death

Ethnobotany and the Epitaph

Ethnobotany and the Epitaph

The epitaph is a highly personal thing, especially in the modern period.  For centuries, plants have made an appearance on burial markers and urns. 

Decomposition and the Spring of Youth

Decomposition and the Spring of Youth

Death is a part of life, even in the Spring. There is new, budding growth on trees awakening from Winter's grasp. There are young lambs born and frolicking in the meadows. There is visible potential at nearly every turn. This is the same for death and decay.

The Turning Seasons: Plants, Death, and Rebirth

The Turning Seasons: Plants, Death, and Rebirth

Today is Easter, the time when in the Christian tradition, someone who was once presumed deceased is reborn into a new, but strikingly similar form.  Yesterday was World Transgender Awareness Day, celebrating a community so often misunderstood, harassed, or ignored--a community whose very nature calls out in an expression of change, ideally able to embrace the individual's truest self.  On the Spring Equinox, March 20, was Ostara, the transition between the hibernation and death of winter into the rebirth and new life of spring.  I find it apt that all three of these events occur during a liminal period, not entirely one or the other--the dusk of one season and dawn of the next.