2024 All Souls River Procession in North Portland’s Cathedral Park | Free, All Souls Day Remembrance, Featuring Samba Band Bloco Alegria

Portlanders are invited to remember the dead through creative expression and community at the All Souls River Procession on November 2 at Cathedral Park in St. Johns.



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From press release:
Portland All Souls River Procession
November 2, 2024
5PM Gathering, Procession Starts at 6PM
Free | All Ages
More info: pdxallsouls.org

Starts at Green Anchors Community Pavilion
8940 N Bradford Street, Portland

Join us for an all-ages community art event and ritual procession to honor our beloved dead by the sandy shore of the Willamette River under the St. Johns Bridge.
Regardless of our background or life-situation, we all experience the grief of loss when our loved ones pass on. But through creative expression and community we can recognize the beauty and strength of that love as we celebrate our connection to life and each other.

Why We Created the Procession
With masks, lanterns, rattles and drums, we recognize the thinness of the veil at the Autumnal cross-quarter, acknowledged by different cultures around the world as All Souls Day, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Day of the Dead, and many other names. At this time when the Realm of the Dead lies close, we recognize those who have left us over the past year–both human and other-than-human.

The procession began at All Souls Day 2021 when our three event founders felt weighed down by the Pandemic and decided to use art and ritual to gather our community to honor lives lost, and tap into the healing power of nature in the riverside land where we lived and worked. We made paper lanterns from willow branches, and a reliquary to hold messages to the dead to ceremonially burn at the river’s edge. And we carried a giant paper mache skeleton to the beach where we read aloud the names of our beloved dead and made offerings of flowers and herbs to the river.

The first two years fewer than 60 people attended, but in 2023 we had 200-300 people join us with costumes, lanterns, and offerings to honor their own recently lost loved ones, plus recognize the global loss of human and non-human life through war, climate change and environmental degradation.

Who is the Procession For?

Although based in North Portland, the procession has generated interest throughout greater region, attracting friends and families, musicians and artists, community and cultural groups, people mourning loved ones, people grieving the state of the world, people who grew up with traditions of honoring their beloved dead in community, and people who would like reestablish such traditions or keep such traditions alive. The event strives to create an opportunity for healing by bringing people together around the shared human experience of grief.

We invite people of any race, ethnicity or national origin, religion or spirituality, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, economic background or ability to attend as audience members, or to participate in both the procession and its creation each year. We also strive to create a Safe Space at our events and request that all Portland All Souls River Procession participants, collaborators and audience members be respectful of each other at all times, and mindful of each person’s needs, both in person and online.

Event Schedule

4 pm: Early arrival for volunteers.
Please plan to arrive an hour early if you have signed up for a character or ritual role.

5 pm: Welcome, Letters to the Dead, & Music and Dance Group Bulla!
Procession participants gather at the Green Anchors community pavilion at 8940 N Bradford St for a general welcome and the opportunity to add names of the dead to the Book of Souls and place paper messages to the dead placed in the Reliquary.

The group Bulla! will also lead processional dances and group singing in the pavilion that the audience is invited to join in with.

There will also be a large community Altar of Our Beloved Dead that participants may like to contribute flowers or other offerings to, or place a photo of a departed loved one upon the altar for the evening (to be taken home afterwards).

5:30pm Opening Ceremony & Invocation
The guardians of the four directions are summoned, and we meet the leading characters of this year’s procession in a creative performance which mixes ritual art, audience participation, dance and storytelling.

6 pm: The Procession
Walk with us through Cathedral Park to the river’s edge and site of the River Ritual, accompanied by illuminated lanterns and giant puppets. The procession follows a “there and back” route comprised of just under a ½ mile of paved paths and sidewalks. There is also an optional portion of the route closest to the river that is composed of grass and/or sand. Audience members are welcome to find a spot from where they can watch the procession go by, and/or to follow the procession along to the river. This year’s procession to the river will be headed by Bulla!

6:30 pm: The River Ritual
Simultaneously an elaborate performance of ritual theater and an offering to the dead and to the river. As grief and beauty come fully together, the names of the dead will be read aloud, and the messages to the dead will be burned over the river. Then we let our tears flow as we stand together in shared sadness and love, with the sounds of the lapping river waters and gentle music wrapping around us.

7 pm: The Return
Once the names are read, the messages burned, and the tears shed, a different music begins. One that starts slow, but builds into a rhythm that reminds us of life. A band assembles and takes their place on the “stage” of the beach. This band then marches, leading the entire procession all the way back to the beginning of the route. This year’s procession from the river will be headed by Portland Samba band Bloco Alegria.

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