Death Card: more
perspectives
Oh, oh! Surprise! What comes to mind when you get the “Death”
card in a Tarot reading? “Now what does that card mean”? Some traditional Tarot
interpretations associate concepts like “ending” and “transformation” with this
card. Most likely, it could just indicate
an end to some situation or event, depending on what one is asking. We know conditions
and places change and things end. Change usually consists of getting rid of the
old to prepare for the new. So, it could mean the end of an era and the
beginning of a new one. The key words for this card are “end” and “change.” No
matter what kind of transformation may be taking place, it can be a time of
letting go of old beliefs and considering something new. Or, you might ask if
this means your impending demise. Yes, it could also mean the end of life in
the physical body.
In the movie “Moonstruck,” Rose (Olympia Dukakis) asks Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello)
“Why do men chase women?’ He is thoughtful and says, “because they fear death.”
Screenwriter,
John P. Shanley (See my blog on “The
Lovers,” June, 2017)
When you get the Death card in Tarot do you experience that kind of fear, the fear of leaving this
earthly existence, of
not being “me” anymore, or of someone else not here anymore? We think of the actual death experience as an
exit from the material, physical life on earth, because, at some point, the
scythe of time and/or aging, catches up with everyone. When you get the Death
card in a reading you may think of turning to spiritual concerns. What about
your spiritual life? The question of immortality comes up. In a religious
context, you may wonder: Is there life after death, a heaven or hell, reincarnation? A form of
resurrection? On the other hand, some might think we just go off into nothingness.
Do you wonder if there is life on another plane or in some other dimension? You
might ask: ”Do I continue to exist in consciousness? Does my personality
disappear? Will I still have an identity? Or is it ‘dust to dust,’ and I vanish
in some ghostly ephemeral mist.” What about “oneness” with the Universe? Some
might think they are going to be one with the Mind (God, The Great Spirit, etc.)
of the Universe and life is eternal. These are questions we all must deal with
sometime in our lives, and more so as we age. And yes, there are those who believe it is the end. “That’s it, time’s up, bye!” (Reference: Mircea Eliade examines all these questions
at great length in his book, A History of
Religious Ideas, University of Chicago Press, 1978).
From another perspective, let’s examine several different
cultural and religious views about death in former civilizations. Researchers
and historians have written volumes about the religious art and artifacts of
ancient cultures that deal with death. Symbolic paintings, sculptures, and
earthworks, inform us of early sacred practices. The following is a brief
synopsis of how other societies have dealt with beliefs about death and dying
in the past. This includes ancient Egyptian Cosmology; early European Celtic Pagan
rituals; Christian dogma; Buddhist philosophy; and embodiment of the
supernatural by North American Indigenous people.
Old Europe Megalithic
Cultures: 3,000 B.C.E. (Barrows, Stonehenge, Avebury, Carnac)
In Neolithic times in England, great tombs were constructed
of giant stones for communal burials—such as West Kennett Long Barrow. Large
numbers of people were buried there and in other similar barrows. Michael Dames in The Avebury Cycle (Thames and
Hudson, 1977) mentions that the plan of the hollow barrow chambers form
a figure of the “squatting harvest goddess,” Mother Earth
reclaiming her
children. In Carnac, France, some 800 huge stones were aligned in long rows
obviously for some significant purpose. Perhaps elaborate festivals and dances were
carried out in connection with a “cult of the dead.” It may have been a place
where they could communicate with their ancestors as they walked in long
processions among the stones. These early peoples venerated sacred stones,
springs, and groves of trees. In her Tarot deck, Caitlyn Matthews, has created
a Death card portraying the Mother Earth Goddess as “Cailleach” or “Sheila na
Gig” in the Celtic tradition: “…all beings now alive return to the earth
through her on death.”
The Celtic Wisdom Tarot, (Destiny Books, 1999)
“…all Old European burials were, in
various forms, a return to the body of the Mother for regeneration within the
womb of nature.”
Marija Gimbutus,
The Civilization of the Goddess, (HarperCollins,
1991)
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| Celtic Wisdom Tarot |
Egyptian mummies,
pyramids, elaborate tombs —Tutankhamun,
1336 B.C.E.
Q. Why did the Egyptians mummify the body?
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| The Egyptian Tarot |
A. Preparing the Pharaoh for immortality: There is an
interesting commentary on ancient Egyptian burial traditions by Charles Musés
in his book, The Lion Path. (Golden Sceptre Publishing, 1985) He talks about
the mummy as characteristic of the metamorphosis of a butterfly or in King
Tuts’ case a scarab, their sacred
beetle. Several crossed wings inlaid in gold and semi-precious stones are seen on
Tutankhamun’s coffin, symbolic of protective goddesses, vultures, falcons and scarabs.
Musés
suggests the sarcophagus imitates an insects’ chrysalis case where the caterpillar
undergoes a complete transformation. The pupa’s organs were dissolved and a new
creature emerged. The mummy and coffin
symbolized the same sort of transformation for the waiting body of the deceased.
A jeweled pectoral ornament containing a
chalcedony carving of a scarab with
falcon feet was placed on Tuts’ body. King
Tutankhamun’s mummy was placed in a solid gold coffin where, as Mercea Eliade
writes, “…death constitutes the point of departure for his celestial journey
and his ‘immortalization.’” This was emblematic of the winged scarab adult who
eventually emerges and flies to a new existence. The theme of these elaborate
funerary customs was “existence after rebirth,” and the burial chamber may have
been viewed as a “birth chamber.” This signified the regeneration of an immortal
body whose goal was to reunite with the divine. But first, according to The Book of the Dead, (E.A. Wallis Budge, British Museum, 1895) the ethical
behavior of the soul had to be weighed on the scales of Justice —against
a feather—which
was called Maat (Truth). Paintings and hieroglyphs depicting
these rituals can still be seen on the walls of several burial chambers. Anubis,
the Jackal-headed Neter, guided the deceased through the underworld where the departed
was to recite 42 negative confessions before 42 judges in the Hall of Justice. (Oops, there’s that number 42 again [“…the answer to
life, the universe, and everything,”]) as told by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). The
dead either went to the stars, or to the underworld, depending on their
answers. Sylvana Alasia who designed The
Egyptian Tarot, (Scarabeo, 1998)
painted the Death card with the black dog figure of Anubis.
(Reference: Tutankhamun,
Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, Little,
Brown & Co. 1977)
“By maintaining the condition of the
physical vehicle, the soul was able to continue its existence in the unknown
world of the Duat.”
Moustafa Gadalla, Egyptian
Cosmology, (Bastet Publishing, 1977)
Ancient Greek—gods, goddesses, and trip to the underworld (Demeter [Ceres] 1400
B.C.E.)
The Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greeks celebrated the story of
Demeter, goddess of grain, and agriculture, and Persephone, maiden of the
spring, where secret religious rites were conducted in the form of mystery plays.
These metaphorical rituals may have been aligned with seasonal changes—in
spring, the planting of crops, and later, the death and decay of the plants in
the winter. Persephone was abducted from her mother by Hades, (Pluto) the god of death, and taken to the underworld. Overcome with grief,
Demeter caused droughts and devastation of trees and crops. Because of her
lamentations, Zeus allowed Persephone to come back in the Spring, but because
she ate some pomegranate seeds, she must return to the underworld for four
months every year (fall, winter).
“I begin to sing of Demeter the Holy
Goddess with the beautiful hair and her daughter Persephone too. The one with
the delicate ankles whom Hades seized.”
Homer’s Hymn to Demeter
Buddhism (Siddhartha Buddha 483-400 B.C.E.)
In the Bardol Thodöl of Tibetan Buddhism, there are 49 days in which
the deceased person is assisted in reaching “Amitabha” aided by the continuous
chanting of Llamas. Amitabha is the Buddha of pure perfection and the “infinite
Light.” In Buddhist teachings, there are two realities—the ultimate reality and
the unreal conventional reality. (Huh?) One of the goals of a meditative
practice is to comprehend “emptiness.” This doesn’t mean phenomena are states
of “nothingness,” or annihilation, but are conditions that do not exist within
themselves. Philippe Cornu, in his book, Tibetan
Astrology, (Shambhala, 2002) describes the ephemeral appearance of the
rainbow as an example. Scientifically, we know it is caused by sunlight seen through
water droplets, which produce a prismatic arrangement of colors, yet it has no
existence in itself. It’s only seen in
the sky for a few moments. In the same way, in Buddhist thought, the “I” or
“me” can be an image in the “mind’s eye.” The “self,” me, is an energetic
mental construction of thoughts and ideas, yet it is impermanent, always
fleeting and changing. This is the ultimate in logic where consciousness cannot
be seen or felt physically. There is no scientific answer that explains
consciousness or aliveness. It is more
of a cosmic atmosphere of “I am” somewhere. This is a vastly different way of
thinking about oneself than the western mind is used to. For example: visually,
we see that a table and chair seem to exist, but everything we think about the
table and chair, including their visual image, is made up in our minds—a mental
construction. Our thoughts about them is not the actual reality of the table
and the chair.
Early
Christian—Jesus, miracles, healing, resurrection—AD 30, Judea (John 19:14)
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| Universal Waite Deck |
How did Jesus wake Lazarus from what appeared to be a dead state and enable
him to walk out of the tomb? A miracle? (See John 11:38) In Christian
thought, the anonymous author of the book Meditations
on the Tarot, says that our whole life is a miracle—a miracle of living
life—aliveness, consciousness. What happened to Jesus? From the story told in
the New Testament, somewhere around 30 A.D., Jesus was crucified on a cross by
the Romans, buried in a tomb, and three days later was resurrected —raised from
a dead state and then ascended. (See John 19:16) Previously
he raised Lazarus from death. Even after he saw that Lazarus was dead, he brought
him back to life. In our secular age, for some, this
sounds like wishful thinking—a fantasy that we cannot reconcile in our minds.
So, it’s important to ask if there is some other spiritual meaning in this. St.
Paul, who saw the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, writes in his
letter to the Romans “For the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.”
(See Rom.8) What does this mean? Commenting on what St. Paul
said, the great Abbess of the 12th Century, Hildegard of Bingen,
says: “You are not sons of the devil but
heirs of the celestial kingdom.”
These mysteries show the end of the world
when temporal time is changed into
the eternity of God who has no end.
Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias, translated by Bruce Hozeski (Bear & Company, 1986)
In “Revelation,” St. John says in a vision: “And I saw and behold a pale horse and its riders’ name was death and
Hades followed him” (Rev.6:7-8). This rider
is often seen in some Tarot decks such as “The Universal Waite Deck,” (US Games System, 1990) based on the 1910 version of Rider Waite Tarot Deck by Arthur Edward
Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Christian churches worldwide,
especially Catholic churches, are yet today, filled with paintings and
sculptures depicting Jesus, the disciples, and saints. Of course, during the “Reformation,”
in an act of piety, many churches in Europe were stripped of these artifacts.
Indigenous
people of the Americas’ (Northwest tribes,
totem poles, heraldic crests 1800’s)
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| Tsimshian Totem |
Many Northwest tribes: Tsimshian, Tlinglet, Haida, Bella Coola, and
Salish, were found by early European explorers to have small villages with Cedar
wood-planked houses fronted by huge beautifully carved and painted totem poles.
Most poles contained totem animals and heraldic signs of different clans such
as Beaver, Bear, Eagle and Wolf. There were some with figures that told stories
about supernatural beings such as Copper Woman, shape-shifting Bear Woman,
Thunderbird, and the cannibalistic giant, Dzunakwa, a forest monster (Bigfoot?) Some
poles were topped with a mortuary box containing the remains of a deceased
ancestor. There were also four posted mortuary boxes hidden in the woods constructed
on high platforms above ground where the deceased was placed. It was believed
that the souls of the dead passed into the spirit world. (Reference: Totem Poles, Pat
Kramer, Heritage House Publishing, 2008)
“It was an austere, sophisticated art. Its
prevailing mood was classical control, yet it characterized even the simplest
objects of daily life.
These sea-going hunters took the entire
environment as an art form.”
Bill Reid, Out of the Silence, (Amon Carter Museum, 1971).
