Death

The 13th Key

Colour: Green/Blue
Sound: G Natural
Sign: Scorpio (Fixed Water)
SIMPLE LETTER: Movement

This Path is between Beauty and Victory. A Path on which the Higher Self directs the Personality downward into incarnation. Whilst on the upward movement of this Path, the Personality energy projected by the Higher Self is absorbed by way of physical death or reconceptualised in an initiation.

As with the other Paths that lead from the Personality to the Higher Self, Death like Temperance and the Devil is associated with a dark night of the soul. The card depicts a skeleton wielding a scythe that represents time and is used for harvesting. A skeleton is central to maintaining the position of the organ system during life and is what remains after death.

It represents the symbolic passing through a gateway which has as a consequence the destruction of one phase of energy and the transformation of that energy into something else. It is a transformatory Path changing perception about the nature of reality and what constitutes the Self. It involves leaving behind the desire nature and being absorbed into Beauty. The desire nature is the essence of the Personality which functions in terms of the satisfaction of its needs.

The very will to live, the desire of the Personality to continue to function in the sensory conditions of life is done away with on this Path. There develops a dreadful emptiness, a complete disinterest in everything. Life's processes cease to hold value. The Soul moves through an indescribable darkness in the belief that light will appear to lead the way.

The temporary and illusionary nature of the Personality becomes perceived correctly. There is a willful surrender of everything that the Personality believes itself to be into the darkness, in the faith that there will be a resurrection into the Light.

Attributed to this card is nun which means fish which has been used as a symbol for many things throughout history. In alchemy it is associated with the First Matter. In later history Christ came to be associated with the fish and Mother Mary with the great sea. Attributed to the Star is tzaddi meaning fishhook. Therefore, on the path of the Start we begin to develop the tools of creative imagination required to tread the path of Death.

It is noted that there is no birth card in the Tarot deck. An explanation for this is that birth and death are essentially the same transition. It is a symbolic passing through a gateway which results in the utter destruction of one phase of energy and the transformation of that energy into something else.

Also attributed to this card is Scorpio which is reflected in three ways, a scorpion, a snake and an eagle. The transition on the path of Death from a creature which poisons and crawls upon the earth, to the Serpent that weaves upward to become the eagle which soars above. Scorpio rules the sexual organs and thus we understand that this involves the reproductive energy which is consciously directed in practical exercises attributed to the middle pillar.