Mr GBT and I are pretty punctual, so this left us with a few minutes to kill before the wedding at the nearby registry office last week. Having parked opposite the parish church of SS Mary and Nicholas in Leatherhead, I was never going to miss an opportunity to poke about....even dressed in wedding attire and heels didn't slow me down😈 Even with the church locked and only 10 minutes an Aril can locate something to unearth......
More of those devil deflecting marks around the porch door that I like so much....you will have seen similar on previous posts here.
Plus two 18th century gravestones side by side in remarkably good condition. The carvings have been done by the same hand, but are subtly different. I haven't often come across such good and unusual examples of Memento Mori in my part of the South East so I was delighted.
It was only when I got home and edited the close up of the Eye of God which features on both that I noticed that it is enclosed by a snake eating its own tail. The official name for this is an ouroborus
and it is apparently one of the most ancient alchemy symbols. It represents the circle of life and infinity and has been with us since the time of the ancient Egyptians.
Arilx
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I must look more closely at gravestones. The ones i grew up with in NZ were the essence of practicality by comparison (name, dates, a curlique if the family could afford it!)
ReplyDeleteI've found out all sorts since I started to look at them. Arilx
DeleteAren't snakes supposed to go into Christmas trees? It's all in there somewhere. x
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard that, but apparently it does happen when people have real trees. I've got an ancient plastic one that lives in the loft so probably no worries here. Arilx
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