78 Weeks: (Death)

[gregory]

Death - Revelations Tarot
First impressions
BLOOD ! The card is very, very red – a deep and sinister red. It looks at first alarming.

From the book
Upright
Kali does her fluid dance. She sings a tune that marks the end.
Something painful in life is about to come to an end. The Death card symbolizes the death of any horrid situations or trying times that may be affecting the inquirer. It also heralds a time of change that will be experienced shortly after the end. Major changes lie ahead.
In a situation, this card symbolizes the end of any projects, relationships, or dialogue the inquirer has entered. The end has come for the situation because it has finally reached its lifespan. One has to remember that nothing lasts forever.
Reversed
With every end comes a new beginning.
The aftermath of death brings the hope of rebirth. Here a new beginning is to start from the remains of the previous situation. The future looks brighter than before as something new has come into your life.
In a situation, the reverse of this card marks the beginning of something new from the ruins of the previous situation. New projects are to come to light and new hope will bring forth the slow and steady growth of something better.
Images and Symbolism
The skull, the black lotus, and the scythe are all icons associated with death.
Kali is the goddess of death in Hindu traditions.
On the reverse, the baby amongst the bloodied tendrils shows that even from dramatic change can some new hope blossom.

Traditional meanings
Upright: Transformation, making way for the new, unexpected change, loss, failure, illness or death, bad luck.
Reversed: Stagnation, immobility, slow changes, a narrow escape, cheating death.
My impressions:
UprightWe have Kali, a blue figure with her many arms, dancing on a jaw bone (apparently human, with plenty of teeth) in front of a black lotus flower. There is fire behind her.
Reversed A newborn baby, surrounded by blood full of writhing red tentacles – or maybe it is a foetus still attached to the placenta – it is hugging one of the tentacles.

Although it comes over as very bloody, it isn’t as scary as my first look suggested. The multi-armed Kali is calm and collected – bringing an end to someone or something, but without rancour. Any actual death is a peaceful one. The baby/foetus gives one standard reverse meaning – as some books give the card as upright meaning death; reverse meaning birth. I don’t see it that way myself, but for those who do, this card would be a classic. For me, such a dichotomy is altogether too stark.

I like this card. I didn’t when I first looked at it – which would be unfortunate as I like this deck, and death is an important card for me.

All the cards from this deck can be viewed here.

 

[nicky]

Death - RSW plus my mish mash of notes

13 Death
The Child of the Great Transformers Lord of the Gates of Death
Scorpio
Nun
Water
Path 24: 6 Tipareth to 7 Netzach - The Beauty of Victory

An armored skeleton rides a white horse, carrying a flag with a white rose.
He rides over a body unnoticing, moving towards a child, a young girl and a king. None are exempt from his power. The king is praying, the maid turns her head but the child is fearless; looking straight at death and holding flowers. In the distance the sun is rising between two stark towers. There is a ship in the distance heading towards the scene. A small cave is pointed out by an arrow and leads to the moon. After the hanged man, the fool now acknowledges the death of the old.

In a reading: Death can mean death. Death can represent an end of an aspect of life, be it relationship, career, phase or way of life. The Death card can appear when facing significant life- changing events, such as a divorce, a marriage, inevitable endings, sudden change, death of the old self, leaving home for the first time, relocating, changing jobs, having a baby, or actual death. There may be changes needed to make, but which are resisted. Additional meanings are change and transformation. You must leave the past behind to make way for necessary change in your life. This can be ending of a cycle, loss, conclusion, transition into a new state, psychological transformation, finishing up, elimination of old patterns, closing one door to open another, putting the past behind you, a parting of the ways, moving from the known to the unknown, eliminating excess, cutting out what isn't necessary, accepting the inevitable.

<love this quote>...all manifestations, however glorious, however delightful, are stains. To obtain perfection, all existing things must be annihilated. The destruction of the garrison may therefore be taken to mean their emancipation from the prison of organized life, which was confining them. It was their unwisdom to cling to it. -- Aleister Crowley

Reversed: The Death card can be resisting necessary changes, not moving on when you should. Being stuck and holding on to something which is over or needs to end. Something is being ended against wishes. Being in limbo. Fear of change. It can represent clinging to the past, stagnation. Inertia, lethargy, hopes destroyed. Grief, Disaster, Destruction, Upheaval, Depression, Self-loathing, Resisting Transformation. Impossible to move on.

 

[jmd]

Life is made abundant by death.

 

[Tesseljoan]

78 Weeks – XIII

So, a nameless skeleton with a scythe. What else could he be but Death? That was what I’ve been wondering the past week. This card has no name, but why would you not name something so obvious? In the past week, I’ve been trying to get past my own notion that this card represents death, to see if it could tell me something new.

The skeleton is man stripped down to its very essence. However, the essence apparently has no identity in the way that we know it. Since it is part of a bigger whole it has no need for a name to distinguish itself from itself.

In this particular card, there seems to be a little foot near the pelvis of the skeleton. It makes me feel like he’s trying to reassemble itself from the severed limbs that are lying on the ground. It’s an awkward way of putting oneself together. Why would you want to use used parts for yourself? In an emotional response I figured that having no name and no identity of your own, like you used to have, must be a terrible feeling at first. I could imagine scraping together random body parts to try and make myself a separate entity again.

Human beings are sprouting through the earth. The skeleton harvests them with its scythe. He does that before the humans are completely formed. We never get a chance to pop through the soil properly, we are cut off, harvested before we are in our prime. What we think we are, is mangled and tossed to the ground. Only the nameless skeleton remains.

I feel empty after doing this card.

 

[coyoteblack]

78 weeks of study DruidCraft Death

Physical Description:
An older woman most likely the triple goddess in her crone form stands over a cauldron. She holds a skull and has a sickle on her belt ,and is in mostly green with a red sash over her arms. The cauldron is bronze and has what looks like the “ chase” engraved on the rim. She in a cave near a river, with a burial mound in the background across the river. There is a snake over her head and an eagle flying over her. It looks like dawn is coming.
Behind her there is a face of a man in the wall , as well as 2 vases with a face on one and a stretched out figure on the other , both look male.

First impression:
I feel like this is in the bayou in Louisiana, very mysterious and foreboding. Then I see the loving look on the goddess face, The eagle in the sky is the same at the one in the emperor, also the snake behind, and above her is all about transformation.. Now I feel like there is much more to this card that I am not seeing. It is like she can See beyond the Vail into the other side. I defiantly get the feeling that there is more to be reviled.

Mode , Element , Number

Mode- This card asks if you are ready for change? If you understand one cycle has to end before another begins.

Number – 4- Is about stability, structure, a holding pattern , for this card it reminds us death is that point where we are stable enough to make a change . we are ready to let go of the old and get ready for the new. On the bad side it can be stagnant and the fear of change will not let us go forward.

Element- Water- Water is about emotions but I think here it is more about flow . This card in its best light is about the natural ending of one situation and the beginning of another . the flow of one to another. On the bad side it is like the 4 of cups, stagnant water is not flowing, fear of change is scary and we can not progress in life until we change.

Talking with the card: I asked her what the men are behind her, she said” It is the face of the god to remind her of him when he is gone” also I got the impression it was the male god she was putting in the cauldron. when he is reborn she is in her younger guise.

Earlier in the week when I asked the card to show me what I need to learn about the card some thing happened in this reality .

I was in an AA meeting and one of the guy's said before closing “ The old alcoholic, deceiving, bad me is dead “ , "I am a new person in recovery."
I think the above statement is so true of the card

Bringing it all together
Between the number and the eagle you can see this card relates to the emperor . I believe this card it is about the natural order of things. Scorpio rules this card and there is a lot water which I think softens the emperor a little bit. But also this card is about ebb and flow. The dawn . the snake and the cauldron of rebirth are about ending of one part and beginning of another.

Unlike other death cards you can see the compassion in the goddess's face, and she is about to place the skull in the cauldron. The burial mound way in the back talks about and ending.

Looking at this card I think more about Baptism, or what a caterpillar goes through before it turns into a butterfly, only I think this card is just as much about the cocoon as it is bout the butterfly.

Good , The Bad, And the Indifferent

Good: Accepting change because for a new beginning we need the old to die. We can not grown with out change and if we are not growing eventually we will decay. The beginning of transformation

Bad. Unwilling to accept change, Hanging on to status quo. afraid to move forward , stagnation

Indifferent: Change for change sake , a new cycle is started . Like the phoenix rising from its own ashes.

 

[Jewel]

A bit more catching up with my posts!

DECK: CELTIC DRAGON
DEATH:

DESCRIPTION OF THE IMAGE:
A white dragon fill almost the entire card, its neck stretched up and back and its mouth open. Its wings are also stretched. It has one paw raised. It is shedding black skin that looks like it is mantling off the dragon. A bean of light shines down over the dragon’s face. The area where the dragon is, is bare ground with rocks and a couple of small trees with no leaves. The sky is dark. The dragon is holding on to two rocks with its talons.

DESCRIPTION OF EMOTION:
The dragon looks to be going through a painful transformation, yet is going from black to white and bathed in light giving the sense of hope once the transformation is complete. A necessary transformation, but a painful one.

NUMBER 13: 13 reduced equals 1+ 3 = 4 – Fours are about resolution, accumulation, building a solid foundation, control, power, dimensionality, and limits. There is the Magic of the Magician, the love and growth of the Empress and the end result a solidness that I also see in the Emperor.
NOTE: Please note that key words were selected from a list based on their relevance to the image on this particular Death card.

MODE/SUIT/ELEMENT:
MODE: Major Arcana – answers “why” the “who” is in the “what”. They are the lesson to be learned in the situation or the archetypal energy being expressed.

SUIT: N/A

ELEMENT: Water – feeling, flowing, yielding.

MEANINGS:
The CD book says that in this card we are seeing a black dragon shedding its skin and turning into a white dragon. He is emerging to new identity. His wings and the posture of head are of triumph, and the beam of light is the moment of victory. It is a rebirth into something better.

In relation to 78 DW, my primary source for this 78 week study, talks about how we seek meaning in death because we fear it. The fear is driven by the ego, we fear the loss of personality. 78 DW goes on to say that the card is not about transformation but about the specific moment in which we “give up old masks and allow transformation to take place. The color black symbolizes the source of life as well as its end. It absorbs all colors just as death absorbs individual lives. White repels colors and symbolizes purity and nothingness at the same time. The white rose in the RWS then stands for the desires being purified, as when the ego dies so do our selfish and repressive needs. Ms. Pollack goes on to talk about the #13 and how it reduces to 4. In this she talks of 13 being a higher power of 3 (Empress) and how in nature death is a natural part of life and are inseparable. She also talks about the 4 (Emperor) as overcoming our “outer social selves” through death. A release so to speak.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
To me the CD Death card is the most beautiful and profound of any other Death card from any other deck I have used or studied. It encompasses what Ms. Pollack describes, and through the image on the card you can actually feel the experience. There is nothing I would change of any aspect of this card. It puts us in the spotlight in the moment the mask comes off, and how painful yet hopeful an experience it can be.

The CD book does not do real justice to this masterpiece.

 

[The Guided Hermit]

VIA Tarot

Card name—Death


First impressions—The VIA Death card breaks from tradition. Though the image is shockingly physical, the VIA and takes this card to a higher and more cerebral place.

One has a strong sense of juxtaposition in this card. The lower third contains a pair of beautiful, fleshy hands that hold a glowing white orb. Death in this card is a skull—Death’s head. The head is fleshless but with the right eye intact, staring into the orb.

In the center of Death’s forehead is a circle of illumination which is carved a pentagram.

In the VIA trump, Death wears a black robe with a cowl.

The background infuses an ink black sky in the upper left with nebula and galaxies and stars.

The bottom of the card retains the VIA classic pure white upturned arcs.


What the CREATOR says —Transformation, either voluntary or otherwise, sudden and dramatic. Principle of change in action, regardless of the consequences on the physical plane. If badly aspected, it may suggest misfortune or loss. Primal creative energies break out of the void and begin to coalesce.


Traditional Keyword Meanings (Bunning)—Ending; Transition; Elimination; Inexorable forces

Images and Symbolism—
• In keeping with the original Golden Dawn concept, this skeleton has not lost all of it’s muscle or skin.
• The skeleton stares from a living eye in its left socket. This relates to the Major Arcana Devil card.
• The missing eye refers to the myth of Odin’s painful and protracted initiation on the World-Tree and is also reminiscent of the elongated goat’s head skull also found in the Devil card.
• Above the eye sockets of the death’s head, above the position of the third eye, is a glowing pentagram. It symbolizes the life force that still courses through the desiccated skull.
• The background of starry sky speckled with nebulae and strange galaxies suggests the Reshith-ha-Gilgulim or “First Swirlings” of Kether as the primal creative energies break out of the void and begin to coalesce.


Spirit – How I relate spiritually to this card: I am not moved spiritually by this card. I do find it very interesting.


Emotional – How I relate emotionally to this card: I find this card…evocative and yet cold. There is a sense of life beyond the void.


Physical – My physical connection to this card: None. We all die and if we live properly, we all transform.


Beneficial – I feel the most beneficial aspect of this card is…it signals transformation.


Problematic – I feel the most problematic aspect of this card is….alarm when first encountered by a querant.

What the card means to me—Major transformation; moving into a new world; re-birth. This is a card of advancement, of new opportunity to begin yet again.

 

[Sinduction]

Vargo's Death

This is another card that I am not crazy about. I just find it lacking. For the other cards to be so ornate and fully realized, this one looks like it was drawn quickly, as an afterthought. And this is usually my favorite card in a deck!

Blah, blah, a skeleton with a scythe, a raven, a cross marking a grave, red sky, quarter moon.

It's just so cliche and exactly what I see in "normal" decks. I was so hoping this Death would be uber goth. Not the case.

So then, what do I have to add about this card? Nothing. Because it's like every other death card.

Things die, the raven eats it, we mark graves to remember what once was, and life goes on....

 

[Llynn]

78 Weeks: Death – The Shining Woman Tarot

There is so much green in this card – the green of growth and regeneration, even the sky is green! The sun in this green sky has four straight rays and four wavy lines which bring to mind the quarter and cross-quarter days of the year. In Britain the four tides of the solar year move from the Cleansing tide (winter solstice to spring equinox), to the Growing tide (spring equinox to summer solstice), then the Harvesting tide (summer solstice to autumn equinox) and finally the Assessing tide (autumn equinox to winter solstice). The cycle then repeats itself and so the seasons change, naturally transforming from one to the other year after year.

The figure of Death is somewhat grim – the face mask resembles a skull, but this first impression changes when other factors are taken into account. Death wears a terracotta coloured gown decorated with a butterfly and a fish. The cocoon from the shield of Strength has transformed into the butterfly – the caterpillar’s earthbound existence has been left behind for an airborne life-style. The “psyche”, Greek for butterfly and soul, flies free – blown by the wind or the spirit. Fish are not only symbols of the self swimming in the unconscious awaiting the saving transformation that self-knowledge will bring, but through the abundance of their eggs, fish also signify fertility.

Behind the figure of Death is a purple box one side of which is decorated with a bird. I thought this bird represented the phoenix, rising from its ashes, but according to the book it is a dove, the companion of Aphrodite the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality. So this is not only the goddess of death but also the goddess of love, and many civilisations had goddesses who governed war, life and death, sex and fertility. In front of Death are two flowers and here is another reference to sex – as far as the plant is concerned these flowers are there for one purpose only – procreation and the survival of the species. Human beings may appreciate the beauty of the flowers but to the plant they are a means to an end – pure and simple.

The lid of the box is open and from it come coloured streamers fluttering in the breeze. At the end of one streamer is a face – that of Pandora who loosed all of mankind’s ills into the world, but she also released hope.

In our heart of hearts we know that we live only because of the death of other living things – animal, vegetable, human. ‘In the midst of life we are in death.’ Let us not forget this truth: we are born and we will die. No matter what our position in society, no matter how we approach it, the end result is the same. Death is the great leveller.

Death in The Shining Woman Tarot holds two globes of golden light – ‘the radiant Sun of spiritual truth.’ Maybe Death is not the end. Instead it is the means to an end.

 

[PAMUYA]

Legacy of the Devine Tarot-Death

This is a beautiful card..one which is frightning, but well done;

Death can be a frightful thought, such permanence, and such loss. But this is not death in body, but of ideas, of situations, big changes in your life. A time of transition. An old attitude must die, for a new one to prosper.

In this Death card by Ciro, a skull over looks the card with a chain of Pluto hanging from it. In the background is the shadow of a horseman. In the foreground a dead bird, but from this ground arises a white rose, new growth.

Change: many people fear this, to let go of what is comfortable for the unknown. This is not a card of death, but of transformation to the next level of life. Death is a card of forced change. Destruction followed by renewal. Courage is required to adapt, move forward and grow. If you hold back these changes, Death will return again. Let go of old attitudes and high expectations which are holding you back. Let Death take place so renewal can begin.

Direct: Fresh start, new beginnings, opportunity, putting the past behinde you, shedding old attitudes, riding your fate, the ending of something

Reversed: Stagnant, lack of change, stuck