Toulouse Mass Graves from the Black Death

 

Facing Death

Death Tearing Loved Ones Apart

The Scene is in its Skyline

"It's time to cut the tall trees."

"If only someone had had a cell phone, huh?"

All Things will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
    Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
    Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
    Full merrily;
  Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
  For all things must die.
    All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
    O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
    The old earth
    Had a birth,
    As all men know,
    Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born. 

Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

 Lord Alfred Tennyson, "All Things will Die"

Slither Hither and Thither

 

Hidden Mothers: Images from the Victorian Era

 

Carl Jung on the Ouroboros

"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. ... The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. ... The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which […] unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious."

- C.G. Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 14, Para. 513 

Further Images of the Vigeland Monolith

See this previous post with other images of the monolith.