Ironwing Xlll Death

[Mi-Shell]

Ironwing Xlll Death
When I pulled this card in my daily draw today I was very sattisfied. It is a good card for the task ahead and will give me the strength I need to do what needs to be done.
And I knew, that the corrosive tears that the skull weeps would mingle well with the ones I am to shed.

Here the information from the book and my musings and thoughs to follow...


The rusty mask shows the ultimate fate of all iron that is exposed to the earth's atmosphere.
Oxygen and water vapor return the metal to the same oxide minerals that are pictured on the Ore cards, since iron silicate and sulfide minerals in rocks are transformed in the same way through weathering. The mask weeps corrosive tears of salt crystals, a reminder that Death even when it is "natural" or welcome - is always a difficult and shocking change. Rusty steel is also a disturbing symbol of the destruction of civilization itself.
The skull sprouts crystals of vivianite, an iron phosphate mineral that forms when bone phosphates combine with iron oxide in water. Vivianite is the pigment blue ochre and the commercial "bluing" that protects steel. It gives a rare blue color to fossil bones and mammoth ivory. It sometimes crystallizes from ashes when a body is burned, forming the "jewel-like relics" of Tibetan Buddhism, the greenish-white glassy pebbles found in the ashes of funeral pyres. One of these pebbles hovers over the third eye of the mask. Below the skull are diagrams of human bone under the microscope. Details of the bone become a circle of flying vultures.
Any personification of Death is a mask, yet death also reveals truths that cannot be known any other way. The shaman learns to see this mask in her own face. The moment of death and the brief period of transition bring about strange fleeting transformations. A gate is open and the Otherworld intrudes upon everyday life as it does at no other time. There is much to be learned in facing this experience fully aware. It will energize the work of letting go and the difficult process of rebuilding and accepting new growth.

[Mi-Shell]

>>>> To me the Death Mask shows the ultimate fate for all of us in general and it is a befitting witness to my task ahead......


Before the new growth is to come I have to look into the eyes of death - literally.
Before me lies the lifeless body of an Owl.
My Spirit Guide, my Miahanit!!!!!
He - a male - was brought to me by the local vet, who knows, I will use the feathers. The vet had tried everything in her power and also had cried corrosive tears of defeat in the eyes of inevitable death.
(The Owl had crashed into a truck on the highway and was brought to the clinic. First everything looked fine: wings ok, No broken bones, no obvious injuries... But the damage was internal ... and all fighting and all praying did not help......)
Do you know, that Death looks beautiful?
The Death card, burned deeply into my inner eye is beautiful.
The Owl was still beautiful.
To a shaman nothing is ever dead.
Everything is alive and constantly transforming.
So I sing the “going home Chant” and go about the task at hand, making sure all feathers stay pristine, even the countless down.
to me today they are the jewel like relicts that will rise again, to fly, to soar catch and captivate sa soon as I attach them to my shamanistic art pieces.
There will be no funeral pyre. the body will be given to the ants, servants of the Earth Mother and Sisters to me. After a month I will be rewarded with a pristine scull, also jewel like greenish white and ready to be a powerful teaching tool or focal point for artwork.
Already Peter, tears in his eyes promises to cast it in Silver once we retrieve it...... Nothing is ever dead.
the card shows Details of bone becoming a circle of flying Vultures.
Are we the Vultures here? I ask myself.... Some may think so....
But no, the Vulture is right here, next to me.
Also brought out by the vet is a Vulture's wing.
Another Car-crash victim. Wing shattered and needed to be amputated.....
another sad story..... another Death! The Infection was too advanced and so in spite of modern medicine also the King of Death died.
and so the King of Death and the King of Healing will be flying through the gate of the Otherworld together......

.................................................. .................................................. ................
After the tears have dried up:

Who would want a Vulture Feather?????
Not anyone around here!
But wait!
There is the Xlll Death mask in all its beauty!
The Lovers of the Ironwing!
Would anyone of them want a Feather??
Nothing is ever dead!
Also Vulture will rise again!

[Hemera]

Thanks Mi-Shell! there´s not much to add to this because you wrote it so well already!

This card makes me remember the famous words by somebody (who was it?) that we are the essence of which stars are made. The Universe inside the eye of the skull and the Universe behind the blue vivianite: are they the same Universe, or different ones?

I first thought this is a scary card. Maybe seeing a skull is always a bit scary? But on reading the card description I realised the enormous depth of this Death card. It has so many layers and so many meanings..

I love the poems beside the card description (in the not-so-LWB). The Oldest River is my favorite..How "each of the rivers give a different tale of the crossing"..I think I will want to read and ponder those poems many times in the future..

[Debra]

Thanks, Mi-Shell. I have been finding many dead birds in the dunes behind our apartment. The water birds are dying as they seem to do this time of year, but the gulls and other flying birds are being killed by something in the dunes. Yesterday I saw a red fox! I believe the fox and his family are the culprits. I leave the bodies and check and if the skull and small bones dry cleanly I take them.

[Wendywu]

This is what I felt as I studied the card. I'm sorry it's probably not going to make that much sense. It's a visceral response to the image and the flood of thoughts, dreams, memories it brough with it

Here it is:


I just read “the House of Red Earth”. I actually live in a house made of red earth (sandstone) and built on red soil. The accent of the people in my town is called “redsoil” by the locals. Wow!

Resonance!!

I have been so close to death physically this last year.

I spent months acknowledging and accepting my coming death. And learning to see it as a gateway, not an ending.

And yes, I have grown in so many ways.

This card – Death – all the usual meanings. Letting go. Accepting new growth. Look at the beauty coming from apparent decomposition. The Vivianite is exquisite.

The card talks of gates to the Otherworld standing open.

Our deaths reveal our truths: how we face it? (both the death and the Otherworld)

We will all die – commonality of experience.

We all have things, experiences or people to let go of. Habits. Secrets.

The rusty decay – the skull itself changes! So our inner selves…..

Cut through bones: take an honest look at your core values, habits etc. See them as if exposed like these bones. How do they seem now?

Beauty permeates the inner eye. Light to you always – the skull is lit up…

We die in bright light, surrounded.
No quiet dark death for us.
No peace. Busy. Noise. Light.
Ah, let me die in the silent darkness.

Bite against the pain – giving up anything bloody hurts. And that’s OK. Cathartic. Sometimes dying hurts, yes? "Fear is the little death …."

See the sun in the skull’s eye. A new day dawns. (Spidery!!) Light after dark, always.

The blooms of bone and iron decaying – forming something new and beautiful. Shedding the old. Letting go. The bones are dead. Let go.

This card is an emotional whoosh! Tremendous visual impact.

Vultures flying in the cut through bones. Always vultures to pick over the dead and dying – whatever it is that dies. Are you the dying or the vulture?

God that salt’s gonna hurt. Like surgical spirit poured straight on top of weeping eczema - I remember that one .....

That third eye – a sinuous handle attached. Strange eyebrow. Odd spoon. (What do third eyes hold?) - or a snake, tempting and teaching.

I love the wavy tentacles. So easy to get caught in ….. so hard to free yourself from.

Stars blaze down – cold, passionless watchers.

Crystals embedded in the skull. Look through their windows with your own third eye. Where do you go? What do you see?

Beauty in the naked bones – on so many levels.


I'm sorry it probably isn't all that clear to anyone else. But it's what the card brings me....

[Mi-Shell]

do not feel sorry!
This is a strong post!
from one who KNOWS.
It is, what a person writes, that has danced with Death -
not on Halloween
with a funky costume on.
But in the darkness of her own mortality.
An intimate and passionate tango.
Death and you -
Lovers...
Letting go of each other
for a little while....
'til the next fleeting embrace....
I know the steps - -
the music - -
the rhythm - -
the embrace - -

[Surja76]

Great Deck, I have never seen it before..


May be I am wrong, but I think the main subject of this card is Thanksgiving Day.

We can see cold skull with winter cold crystals.
We can see profile of Indian man.
And.. What can I see it is the body of Turkey. May be I am wrong but I see long turkey beard, tuft... heavy turkey body.

It is about USA History.

First Englishmen colonists settled in USA in November 1620. They were not used to the severe weather conditions of a new continent.
More than half of the estimated hundreds of arrivals could not survive the harsh winter and died from cold, hunger and disease. Survivors founded the colony and in the spring with the help of local Indians, taught them how culture and how to grow in this inhospitable rocky soil, began farming. Suddenly, a rich harvest was a reward for their efforts. The first colonists Governor invited Indians to spend with them a day bringing gratitude to the Lord.
Pilgrims invited the leader and another 90 of the Indian tribe, which has helped them to survive in unfamiliar surroundings. This meal shared with the Indians, and became the first celebration of Thanksgiving Day.
At the first festival of the colonists and the Indians roasted and ate together four turkeys, a shot in the nearby woods.

[Milfoil]

What strikes me right now about this card is the time taken for these changes to occur. It takes a long time for these crystals to grow, for the skull to turn from bone to mineral and often we just want the pain of death to be over with, done, finished but that's not often the way of death. Profound change takes time.

Bones take time to form, crystals take time to form, we take time to form and change.

Time is necessary not an enemy to fight against or fear.

[Wendywu]

Excellent point Millie Nothing worth having is instant..... and if what's through those Gates isn't worth having - then all of us have somehow got on the same wrong track together - and I don't think that's true ....

Time is what all it takes and what it all takes; the key is, I think, to relish the moment. Beyond a healthy care for the future (workwise etc) - try and live totally in the now and use the time we've been given well.

There's no point whatsoever being frightened of moving on - we can't exactly not do it - better by far to accept the inevitable and then learn to enjoy the time between now and then.

This is a wonderful card - it has so much to teach and say.

[Mi-Shell]

The other day the question came up, how do you read this card, if Death does not mean "death"
Here are my thoughts to that:

Well..…
When Death is not Death, we are kidding ourselves about something.
What is it?
What do we not want to face right now?
What is not appropriate?

What “should not be here”???
What is “there” with us right now, that is unavoidable?

Aaaand:
Time is up!!!
On what????
Where are we prooooooocraaaaaastina….and so never find the END
=”ting”!!wake up!!
When we do not find / face the end of “that” we can not begin something new = birth new life into …. Something

Massive change!!
coming or needed
Stop it!!!!!!!
Do not beat a dead horse! let it go

To avoid Death – for now – for RIGHT now, THIS minute we have to LIVE!!!
Are you?
Are you fully present?