I have a picture of this fella hanging on my front door. I see him each time I go to leave my home.

This striking drummer stands mid stance in a kind of ecstatic dance with the drum of death. Emaciated and wild, a wholeness of being, in flow of the Dance of Death.

He is a memento mori – Latin for ‘remember that you must die’. 

Originally, a memento mori was made to remind people of their own mortality, warning them to prepare for death and eternal judgement, which sounds kind of threatening to me, but I find a strange kind of comfort in seeing this guy. 

Rather than a figure of gloom and judgement, I see him as a lover of life

Our shared ultimatum

He is a symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death – an inescapable equaliser across us all. A shared experience with all people, across all time. Something we all have in common.

We are but temporary beings

He reminds me of the ephemeral nature of life – that we, and everyone around us, are only here for a temporary period. Our lives were only ever meant to be temporary. And this is a constant throughout our lives.

His closeness to death brings a heightened awareness to the impermanence of life. In feeling that edgy tension between life and death, there is a sense of heightened awareness, a kind of rush of energy. A rush of aliveness. 

And in this tension lies a most sacred space – a junction and birthing of creativity.

The exquisite risk – risking oneself

To me, he symbolises life. And the risking of the self necessary to really be here – to really live fully. 

In a state of flow with life, he risks himself for The Dance, to the very last moment, despite the inevitability and futility of it all. For a love of life.

And this risk is a very necessary aspect of life not often talked about – the willingness to risk oneself, to know that much of life is out of our control, but the willingness and trenchancy to try, to make effort, to put ourselves out there and on the line to live fully. To reveal ourselves fully. To ask for what we really want, in the full knowledge of the risk that we may not get it. To walk a purpose in life, fully knowing that we may not succeed. 

From the moment we are born, we begin to die

Here and now, we are all dying.

And rather than that fact being something too sad to bear, to defend against, or deny, or to fight, and to struggle with in every moment, if I can begin to open to, look at, begin to accept this inevitable outcome, I can walk, I can dance with, and in moments of grief and struggle I can “beat on my drum” in grief and frustration at, and still continue to dance with life, in ebb and flow. 

In my most fearful and anxious state, I have said things like “I feel like death”, “I feel like I’m going to die”. And now I realise it’s just me remembering that indeed one day, indeed I am going to die. 

And it takes (me) enormous courage to continue to be willing to breathe in the preciousness of it all. And courage again, to be willing to let it all go again, breath through breath. In and out, moment through moment, taking it all in, and letting it all go.

I too am going to die. And that is ok. Because if I can I hold that fact, if I can I tolerate it, I can be present through those feelings, and I can live aware of the exquisiteness and preciousness of this temporary life. 

His ecstatic dance to the inevitable end shows me he is in love with life.

So to see the drummer man brings me huge comfort in reminding me  of my love for life and that today, I am alive, and today, I can risk myself.