Mement Mori

I have long been aware of a certain ineptitude when it comes to arranging still lives. The Old Lady, on the other hand, had a talent for flower arranging which is a form of still life. If memory serves me correctly (apply usual caveat here) she went to classes to study the art and even participated at a competitive level. My composition here, for example, has an unsettling feel to it - over and above my original intention.
 
One of last month’s challenges was to illustrate a Japanese philosophy whose name escapes me but, roughly translates into English as “the fragility of life.” Most people’s photographic interpretation was based on single delicate flowers. I expressed the opinion that the concept should be nearer to the familiar motto, “Memento mori,” a piece of TD humour that was guaranteed to pass most people by.
 
I feel that the tombs that carry that message engraved on their headstones, often accompanied by skulls, cross-bones and other symbols of mortality should also bear a representation of a mushroom, for it is the fungi that reduce the corpse to the basic minerals and amino acids that provide the building blocks for the next generation of life.
 
“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
“Before we too into the Dust descend;
    “Dust unto Dust, and under Dust to lie,
“Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!”
                The Rhubarb Tart of Old Mark Higham.