Memento Mori

Memento Mori 

~

Remember That You Will Die

Contemplate finitude, transience, mortality; meditate upon your death. 

Not so that dread and anguish and despair find you, but so that its opposite; 

insurmountable hope, light and love find you. 

For in deliberating upon the end, you are reminded of the undeniable beauty of it all.

That you will see the sunrise, or the stars, or the trees and bees but a few more times.

That your acquaintance with that pesky little sibling of yours, or that beautiful friend, is numbered,

oh how you are reminded of the value of it all.

Upon such a meditation, all that which is insufficient is rendered aflame, burning into ashes.

The takings for granted, the impatience, the insolence, the lies, deceit and arrogance,

oh how they dissipate in remembering that you will die.

Only that which is solid and true and pure remains, the good.

Thus the contemplation of actual death allows for the ensuing of a metaphorical death — 

an intellectual, psychological, or characterological death. 

When rendered into ashes, you discover that death smiles at us all,

and all that you can do is smile back. 

Then, born anew are you, with renewed gratitude, and honour your life, you do, like the mythological phoenix or the biblical Christ.