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....
