Fete de la Musique on top on the Catacombs

Last night strolling around my neighborhood, running into one street band after another, I ended up again at Place Denfert Rochereau, which always has one of the largest and most sought after concerts in Paris, during Fete de la Musique.    There I was caught in the thick of hundreds of young mere 20 somethings ,with riveting rock music reverberating in my ears and brightly colored strobe lights slashing the smoky late sky,  that it dawned on me!

Here we were, animated humans beings alive with gleeful abandon literally on top of over 6 million dead, whose neatly stacked skeletal remains line macabrely the quarries underneath us.  For those who do not know, the catacombs became the depository  of human remains in 1786, which were transferred from an ancient cemetery where Les Halles is today.  The old quarries, tunnels and caverns are 1.7 kilometers long, 20 meters below.  There are always long lines of tourists snaking around the square waiting to go in.

Well, this is not all that different from the huge flocks of neopagans that celebrate the solstice at Stonehenge in England, which is also a necropolis.  I have no idea if the festival planners chose this site with knowledge of the similarities and druidic dimensions associated with solstice celebrations, but it really makes me ponder.

I might as well have been at at a wild Irish wake for all I know! So what if the music was loud enough to wake the dead.  Perhaps all those Parisian spirits still have a chance of least one night out of the year to remember what ever joyous abandons they had while amongst the living. Maybe they were with us; after all the veil that separates us is very thin.

Nevertheless, it is a reminder to live NOW, search for any JOY that beckons you. Learn to dance with the life you have, rather that let your misery bog you down.  Risk LOVE again. Dare to DREAM with wild abandon.  I think all those spirits would cheer us on!!