TRUMP 13 - DEATH
If you haven't already, spend a few minutes just looking at this card. It says much about the mortal human condition, and it says much about the spiritual pathway. We have just come through the experience of the hanged man. The ego is beginning to die, and the aspirant for God is seeking to have his self will submerged into the glorious ocean of God's will.
After that, comes death. Jesus was willing to die to His self, was placed upon the cross, and died. This is a card of darkness and hope, although the hope is not easily perceived. Death is death, and it is never easy nor pretty. There is a myth in America today of “the good death.” The myth basically goes that if we live a nice life, and we are good people, and we take care of our bodies, then at some point we will peacefully, painlessly pass into the arms of our Savior and we will be given the final gift, that of a good death. This is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow--the final reward, the blue ribbon for those who have lived the proper life. This myth causes untold suffering, because, that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is available to practically no one. Those who have studied death will tell you that less than 3% of the people on this earth will experience the good death, and even if they do somehow wind up slipping into the unknown peacefully, it is much more often than not because they're in some form of a coma after a prolonged illness.
The number of people who live healthy, long, fulfilling lives, go to bed one night and wake up dead without any struggle or pain, are such a small minority of the populous that they may as well not exist. Yet people continually strive after this vision, this dream, this hope. They feel guilt and their pain is exponentially multiplied when they watch a loved one suffer in death. The feelings of guilt and the feelings of sorrow come from the sensation that if we had lived a better life or if we had loved our wife or child better, that somehow this wouldn't have happened. None of this is true. Death is death.
We perpetuate this myth within the Christian church. Easter morning is usually severely misplaced. We have a Good Friday service, which seldom is attended in large numbers in any church or denomination, and that service is usually one of great peace. The candles are lit and subdued; we sing gentle hymns. We have a wonderful little germinate about how beautiful is the gift that God has given us, and we go from the peace and the tranquility of Good Friday to the glorious Resurrection Sunday of Easter. The trumpets blare, everybody wears their new Spring/Easter outfits. The flowers are budding, the birds are singing, the choirs scream the ecstasy of God at the top of their lungs. It's all understandable, but it is all wrong. It has nothing to do with history. It has nothing to do with our lives.
The history of the Gospels is much closer to the truth of our lives. What is that history? You know it very well. Jesus died on a cross, a very unpleasant, nasty, miserable, painful death. To imagine he did not suffer is truly one of the most psychotic ideas that human beings have come up with. The physical pain was immense. Crucifixion was designed by the Romans for a very specific purpose. Its purpose was to make the victim suffer. They knew a certain technique that would extract the pain and anguish as long as anything that they could imagine, and the way that a human body was strung up on a cross was to provide the crucified person with two options. Number 1, was to hang loosely from the arms as the wrists were pinned to the cross beam. That would enable him to get some rest from his feet, but it would also cause the lungs to collapse, and create incredible pressure upon the heart and the lungs--a most unpleasant experience.
If the crucified person tired of that, then he could stand up, relieve the pressure on his arms and his lungs and his heart by putting the weight of his body upon this nail that was pounded through his feet. The crucified person would struggle for hours, caught between the anguish of the sharp pain in the feet and the strangling convulsive pull of the lungs being crushed by the rib cage, until finally, the crucified would lose all energy, pass out and ultimately die from strangulation. No more air could get into the lungs.
Even if you are the Holy Son of God, this is not a fun thing to go through. And, when on Good Friday we commemorate death with these sweet little songs and these tender little meditations, we whitewash and profane history. The history of the death of Jesus is the history of pain, suffering, blood and filth.
In exactly the same way, we profane the message of Easter. Because on the following Sunday after Jesus was buried, the women and disciples wound their way to the tomb at one time or another, and found that the tomb was empty. There were no trumpets blaring. There were no angelic children running around hunting for Easter eggs. There was no great dance and celebration and Easter breakfast. There were scared, frightened people hiding for their lives. Their leader had just been crucified, and their greatest fear was that they would be next. In their fear and in their anguish and in their aloneness, they went and found a tomb that was empty. This compounded their fear; this compounded their anxiety. They heard a message from an angel saying that He is not here, He is not dead, He has risen. Not a one of them believed this initially. It took them days, months, and years to fully comprehend all that this meant.
So you see death is always much more painful than in our imaginings, and resurrection is much more laborious, gradual process than we wish to confess.
All of that is addressed in this card. Death is pain; death is suffering; death is loss. Deal with it. The Bible is about death. The Bible is about blood. The Bible is about pain. There are nearly a thousand verses in the Bible which refer to death, dying and the dead. If one were to print all of these verses out on 8 1/2” x 11” paper, the document would be over 60 pages long.
It is forever true, that one cannot begin to live until we are prepared to die. Death is the great equalizer. It affects the young and the old, the good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the famous and infamous. And, absolutely no one can escape it.
Now there is another fantasy, which we have approached previously, that has developed within western civilization--that all death resulted from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There are forests in South Africa, and there are jungles in the world that have not seen a human being for hundreds of millions of years, if ever. And, to believe that the constant cycle of death and rebirth that we find in that jungle is a result of Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit, is a great leap of imagination. Death is a universal law, and there is nothing that can live, as we have seen before, unless there is death. Death completes the cycle. Death completes the breath of God. The leaves, through photosynthesis, create the food of the world. Those leaves enter the animals, the animals leave droppings, those droppings decay and re-nourish the soil. If the plants did not die or if the animals did not die, there soon would be no more nutrients for the plants. All life would cease to exist. This is the message of the Bible, yet it is remarkable how we have ignored it.
If a seed does not die, it cannot be reborn. If we do not die, we cannot be reborn. So the first aspect of this card is that of physical individual death. That death affects the body. It affects the emotions. It connects us to our loved ones. We must, if we seek health, be prepared for death. This is simple, existential, factual reality.
If you have a spouse, child, friend, or acquaintance, there is only a finite number of destinies for that person’s relationship with you.
Destiny Number 1: You will lose contact with one another and not go through death. This can happen through divorce, through people moving away, people having new lives, or simply losing contact with one another. The relationship becomes broken and is no longer a factor. However, if you remain in a relationship with your parents, children, spouse or friends, then there are only three other destinies.
Destiny Number 2: Your parent, child, spouse or friend will die and leave you to mourn.
Destiny Number 3: You die and leave your parent, child, spouse or friend to mourn.
Destiny Number 4: You will both die together in some sort of catastrophe leaving everyone else around you to mourn.
There are no other choices.
Once we can embrace this and face it openly, we can begin to live. Here is the greatest secret I have ever discovered regarding death: Embrace death fully. Recognize that death is the natural state. Do your mourning now. Recognize that your cat is already dead; your baby is already dead; your parents are already dead; you are already dead. Face this. Embrace this death which sits upon the horse. Embrace this card and make it your reality. Live in it, absorb it, eat it, breathe it, drink it. Recognize that this is the destiny of one and all, and that it is completely, utterly inescapable.
Do not let this death stop with your friends. Embrace death in all aspects of existence. The clock, which you cherish, is smashed, destroyed, broken and dead. The business you have worked for so long is bankrupt, dead, destroyed. The house which you have spent so many years working for is a rubble, completely useless, gone.
The sum total of the universe has been swallowed into the mysterious unknown, and death is the only reality. Once you can do, you will begin to live in resurrection. The cat is already dead. We have buried the cat. What would you do? What would you give if you could spend just one more day with your dead cat?
Your wife is already dead. You have just returned from burying her. What would you give for one more day to be able to tell her all of the things that you wanted to tell her, but never did? Your parents are already dead. You have just come back from the funeral parlor. What would it be like if you had one last opportunity to spend some time with them, to live with them?
That is the reality you can tap into, once you embrace death. Once you recognize that everything is already dead, then every single day is a gift of infinite grace. Every single day is a resurrection. Every single day is that one last chance to do and be all the things you want to be--to spend the time and the relationships and the warmth with all of your dead relatives. One last chance to enjoy working in your dead, bankrupt business. One more chance, by some divine miracle, to live one last day in that house which is a burning, rotting, rubble of dust. Then there is no mourning. There is no death. There is only resurrection. When the cat finally dies, you have already mourned the cat. When the children finally die, you have already mourned their passing. And you have lived a life of fulfillment, taking advantage of every opportunity of every moment of every day. When the miracle of resurrection has passed on, then you are at peace to recognize that things have simply returned to their natural state. You wake up one morning, and the resurrected cat is no longer there. There is no reason to grieve, because you have already buried the cat.
That is why this card is in the Tarot deck. It is meant to be embraced. It is meant to be a gateway to a new birth. If we can embrace death, then our lives are transformed. That is the physical realm. This is also a card of immense spiritual power. The crucifixion of ego, that we saw in the Hanged Man, can and will become reality. As that ego dies, we then live in a glorious resurrection. As we continue to look at the card, we see several important elements.
First, we see the skeleton riding upon the pale horse. The pale horse throughout the years has become an image of death and dying. They say he comes on a pale horse, and the rider is Death. The skeleton is what is left after all of the maggots have consumed the flesh and organs. The bones are once again the great equalizer between animal and man, male and female, rich and poor, and the skeleton, for many obvious reasons, has become a symbol for death. But, this skeleton is wearing armor. This is a very powerful image. You cannot hurt this skeleton. You cannot stop him. He is a conqueror, and there is nothing you can do to prevent him from advancing.
He is holding a banner with a white rose on a black background. The white rose is in a five-fold multiplication. Five is the number of grace, the number of the Hierophant, the number of revelation, the number of new growth. There is, throughout death, the process of new growth.
At his feet, we see just behind the horse, a man, dead. This man represents all of the human achievements. He represents King Matter. For, in fact, all of matter, not just the organic matter, but all matter, will eventually become destroyed and swallowed up. The very electrons themselves are not eternal, but are subject to death, decay and entropy.
The horse is stomping upon the crown. All of our achievements and all of our growth will not survive. The greatest, grandest, glorious human creation is merely a tool to hopefully get us closer to God. Things are meant to be used to serve people. People should never be used to serve things. All of matter and all of human creation will be swallowed up. Death affects all.
We see the Pope standing beside Death, praying. Death affects the old and the young. Here we see the religious authorities seeking to come to terms with Death. We see a young woman at the feet of the Pope who has fainted and is unable to deal with the horrible passing of the King of Matter. At the feet of the horse, we see a little child holding a white rose, looking up at death with open eyes. This magnificently represents the three types of human response to death. King Matter is dead. Death has taken his toll.
The three primary human responses are that of the religious community, through prayer and supplication, to try to have the hurt and the pain mourned over and dealt with. We have elaborate rituals for burying the dead, transforming the dead, talking to the dead--all of the things which the religious community does, both in a healthy and in an unhealthy way, so we can try and love death, work with it, make death our friend, and transform death into a good situation.
The young girl in gray has fainted. This is the majority response. We look the other way. We do not want to be here. We do not want to see; we do not want to know. In our society, millions of people die every year. Where are they? We hide them. This is the secret. We don't even like to see funeral processions. In other societies, the death of a person is a central event in the life of the entire community; not in ours.
Death is a secret, death is a darkness which we do not wish to look at nor embrace. So if we are not going to supplicate death and we're not going to ignore death, what response do we have? The response of the little child. Unless we have faith like a little child, we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven and recognize all truth. The little child does not seek to turn death into a friend. The little child does not seek to ask death to go away. The little child does not turn her eyes and pretend that death is not there. The little child opens her eyes, sees death in the face, recognizes death as what it is, and has a simple straight forward natural acceptance of this reality.
Notice that in the background there is a ship sailing on the river. Life goes on. For every death, there is a rebirth. For every baby that is born, there is an old person who is planted. This is the eternal cycle of God's plan.
As the final element, I wish to direct your attention to the right hand side of the card, just above the head of the Pope. Notice, that we have two towers, and we have the Sun beginning to rise. Death is a stripping away of the veils--physical, emotional, mental and spiritual veils. And as we strip away veils, we can see more clearly into the heart of truth. That heart of truth is the light. God is the light. That is the Sun, and that sun will become our destiny in the next cards.
That halo of light which surrounds the head of the Hanged Man is nothing less than the presence of infinite God himself, and we must now, as we follow with these cards, take a journey, a long journey up and over the hills, until finally we will come to these two towers again. We will come to the Sun again. Death is the beginning of the pathway to resurrection, not instantaneous, not immediate, not overnight. Death is rather just the beginning.
The disciples were engaged upon the start of the spiritual pathway when they began to understand the resurrection of Jesus. You must start there to understand the death and resurrection of Jesus. But as we have said before, Jesus’ death and resurrection are only the beginning, because they are an instruction booklet for you and your personal death and resurrection. That is the power that enables you to embrace death, look it squarely in the face with the faith of a little child, and rise beyond the human limitations to a glorious and infinite resurrection.
