Ouroboros!

In my last post, I mentioned that standing at ornithologist William Brewster's grave was a full-circle moment.


But that's Mt. Auburn Cemetery--full of such full circles. Like this one. How odd. A snake, eating its own tail.

And look! another one. What the heck? Back to the bricks to find out.

It's an ancient Greek symbol called an Ouroboros (from oura meaning "tail" and boros meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail". I was pleased that just looking at it and guessing, Hodge and I figured out what it must mean--that death is not an end but a renewal, a rebirth. Cyclicality, rebirth, re-invention. There are, of course, much more convoluted, Jungian meanings to the symbol, but we'll just leave it at that.

 A nice emblem for a mausoleum or headstone. And another thing to look for as we walk Halcyon Way. 

A feeble attempt to find out something about Lars Peter Larsen came to naught. Heck of a piece of rose quartz, though. It felt cool and soapy, utterly delightful that they left it in its uncut form, just this giant jewel dropped out of the sky with a plaque bolted to it.

And here is Charles Sumner, for whom Boston's Sumner Tunnel is named. Hodge says that 

she learned from reading David McCullough's Americans In Paris  that while studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, Sumner worked right alongside students from Africa, and had a gigantic epiphany that there could be no denying the intellectual equality of Africans, so cruelly enslaved and oppressed in his own country. He became an abolitionist and when he died, both whites and African Americans lined Boston's streets five deep to view his funeral cortege.

Hodge further advises that a congressman from South Carolina clocked Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers with a cane in 1856, a blow from which he never fully recovered. Here's to mouthy abolitionists. 

So many good, good people. So humbling, to stand above them.

All that, and Japanese Stewartia, too. Glorious bark, at its best in winter. 

 This one, planted in 1939 (!) to honor Ann Silverman Sheingold, Wife-Mother-Mentor-Friend. We'll leave it at that. Oh, all right. She was a therapist and clinical social worker, born in 1930, who passed away in 1995. Teacher and lecturer, too. A lovely tree in her memory. Stewartia pseudocamellia.

  I'm just trying to figure out how the tree could have gotten planted to honor her when she was nine. Maybe you can buy the right to put a plaque on an especially awesome tree that happens to be growing at Mt. Auburn, to honor a loved one after the fact. I'd pick a bendy old Japanese maple, that's what I'd pick. Put me under one o' them. 

On second thought, after a bit of shuffling around, I found this photo taken near Asheville NC of Phoebe with a Stewartia in full bloom. Good Grief!! I didn't even know what I was shooting at the time. Thought it was a real camellia. Nope. Stewartia. By gum. What a tree. Now I know what I want for my birthday...

Hmm. Still...maybe I'll have someone plant out one of my old bonsais in the orchard when I shoot through. I've been tending them for 30 years...just put them to bed for the winter...what tree could be nearer to my heart?

I know just the guy to do it. He should be digging a little better by then.

Life--when well-lived, it's full of ouroboros. Your challenge: Use my new favorite word in a sentence today.