Death Card Rider Waite Deck

Sunlit Wolf

Hi I have drawn Death as my card and I am very drawn to the flag which is being held. I am quite happy with what the flag means to me but I really don't know what the symbols and the picture in the flag represent or what it is could anyone please help
Thanx
Sunlit Wolf
 

Abrac

Hi Sunlit Wolf, it's supposed to be a rose. Waite was into a group called the Rosy Cross and wrote a book about them. To me it's a pretty funky looking rose. It incorporates elements of the rose, a pentagram and probably a few other things as well.
 

HoneyBea

Sunlit Wolf said:
Hi I have drawn Death as my card and I am very drawn to the flag which is being held. I am quite happy with what the flag means to me but I really don't know what the symbols and the picture in the flag represent or what it is could anyone please help
Thanx
Sunlit Wolf

I think you will find that the flag is emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which is the colour of white, signifying freedom from baser forms of desire and passion and representing rebirth following death.

Waite says in his PKT
Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality
meaning that death is not an end it is an opening to another existence.

The people are shown as a King, child and woman to show that death does not discriminate, it can touch all from all walks of life.

Waite also seems to connect this card to the HM in that he relates the transition that can be made in this card as a mystical one, where a change in consciousness is experienced, that "ordinary death is neither the path nor gate".

Also you see in the distance in this card a ship that sails towards the shining sun, — ships were often use as symbols of transporting one to the afterlife, but this ship heads towards the rising sun showing that death is not an end it is a beginning — a new dawn is coming.

So all the symbols point towards one cycle ending, but as with all cycles, as one ends it is usually followed by renewal.

Hope this helps in some small way.

~HoneyBea~
 

Rosanne

Hi Sunlit Wolf!
I agree with the other posters- but will add That the white Rose is the Goldden Dawn symbol of rebirth. Robert Place talks about the image been related to the words in the Book of Revelation.

Then I saw heaven open and there was a white Horse. Its rider is called Faithful and True; it is with Justice that he judges and fights his battles. His eyes were like a flame of fire....

Flags, symbolically are thought to mean a triumphant advance and status; and were used in paintings to signify new beginnings- like John the Baptist was often painted carrying a flag.
~Rosanne
 

HoneyBea

Rosanne there is always something more you can teach me - thank you for your post, always informative. ;)

~HoneyBea~
 

Sunlit Wolf

Thanx

I thank you both HoneBea and Rosanne I appreciate all replies I receive and I know that I want to keep learning every day

I feel good about all the replies I have received and I hope others that read will learn something and make it grow like I have
Many thanks to all including Abrac
Sunlit Wolf
 

Freddie

Greetings

Here in England you will see that rose (or rosy cross) throughout most of the old Church of England churches.


freddie
 

inanna_tarot

Only noticed today with my PCS version that Deaths Horse has red eyes.. i cant see if it has red tipped ears of the Underworld though hehe.

I wonder why Death is in armour though.. ready to fight us from our graves as we cling to life thinking it is all we will ever experience?

Death has no scythe here but a White flag, to say he comes in peace? hmm just a bit of random waffle hehe
 

Peredur

Mystic Rose

The symbol on Death's flag is the Mystic Rose which can be found carved in stone at the south entrance of Tewkesbury Abbey.
 

kez

The rider on the horse is moving slowly bearing a banner with what I call the five petal mystic white rose wich really signifies life and not death.
The horseman is carry no weapons of any sort so it is not him that has done the damage. Strange that the Death card has been given the number XIII or 13 and M is the 13thy letter of the english alphabet and M is the only letter of the english alphabet when say it out loud your lips are shut all others letters your lips are open or expelling sound.. this could be signifying the Death depicted in the card.