blass of Iron Geist Studios to create Argent and Sable, an eight-foot-long electronic instrument made from discarded organ pipes. As the cemetery’s artist-in-residence, Reyes will perform a meditation on death called “Nothingness is Impossible” at Story Chapel on March 23rd, with end-of-life advocate Ripley narrating the event, and climate change focuses on the sadness of The Anthropocene, death, decline and rebirth of ourselves and those around us. Reyes conducted her meditation last fall, where she also played instruments like a synthesizer.
Attendees are encouraged to bring pillows, blankets, and mats to stay comfortable inside the chapel during the event. The event begins with a 10-minute guided meditation to familiarize people with the space. The main meditation, in which Reyes plays “Argent et Sable” and Ripley eloquently begins, begins immediately and lasts 20 to 25 minutes. At the end of the meditation, participants have the opportunity to discuss their experiences and perspectives.
“Argent et Sable” creates an introspective atmosphere that anchors the experience. “It’s a very unique and idiosyncratic sound,” she said. “It can be very ethereal and very beautiful. It can sound lyrical. It can sound like an animal or a bird. It can also be incredibly abrasive. It can be high, and it can be very harsh and dissonant.”
Rayz extracts a collection of samples from cello playing, voices, birdsong, heart rate, and breathing that are processed through the instrument. Reyes said that in creating the meditation, he was thinking about the process of coming to terms with death.
“I wanted to know how I could use sound, how I could use new instruments and the cello, to provide that kind of conflict to the community in a way that could be held in space… They “Understand what you need to get through it in a healthy way,” she said. “What we found was this paradoxical joy.”
Rayz says death meditation is just one part of the death positivity movement. “Our culture rejects death because it is so harmful, it is one of the simplest realities of being a mortal human, and it supports a very hygienic and unhealthy view. and can really hurt people who need to grieve in their own way.”
In a 2017 article in Undark, anthropologist Anita Hanig wrote that American culture has viewed death as a failure rather than a natural and inevitable part of life. The Death Positive movement has made strides in combating the fear of talking openly and honestly about death. At Mount Auburn Cemetery, organizers have previously facilitated such discussions at Death Cafés, events where people gather to have conversations about death.
Ripley said there are benefits to having a collective conversation about death. “As humans, we are cut off not only from death but from our community,” they said. “By helping others and participating in things with others, you are helping yourself and nurturing yourself.”
Death meditation, known as Maranasati, has a long history with roots in Tibetan Buddhism. Ripley says that while traditional death meditations may focus on the physical experience of decay and death, the death meditations performed with Rayz are “a life connected to the earth we live on.” He said he is focusing more on “death in the cycle.”
The meditation on death, which takes place four days after the first day of spring, takes on a transformative and meditative quality.
“The spring equinox will hopefully see a lot of things come back to life here in the cemetery,” Reyes said. “In that collective relaxation, people can become more open to different perceptions and realities, and in a more human environment they can open their eyes to really dark and potentially traumatic things. is.”
