Memento Mori

Memento = (“remember!”), imperative form of memini (“I remember”).
Mori = verb - present active infinitive of morior (I die)

memento mori = "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die"

Ancient Origins

When a Roman general had won a particularly spectacular victory, he was given a triumph. He would parade his army through the city itself, normally taboo in Republican Rome, and he would display the loot and slaves he had won.

He rode a chariot, and stretched out in front of him marched the senate, musicians, exotic animals, white bulls for slaughter, and captured enemies. Upon his head was a crown of laurel leaves, and all around him the populace cheered his glorious achievement.

By tradition, though, a slave rode behind him. Every once in awhile, the slave would whisper this into his ear:

"Memento mori."

Remember, you too are mortal.

Perhaps the most famous memento mori from ancient times comes from Greece, rather than Rome. It is said that a monument was placed at the pass at Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans fended of a million Persians and saved Western Civilization. A Spartan of course was to come home with his shield or upon it; victory or death, in other words.

Inscribed in the stone was a poem which served to remind the living of this stark practice. It read:

"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie."

Mappa mundi

Mappa mundi (Latin [ˈmappa ˈmʊndiː]; plural = mappae mundi) is a general term used to describe medieval European maps of the world. These maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps an inch or less across to elaborate wall maps, the largest of which was 11 ft. (3.5 m.) in diameter.

The term derives from the Medieval Latin words mappa (cloth or chart) and mundi (of the world).

Hereford mappa mundi

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is a mappa mundi, of a form deriving from the T and O pattern, dating to ca. 1300. It is currently on display in Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, England. It is the largest medieval map known to still exist.

(note the orientation to the east at the top)

0 - At the center of the map: Jerusalem, above it: the crucifix.
1 - The Paradise, surrounded by a wall and a ring of fire.
2 - The Ganges and its delta.
3 - The fabulous Island of Taphana, sometimes (possibly mis-)interpreted as Sri Lanka or Sumatra.
4 - Rivers Indus and Tigris.
5 - The Caspian Sea, and the land of Gog and Magog
6 - Babylon and the Euphrat.
7 - The Persian Gulf.
8 - The Red Sea (painted in Red).
9 - Noah's Ark.
10 - The Dead Sea, Sodom and Gomorrha, with River Jordan, coming from Sea of Galiliee; above: Lot's wife.
11 - Egypt with the River Nile.
12 - River Nile [?], or possibly an allusion to the equatorial Ocean; far outside: a land of freaks, possibly the Antipodes.
13 - The Azov Sea with Rivers Don and Dnjepr; above: the Golden Fleece.
14 - Constantinoples; left of it the Danube's delta.
15 - The Aegean Sea.
16 - Oversized delta of the Nile with Alexandria's Lighthouse.
17 - A person skiing.
18 - Greece with Mt. Olymp, Athens and Corinth
19 - Misplaced Crete with Minotaur's circular labyrinth.
20 - The Adriatic Sea; Italy with Rome, honored by a popular heptameter: Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena rotundi [Rome, the head, holds the reins of the world].
21 - Sicily, and Carthage, opposing Rome, right of it.
22 - Scotland.
23 - England.
24 - Ireland.
25 - The Baleares.
26 - The Strait of Gibraltar (the Pillars of Hercules).

"Hereford’s mappa mundi is many things — an encyclopedia of all the world’s knowledge, a memento mori, a remarkable piece of medieval art. It remains a unique testament of a vanished world and a vivid illustration of the depth, complexity and artistic genius of maps themselves.”

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/29/bbc-the-beauty-on-maps/

Sexagesimal (base 60)

Sexagesimal (base 60) is a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, it was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and it is still used — in a modified form — for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.

The number 60, a highly composite number, has twelve factors, namely { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60 } of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers. With so many factors, many fractions involving sexagesimal numbers are simplified. For example, one hour can be divided evenly into sections of 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 10 minutes, 6 minutes, 5 minutes, etc. Sixty is the smallest number that is divisible by every number from 1 to 6; that is, it is the lowest common multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Possible Origin

It is possible for people to count on their fingers to 12 using one hand only, with the thumb pointing to each finger bone on the four fingers in turn. A traditional counting system still in use in many regions of Asia works in this way, and could help to explain the occurrence of numeral systems based on 12 and 60 besides those based on 10, 20 and 5. In this system, the one (usually right) hand counts repeatedly to 12, displaying the number of iterations on the other (usually left), until five dozens, i. e. the 60, are full.

Robert Frost's "What Fifty Said"

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.

Now when I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.

"What Fifty Said" - Robert Frost (1928)

Alice Pung's Front Kitchen / Rear Kitchen

Alice Pung, author, Front Kitchen / Rear Kitchen

AT MY parents' home, there are two kitchens. The first has granite benchtops, cream-coloured shelves and a self-cleaning Smeg oven. It is the kitchen you see when you walk into the living area, filled with state-of-the-art modern inconveniences such as an electronic cling-wrap cutter and a soya bean milk maker. But this is the fake kitchen, used to boil eggs and reheat pasta sauce.

Front Kitchen

The second kitchen, sequestered at the back of the house and hidden by a wooden door, is the real one: my mother's kitchen. It is the workspace of an alchemist. Every surface is covered in a film of grease. The cooktop is blackened, the sink always half-filled with oleaginous water. Our first kitchen smells nice but the second kitchen smells great.
Chinese cooking is messy, noisy and haphazard, and if done properly the food spits at you while orange flames leap towards the ceiling. My mother once used a wok for so long that she burned a hole right through the centre. But the things that came out of that wok - prawn dim sum wrapped in tofu skins, Teochew rice cakes, lobster noodles, steamed ginger and soy fish, scallops and snow peas - were the stuff of salivating dreams and the memories of these meals lingered long in this airless room. Mum's dad was a Chinese cook in Cambodia; the gift of making something of nothing ran through their blood.

Rear Kitchen

A tidy artist is not a free artist. Confined to keeping things clean, they colour within the lines, cross-stitch within the frame, always worried that their space - not their art - will look bad. That's why mum had two kitchens: one in which she was free to practise her magic and the other to pretend that the magic did not take much effort. The kitchens of the best Chinese restaurants are always near the back and they look a bit like my mother's second kitchen.

Retrieved from: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/in-my-mothers-kitchen-20120511-1yhkq.html#ixzz1wK8GasPK

Michael Long's not so long "Long Walk" to Canberra

Myth, Obfuscation, & Reality

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1: The Myth

"On 21 November 2004 Michael Long embarked an historic trek, walking from his home in the suburbs of Melbourne all the way to Parliament House in Canberra – more than 650 kilometres away."

 http://www.thelongwalk.com.au/About/Our-Story  (29/05/2012)

"In 2001, Michael retired as a professional footballer, but not from working to help Indigenous Australians. In 2004, he famously walked from Melbourne to Canberra to meet the then Prime Minister John Howard to discuss the plight of Indigenous Australians and raise public awareness of the issues."

http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/recipients/?m=michael-long-2011  (29/05/2012)
 
"This year marks eight years since the Essendon legend Michael Long’s historic trek from his home in Melbourne to Parliament House in Canberra to discuss Aboriginal issues with then Prime Minister, John Howard."

http://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/a/Long-Walk-celebration-set-to-be-biggest-and-best/9272  (29/05/2012)

"In 2004 AFL legend Michael Long walked from Melbourne to Canberra to protest government treatment of First Nation people"

(Also note that Long nor anybody associated with him or connected in any way with the walk ever used the term "First Nation" in relation to the walk)

https://newmatilda.com/2014/07/22/another-long-walk-melbourne-canberra

2: The Obfuscation

 "In 2004, Michael Long set out on foot from Melbourne to Canberra to meet the then Prime Minister and get the lives of Indigenous Australians back on the national agenda."

http://www.jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/mediareleases/2012/Pages/the_long_walk_19may2012.aspx  (29/05/2012)


 "“The Long Walk charity started after former AFL player Michael Long attended an Indigenous funeral and decided to make a trek from Melbourne to Canberra in 2004 to help raise awareness of the plight of his people, also meeting with then Prime Minister John Howard at the end of the first Long Walk,” Senator Scullion."

http://www.nigelscullion.com/media-hub/indigenous-affairs/scullion-supports-long-walk (29/05/2012)

3: The Reality

"Mr Long arrived in Canberra yesterday after walking part of the way from Melbourne to draw attention to the plight of indigenous people."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/The-journey-is-just-beginning-Michael-Long/2004/12/03/1101923306889.html (29/05/2012).


"It took the former Essendon champion nine days to walk 300 kilometres from Melbourne to Albury where he bathed his blistered feed in the Murray River. It was there he heard the news that the Prime Minister had agreed to meet him when he arrived in Canberra.

Having secured the appointment, Michael Long completed the trip by car and this morning he was flanked by high profile Aborigines Mick and Patrick Dodson and Yorta Yorta elder, Paul Briggs, as he took the final steps to the Prime Minister's office."

http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1257198.htm (29/05/2012).

Hortus conclusus

Enclosed Garden

Mary is compared to the enclosed or closed garden as mentioned in the Canticle of Canticles (4:12 - My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up). This is one of the oldest symbols of Mary's sinlessness and immaculateness. It was included in the Litanies of Loreto. Since Mary's purity is the equivalent of great beauty, it was the custom in the middle ages and later on to design the enclosed garden as paradise garden filled with flowers and aromatic plants. Here, the garden reflects the Renaissance canon of beauty with its penchant for symmetry and geometric proportions. In its midst we discover a tree, probably in reference to the tree of life, meaning Christ Jesus himself.

Mary's love is exclusive. There is room in her heart for Christ alone. Such is the meaning of the enclosed garden. But Jesus is the source of life and love, and thus love springs forth from the heart of Mary and becomes visible and palpable to all who contemplate her enclosed garden, meaning her uniquely dedicated heart.