Of Snowdrops and Decay

...but in black and white this time. I only just discovered five minutes ago that the MonoMonday challenge this week is on the theme of "On the Move"; my snowdrops aren't moving in any literal sense but since they are approaching the end of their flowering period, they are certainly moving towards decay.

Thanks to chantler63 for hosting MonoMonday.

Decay is a subject most of us tend to turn away from as it isn't openly discussed in "polite society" and yet ageing is something that slowly yet inexorably happens to us all, if we are fortunate enough to live in to older age. I am not confident that it is something that I will be able to do gracefully as I have always enjoyed and identified with being relatively physically fit and it already annoys me no end that I cannot work as intensively and for so long in the garden or run as far as I could thirty years ago.
In the Buddhist tradition, old age, sickness and death are sometimes referred to as "the Three Messengers" as they believe that it is by reflecting on them that we can come to understand the nature of our lives, and inspire us to develop a wisdom that can enable us to accept and transcend their grasp on us. I am not particularly optimistic about being able to achieve this but I did come across a very inspiring example recently in the form of a short letter to the New York Times by the remarkable Oliver Sacks, Professor of Neurology at the New York University School of Medicine.
You can find it here.