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Sylvia Gainsford.

Scorpio-Water.

The Rider-Waite-Smith and the Gold Foil Death Card, departed from the Tradition set by the Golden Dawn or the older Marseilles cards. Here, Waite displays his own personal experience with this Card. The warrior quality of the Death card is expressed as a Skeletal Knight. His medieval presentation of Death as the Black Knight, riding past the fallen King of Matter. Before the Death Knight is the bishop with fish-shaped Miter, implying the passing of the Piscean age. The rising sun behind the two towers (first seen on the Moon card) refers to resurrection which is the conquest of death. The flying banner depicts a white rose with ten petals, five inner and five outers. Being based on five, the white rose refers to the 5th Sephiroth on the Tree of Life- Geburah's Martian force. However, the totality of the petals refers to the entire Universe under Kether, as Kether is presented as the White color (perfect balanced Weight of all colors). This also relates to the 0-Fool and Uranus, to which the White Rose is related.

The Tarot of the Old Path- Key 13-The Close, replaces the tarot death card. In the past, the 14th Century Italian artist that produced the scythe carrying skeleton, meant this to be a literal death. However, Tarot has evolved into more modern terms as has science, and we now know this Major Arcana to be about transition from one phase/condition to another and not something final and absolute. Transformation is a universal constant for energy can't be created nor destroyed only transformed and transmitted. We are all Energy and should not be afraid of Death, as it is a merciful and transformative companion on the path of Greater Self Awareness.

Death comes for us all; it is the necessary companion of Life. Form requires measurement, a beginning, and an end. Plus, Organic matter imitates the immortality of Spirit, by recycling itself. Again, the ancient axiom proclaims: "Be like the Children", who don't fear death. Death is eternal, inescapable, and necessary. A True Soul, fears not death, for it just ends a phase of Life, but not all Life; For Life is also eternal, inescapable, and necessary. Death just pushes Life along, as a necessary evolution. Just as Dark Energy pushes the galaxies along.

The Tarot of the Old Path, names key 13, THE CLOSE, rather than DEATH. Yet the Grim Reaper or Lord Dread, is still present on this card. The zodiacal sign is Scorpio, and the ruling element is Water.

Death, with its endless shadow, is shown on the left, carrying his scythe that he uses to clear away the outworn and unproductive things. The baby watching death pass by, is heralding a major change, a harvest of rebirth. Following death is a barn owl that is bird in Egyptian mythology use as the symbol of the dead sun that has crossed the waters of darkness. As the owl is a creature of the night, it is associated with the dead in many mythologies.

In the magic language of birds, Owls may represent death, but the Heron seen standing in the river, represents the morning and the regeneration of life, thus both birds represent a cycle of death and rebirth.

The ever flowing and irreversible river of time is depicted as a serpentine and calm river.

The Primroses near the baby, imply early youth and the borage in the foreground warns of a change that is yet to come. The misty fir trees suggest the mystery of the unconscious mind, and the aptly named Death's Head Hawk Moth represents the soul's journey through life and the veil or barrier of death which is an energy-time membrane into another dimension of the Everlasting Self. As one can understand, the primal message of this card is of transformation and/or of change yet to come. Death is seen as a renewal of life rather than an end. Energy can't be destroyed, nor created, only transformed, and transferred. So, Death is a journey of the immortal soul, towards ever expanding self-concepts. This ever-expanding self, started the process in the Lone Man Card of The Old Path Tarot (Hanged Man in the Gold Foil Deck), sacrificing the old way of thinking to gain greater awareness and here in The Close Card, the Soul continues the process of change in its Life building journey.

To the Qabalist, motion, is the function applied to Nun, the Hebrew letter supplied to the Thoth Death- Card and to the Hebrew word whose primary meaning is "to walk". Hence, Death is walking and reaping on the Death card. The Gold Foil Tarot shows Death as on a prancing horse, either way it is represents the Qabalistic knowledge of motion. Hence, from this we gather many other meanings, such as, to travel, to pass away, to depart, to whirl, to sail away; all pointing at change/transformation helping arrive at the notion that change is the basis of manifestation and/or a Universal Constant of Becoming. The river seen in the Gold Foil and the river on the Old Path-The Close card, is a symbol for this transformative force, as a river is a part of Water's Transformative manifestation, as it arises from a Sea, to become a vapor, that condenses into clouds, that become saturated and form rain, snow, and/or ice that change the landscape. Hence, the Element of Water, "dies" to one state and forms in another, just like Souls. It also is a symbol of Dark Water, which represents the subconscious and its fears.

The Sun is shown setting in the West, which is attributed to this card, as well as the planet Jupiter, which governs all circular and rotational movement. The direction of South relates to the Sun and on the Gold Foil Card the Sun is shown rising between the towers of both Life and Death. The sun's reflection in the river is shown on the Tarot of the Old Path- the Close card.

The Zodiacal House of Scorpio, a fixed, watery sign, is assigned to the Death Card. Scorpio is ruled by Mars (and/or Pluto) which is the Power of the Key 16-The Tower and is said by astrologers to be the sign of exaltation of Uranus (Key 0 the Fool). Scorpio rules the sex organs, making it strongly associated to reproduction. Interestingly, it relates to the 8th house of the horoscope which is called the house of death. The corresponding color is blue green, and the musical tone is G-natural.

Qabalistically Death -key 13 is known as "the ground of similarity in the likeness of all beings" and is called the Imaginative Intelligence by Dr. Paul Foster Case, a Western Hermetic Qabalist. Hence, it is the intelligent basis of resemblances that are transmitted through reproductive functions and/or DNA. Therefore, the Death card suggests the Ageless Wisdom that states "causation is mental".... Therefore, DNA is an intelligent molecule that has recently been proven to be over 9.6 billion years old, while the earth has only lived for 3.8 billion years! This makes our DNA a celestial paradigm rather than an earthly one.

The forces of transformation which result in physical death are inimical and feared only because the survival mind of the Subconscious misunderstands and fears them. These transformative forces are connected to reproduction, and by right use of Imagination (I-Magi-Nation) they can be tamed and transformed, so that they can be utilized for indefinite prolongation of physical existence. As many yogis prove. "There is only One Energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed (and Transmitted)." which is the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. This Tarot Card-Key 13-Death is but the image of this statement.

Death, like every other event in Organic Manifestation, is a manifestation of Law, for image must begin and end as it is an "assumption of measurement". When one understands the Law, the personality will not "die", it just moves forward into the next journey of Self-Assumption/Awareness. Hence, the "fear of death" puts the personality into a "darkness of sleep", as it supposed it just ended. One finds this not to be true, when one conquers the fears of the Subconscious, which are all based on fear of death. I can remember many lifetimes, that some accused me of "being only your imagination". I AM, is the truth of existence, but "Me" is only Imagined, and /or assumed. Hence, all of us are "being only our imagination" and the I -Magi-Nation is the Nation of Manifested Self. Understanding this, will never come to those who fear, until fear of not only of dying, but of death the Wisdom of right Knowledge (there is no good or bad knowledge) has overcome it, and by the right interpretation of the phenomena of physical dissolution. Organic matter mimics the immortality of the Solar Light Being, by eating itself to stay alive. Physical change is a type of "Serpent that eats its own tail".

The Rider-Waite-Smith and its Golf Foil copy relates the key 13-Death to the Piscean Age and its religious dispensation of Patriarchy. However, TAROT was not invented for the Piscean Age only, and to limit the operation of the Law depicted in Key 13 to this one period of human history is to obscure the fact that Key 13 represents something that is at work in every age. Hence, the Tarot version of death has evolved even though, like older versions, the newer cards show a walking or riding skeleton with a scythe instead of a banner. Behind there is a river, and a sun. The river moves from the north-west to the south-east, as does the skeleton. The skeleton is the basis and/or essential thing in all movements of the human body.

The Gold Foil- Death carries a black flag decorated with a white, five-petal rose, reflecting beauty, purification, and immortality and in numerology-the number five representing change. The Connolly Tarot shows blue borage flowers in the foreground, which warn of changes to come. Together, these symbols reveal that death isn’t about life ending. Death is about endings and beginnings, birth, and rebirth, change and transformation.

I AM The Soul, and not seeking one! I make "bodies" in my name of "I Am"! Bodies allow intimacy with all measured creation and turn information into experience, by in-form-action. Experience builds Wisdom and death is merely change.

The Death Card-Key 13, during a reading, suggests:

• Time, Age, and transformation.
• Rarely does it symbolize physical death and only if borne out by the accompanying cards.
• For the Querent, this is the principle of letting go, and moving on.
• A rebirth out of old conditions. 
• A type of transitional metamorphosis which destroys something old to build something new.
•  The Realization of Life Power as it is released from past confines and revitalized by change and regeneration.
• Inner wisdom and consistency.

If reversed:

• Fear of Death (the root of all fears and phobias).

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