As it’s just about that time of the year, this afternoon I spent a couple of hours in Philadelphia’s historic Laurel Hill Cemetery.
A downhill view of the Schuylkill River:
Group of graves:
A very creative tomb:
And a small gravestone I couldn’t identify:
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2 responses to “Sleepy Fall afternoon”
“Sleeping”.
“Memento mori,” as the Roman used to say.
“Nothing concentrates the mind as the prospect of being hanged.”
-Samuel Johnson
Those graves and stately monuments.
That poster (now framed) on the wall of my “freedom library”, that poster which my parents gave me back in 1965, that poster depicting the deceased nobleman being led by Anubis into the Hall of Judgement, his heart weighed upon the scale against the feather of Maat, this verdict recorded by all-knowing Thoth, the dead man finally facing Osiris Himself, flanked by Isis and Nephthys. Whenever I look upon that poster, I always think of that question which I have seen on billboards in the past, that ancient question which each individual must answer for himself or herself:
“Where will you spend eternity?”
Um…isn’t that, um, casket thingy that guy is sitting on–well, um, isn’t it cracked open?