XIII (Death)

[Diana]

I thought we needed a dedicated thread to our little friend Death - XIII. For the sake of convenience, I will call him Death instead of "the card that must not be named" which is a bit of a mouthful - second time in two days that the Tarot has reminded me of Harry Potter.

But I don't want to talk about Harry Potter. Rather I picked up an old book this morning. Nothing whatsoever to do with Tarot. It's a book written by an anarchist collective so it's more political. But one paragraph made me feel like they were describing Death in the Tarot in a very precise manner :

Let the past go. All the old battles you're still fighting, all your denial and defense mechanisms, all the addictions and inertia you've accumulated and all the fears that bind you to them. This is going to be the hardest thing you ever live through - but let them go, let them die, have courage through the silent moments in the void as you wait, trembling, for your new life to be born. It will be.


Oh, I've always loved the anarchists !!!

[qndynes]

There's also a wonderful quote on death from Christine Payne-Towler's Tarot of the Holy Light guidebook. I have to search for it, but it says something quite moving about passing the dark night of the soul, sloughing off what is superfluous and through this ordeal becoming indomitable. Making peace with death is knowing that it is a part of living. It was very empowering for me when I read that.

[Charlie Brown]

Not to quibble, but since you often call things out for going off-topic, I'll say that I think this is more appropriate to the tarot talk or similar than it is the card study page, which should be a bit more formal and worked out, imo. Perhaps Joan Marie will transfer it if she agrees.

[Diana]

Not to quibble, but since you often call things out for going off-topic, I'll say that I think this is more appropriate to the tarot talk or similar than it is the card study page, which should be a bit more formal and worked out, imo. Perhaps Joan Marie will transfer it if she agrees.

No problem.

[Joan Marie]

Got the message and I think this (cards & Spreads) is a better place for this topic.

I will add one of my favourite quotes about Death:

Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws.
-Jim Morrisson

[Nemia]

I was thinking about the Death card today, after enjoying my new Star Spinner Tarot with its comforting take on this card. When I wrote about this deck yesterday, I compared it with the similarly comforting angle on Death in the Inner Child Cards.

The creators of the Inner Child Cards intended their cards to be used with children and by picking Sleeping Beauty for the Death card, they play on the old motif of Sleep and Death as brothers. Sleeping Beauty will wake up again, and Death is not the end.

Trungles was more sophisticated in the Star Spinner. His Death is the Mother of Night, giving new life. Both cards display the poppy flower, Classic symbol of the Death/Sleep connection, and Star Spinner includes butterflies, another Classic death motif.



That's quite a journey from our boney old friend in the Marseille Tarot! It got me thinking about softened or very creative versions of the Death card. I don't think about it as sugarcoating by the way. Getting the Death card in a reading for myself or others can be a bit shocking since we all have less-than-encouraging associations with the card. I found for myself the metaphor of the compost heap where we chuck the furry cucumbers which were lovely and tasty just a week ago. We don't want to have these little reminders of decay in our fridges and throw them out. A year or two later, our compost heap is a treasure that makes our garden soil rich and productive. That's a comforting image of Death which talks about continuation - but also the inevitability of change which leads one day to death.

I want to collect here some interesting takes on the Death card. Let's have a look.


I want to start with Lynyrd-Jym Narciso's Maria Celia Tarot, one of my favourite decks.

Death here is the well-known Old Hein figure, boney and determined. He mows people down, crowned and uncrowned heads roll, but the plant/flower metaphor gives a little comfort. After all, this is a natural process, and we wilt like flowers - well, we're mown down. The starry sky in the background, a motif we've seen emphasized in the Star Spinner, is another element that softens the blow a bit.

You can rely on Patrick Valenza to endow the Death card with his drastic, morbid humour in his Deviant Moon deck. The world is going to pieces - pollution is in the air - the sea is swallowing a ship - but Mother Death grins and her cub celebrates. Are these horse heads? with fangs? Weird, dark, beautiful.

It took me years to "get" Valenza. Actually, only after I saw the Trionfi della Luna I started to appreciate his art, and then fell in love with it. I'm Death, deal with it, the figure seems to say.


Totally different is the Distant Past Tarot.

Jeri Totten created her wildly eclectic collage deck for her young daughter and obviously she was going to dim down the harsher cards a bit. But she didn't dumb them down. I actually like both the name Transition (because if Death is not Transition to the Unknown, what is?) and the white horse.

Gates are important in this deck, and the horse stands on the other side of the gate (Harry Potter anyone?). Behind the horse, there are more gate posts, and a lovely light is shining there.

Now white horses. Don't get me started! Oh well, get me started.

White horses are often used as symbols of innocence, nobility and paradise. When Jan Brueghel the Younger wanted to paint paradise in the 17th century, he gave the white horse a prominent place - and eye contact with the viewer. It's as though the white horse was inviting us. It's also remarkable that there is only one white horse - the other horse is brown and doesn't play such an important role. (In paradise, all animals are in couples).

Years later, when Paul Gauguin painted a paradise-like scene, a beautiful white horse in the shadows was the main focus.

And for Franz Marc, who wanted to paint the world like animals see it, the blue-white horse was a symbol of the innocence and purity of the animal world - a world we humans mistreat and exploit (as he showed in later paintings).

Let's not forget Shadowfax, Gandalf's friend. Where does he come from? Not from the next field, that's obvious.



But the white horse doesn't only have the association of celestial beauty and innocence - it's also a symbol of death.

The Schimmelreiter (RIder of the White Horse) folk tale from North Germany is most famous in the version Theodor Storm wrote down, and if you read it, you won't have forgotten the mysterious white horse that appears one day - after a horse skeleton visible on a neighbouring island disappears. People are sure it's the dead horse. As a reader, you can't be sure but at times, you tend to agree.


In short, I think the choice of a white horse was inspired, and the Distant Past Death is a firm favorite. Even the simplistic Inner Child Death has a white horse (which is much more important visually than its rider).

We are being invited through a gate again by John Bauer - the road seems to lead us into the timeless beauty of the open night sky. Two young women stand at the entrance - one sad, the other encouraging and carrying a light (I can't see what the other is carrying, will have to scan the card or try to find a book with the story this illustration accompanied originally). We will leave sadness and joy behind us when we step through that gate.

Even simpler is the gate in the White Sage Tarot. There's a tunnel that we go through - we will step into the light - but it's impossible to see what lies behind the great light.

Probably the light metaphor is inspired by the near-death experiences many people have reported - but light is also an ancient symbol of the Divine and going through darkness towards the light is a definitely comforting explanation or interpretation of death.

The Anna K. Tarot goes even further in applying this metaphor. The beautiful young man inviting us in the Death card, painted in cold colours, re-appears in the Judgement card where he invites the ascending soulds into the light. His dark wings have turned to gold. Only in the Judgement card, there is a gate. The connection between the two cards is very well done and one of the things I like best about this wonderful deck. So much emotional depth, such expressive faces, bodies and colours.

The Little Prince Death card is quite sad - the figure of the beloved Little Prince stretched out helplessly. But there's a halo of light, and the rose shines in the sky, illuminted by stars. Again signs of hope. Death reunites us with those we love - only by dying the Little Prince will find his rose again.

The Fey Tarot presents a unique personification of Death. A provocative, not unfriendly smile - and we lost the game. Nice symbolism of the round chess board and the different figures. I also like the Sun/Moon pendant the Death fey is wearing. I'm too lazy to get up now and read what's written in the book about this card but I will do so later, I promise!

Finally, we have the drastic-but-funny Housewife Tarot. The creators seem to go into my compost direction, only a bit more disgusting.

I have lost a beloved childhood friend through salmonella poisoning so I know it's dangerous and not a laughing matter. The flies suggest to anyone who knows Hebrew (or not) immediately an association with the devil - Beelzebub in German, baal zvuv, בעל זבובLord of the Flies, in Hebrew. (While I write this, a most persistent fly keeps burring around me).

This is a warning, but it's also full of humour. I don't use this deck often but when I do, it always gives knife-sharp readings. Oh I did some family dynamic readings - home truths in every sense of the word were the result!

So these were some of the more interesting Death cards in my collection that I wanted to share, hoping that others have more to add....

[Joan Marie]

I had this little lady handy just now...

This is from my (soon to be re-released) Cult of Weimar Tarot. The main image comes from this 1919 Movie poster:

Totentanz: Dance of Death
Coming Soon!

[Nemia]

Great to hear it! I have and LOVE the first edition. It has the rough-and-decadent energy of the Weimar years. I'm curious! In one of Berlin's old churches there's a medieval wall painting of the Totentanz. My never-finished doctoral dissertation had a chapter about the iconography of death, I have always been fascinated by it.

One of my grand-aunts was a Berlin girl in the Weimar years and I spent some exciting years there before the Wall fell. It's not easy to catch the special atmosphere of the Weimar period but you have done it beautifullly - as far as one who was not there can tell

[Joan Marie]

In one of Berlin's old churches there's a medieval wall painting of the Totentanz. My never-finished doctoral dissertation had a chapter about the iconography of death, I have always been fascinated by it.

I did not know about this! And that it wasn't destroyed in the war is amazing.

I think this little tidbit may make it into my guidebook.

That is one difference from the original deck, I'm going to make a more extensive guidebook. That's the plan!

[rusticblonde]

Sounds daft. I love my Death card. Purely because

• 1. Its not like most death cards

• Its Rene Magritte esque

For me this is a transition between the beginning and the end. Something has to die, for something epic to be reborn...

I personally love this card <3

[A-M]

Is the red mantle on your card referring to the alchemist who has completed the magnum Opus?
(example below)

[rusticblonde]

Is the red mantle on your card referring to the alchemist who has completed the magnum Opus?
(example below)


lichtkleed.jpg

Interesting, could be!

[A-M]

[/quote]

Interesting, could be!
[/quote]

did you not design this card?
what were your thoughts behind it?

[rusticblonde]

Interesting, could be!
[/quote]

did you not design this card?
what were your thoughts behind it?
[/quote]

No I did not design this, this is from a deck which is my favourite called the Silver Witch Tarot by Barbara Moore. I picked this deck due to its gorgeous imagery and its quite a surreal deck. In particular this card and the fool are my absolute favourites as much as its RW, its very quirky spin on it

My thoughts are something has to die for something beautiful to be reborn with this card. Also the release of energy is the emotion charge for me behind it, and what is often why people have a reluctance for change.

[Amethyst]

I am following this topic and it is quite interesting what has been said. I am new to tarot so the card is new to me but I am grateful for the studying on this page of this card. It is definitely letting go or the shedding of the old you. For me it came up exactly what it describes. In a situation that forced me to go into hermit mode, and hanged man to come to this card. Getting insight of patterns.