by MEAGAN SEGAL
I love skulls. If you have seen my art or entered my classroom, that’s pretty evident. But I want to make a case for why we all should.
To begin with, let’s just have some respect for the miraculous safeguard that the cranium is. It begins in unfused pieces to allow you safe passage into the world. It protects a seriously vital organ. And teeth!
You exit the womb with two full sets of teeth hidden in there. Once they emerge, they are the only external part of your skeleton. Does anyone else think that’s as cool as I do?
Throughout human history, we have cared for our dead. The rituals have varied across time and location and cultures, from burials to burnings to mummification, and more. Underneath the hair and skin and muscle, we all look much the same. Sure, we come in a range of sizes, and we have distinct features that are evident in the skeletal structure.
But, in death, the most recognizable differences melt away to reveal a much closer relation.
As a human being, it is in our genetic makeup to recognize our fellows, to feel a kinship for those of our kind.
That is what I sense when I look at a skull, but my emotions move beyond empathy to curiosity. Who was this person? Who am I? I am looking at my own future reflection.
For centuries, the seat of the soul was a much-disputed topic. What part of our physical anatomy is responsible for producing and containing the very essence of ourselves … that thing that makes us, us?
Perhaps you are familiar with the heart vs. brain debate. But earlier ideas included the liver and stomach (they’re pretty boss organs, really); the luz, a tiny bone at the top of the spine (according to early practitioners of Judaism), and the pineal gland (a favorite theory of René Descartes, because it was the only unpaired part of the brain, and therefore must be the meeting point of a soul’s dual nature).
Still others insisted that the soul could not be seen and therefore was made of ether, a sort of invisible vapor that was omnipresent in the body.
The existence, make-up or housing of the soul is not why I find the human skull so appealing. It is that I can both see myself and not see myself within one. I can imagine everyone I know … and yet recognize no single person.
The rest of our skeleton breaks apart into less recognizable fragments, disembodied and lacking context.
We know a rib cage and a pelvis, though we have less sentimental attachment to these pieces. But the skull is immediately identifiable as “human.”
Me. You. Us. The eye sockets, though empty, seem lively and expressive. The nasal cavity provides clear passage for breath. And the teeth–they’re smiling. It feels like they’re sharing a joke, letting us in on a secret, or perhaps providing reassurance that death isn’t so bad, after all.
Memento Mori: “Remember you must die.” It’s a historically extensive classification of art, where animated skeletons appear alongside the living in vibrant scenes of everyday life, sometimes interacting with one another in dances and feasts.
The gestures are worthy of admiration, to be sure, but my eye has always been most captured by memento mori’s cousin: the vanitas still life.
This is where you see the classical arrangement of a human skull with an array of symbolic objects: books, a watch or hourglass, a feather quill, a snuffed candle with a wisp of smoke trailing off the canvas. It’s this more studied and exposed investigation that holds my gaze.
The action has become static, this could be any time, any place. These objects can be placed here for a moment or for eternity.
And the everlasting human presence remains a dutiful guardian.
It brings me such comfort, this double-edged sword of impermanence and infinitude.
The Mainsheet 