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Paper short abstract

The presentation explores narratives from Hungary in which natural signs—like leaves, clouds, or feathers—are seen as messages from the dead. These stories reshape landscapes into deathscapes, spaces where nature mediates between the living and the dead, redefining remembrance beyond cemeteries.

Paper long abstract

My presentation examines how the presence of the dead becomes embedded in physical landscapes through the narratives of the bereaved, using the concept of the deathscape. Based on one and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork in Hungary, I explore how mourners interpret natural signs—such as leaves, cloud formations, feathers, or heart-shaped natural patterns—as messages from the deceased. These signs are not perceived as random natural phenomena but as spiritual points of connection that reframe the everyday environment.

The research investigates how such nature-based messages become active tools in the mourning process and how they transform physical spaces into sites of remembrance. In these narratives, the landscape functions not as a passive backdrop but as an active mediator between the dead and the living—a liminal zone where the spiritual and physical worlds intersect.

These momentary natural deathscapes stand in stark contrast to cemeteries, which in most narratives appear as increasingly marginal spaces. Many participants expressed a sense of disconnection from cemeteries, stating that “the dead are not really there.” Yet, paradoxically, it seems as if the dead are present everywhere else, but most profoundly in nature.

The analysis highlights how natural signs reaffirm the continuity of bonds, reorganize the spatial dimensions of grief, and provide opportunities for the living to sustain a dialogue with the dead through nature. Thus, the deathscape emerges not only as a site of memory but also as a space for the processing of loss and the spiritual re-creation of connection.