All Essays

Exploration of death themes in diverse world myths.

Latin for “remember you must die,” memento mori is not a threat, not a warning shouted from the shadows, but a quiet companion that walks beside us, placing a gentle hand on the shoulder and asking us to really notice the fragile, fleeting fact of being alive. It is a philosophical and artistic tradition that does something rather radical in a culture like ours: it insists that mortality awareness does not have to arrive wrapped in panic. Memento Mori, "To This Favour" 1879 W

As the Northern Hemisphere pivots from the dormant chill of winter toward the waxing light of summer, a diverse array of ancient rituals—Beltane, Walpurgisnacht, and May Day—emerges to mark this transition. While these festivities often appear as quaint folk customs or vibrant tourist spectacles, an anthropological and mythic analysis reveals a deeper architecture: they are sophisticated cultural mechanisms for managing death anxiety and reaffirming the continuity of life wit

April missive about why we bury the dead.

What happens to us physically and mentally when death becomes real

Art does not arrive after loss as a gentle comfort. It appears when the opposition becomes unbearable. When presence turns into absence. When life collides with death. When love no longer has a living recipient.

Death is not frightening simply because it happens. It is frightening because we know it will happen to us.

I was reviewing my copy of Metcalf and Huntington's Celebrations of Death in preparation for the social media post for Chapter 3 "Symbolic Associations of Death", and I was captivated once again by the discussion on fermentation and the parallels with decomposition in funeral rituals in some parts of Southeast Asia. This is a particular kind of association that only develops when people live close to decay. Not the kind of decay imagined in horror films or managed out of sig

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