February 16-18, 2014: XIII. Death

Al-Shariyf

http://www.netwaysglobal.com/cgi-bin/(null)/letter14.gif

XIII
DEATH
(Scorpio)

“Thou art the death of me. I am slain in my love for Thee, O devouring serpent, O immortal python, O crushing Wisdom.”

MEDITATION COLOR: Blue-green.

HEBREW LETTER: Nun, fish. Greek ’IXThYS = Redeemer. Kosher = no blood! Life migrating through the waters. That which thrives in water (ubiquitous inner consciousness), and cannot live long breathing air (intellect). That which is “caught” by the fishhook (Tzaddi). As a verb, Nun means “to sprout,” i.e., a budding start. Sound n suggests continuity, satisfaction, release.

CARD NAME: The roots of this Atu’s name are deep and complex. Its literal meaning is relevant here, yet surrenders profitably to vast poetic meanings that speak best to subconsciousness. Often it is associated with loss of breath or of blood (each of which has its own symbolic meanings). In etymology, it gets even more complex: “Death” comes from the Indo-European root dheu-, literally meaning “to become exhausted” or “to die;” yet an identically spelled and pronounced (but different) root dheu-, meaning “to flow,” gives us dew.

ESOTERIC MEANING: The Imaginative Consciousness. It provides an Image to all created things that have an appearance, in a Form fitting to each.

TREE of LIFE: Netzach to Tifereth. (Links ‘Victory’ and ‘Beauty’; or Desire and the Ego-center. The old personality slain to complete the transfer of consciousness to Tifereth.)

ESOTERIC TITLE: The child of the Great Transformers, the Lord of the Gate of Death

TANTRIC & ALCHEMICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Love under will. Sexuality; resurrection.

DIVINATION: Transformation, change, metamorphosis; whether voluntary or involuntary, it is always as a logical development of existing conditions, yet perhaps sudden and unexpected. Or death, destruction (only rarely; and such an interpretation is illusory). Especially, sudden and quite unexpected change or evolution of circumstances. Redemption through putrefaction.

http://wisdomtarot.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/death_thoth1.jpg

Ankh

Performed Liber Pleiades, I then imagined my Aura was filled with a blue green liquid fire, while slowing watching my breath.
I am behind death chasing the skeleton. We merge together, I normally would take issue with imaging an animal on my head (as with most of the Egyptian god forms but, I don’t have a problem with archetypes?) the eagle spreads it wings, and it is alive and part of Deaths Crown. I image the eagle merging from a golden color to a green color then back again. This may be an image worth working with in the future. I slowly refocus on the Atu and start to think.
The Hebrew letter means fish. Looking at this ATU reminds me of an old history lesson, where I learned that the American Indians would put a seed in a fish’s head and then plant it in the ground. This was to insure its growth. In this instance there is a fish and the skeleton is the seed. I think the practical application for this Atu would be to overcome the fear of change and learn how to embrace transformation.

Al-Shariyf

Day one

The blue-green sphere has a murkiness to it and I feel submerged in the ethereal waters of this trump.

My attention is immediately drawn to the bottom of the card, to the dirt at the bottom of the sea. I am reminded of the depth of the process symbolized by the card; this is not surface level transformation; it is deep, core level shit.

The scorpion reminds me of the sting of a swift, piercing, stinging and unpleasant (poisonous) emotional encounter.

The snake with the fish biting its tail in the water reminds of me of the life of the subconscious; always churning.

The skeletal figure cutting the cords that contrain the entities in the card - the framework of the psyche, the structural composition and composer that gives forms and releases that which is ready to shed its form.

There appears to be some sort of cycle happening here; the breaking down and releasing of energy.

Day two
The golden glow of the light of Tiphareth extends its rays into the murky waters, illuminating the hidden activity in the water.

A monarch of the sea engages in a primal dance of dying & death. He drags the essence of souls into the depths of the water, dissolving their forms little by little, from the most complex to the most basic form.

Everything that has a beginning must have an ending. Everything must die to enter life; death is the mother of life.

Day Three
The Eagle - the endgame of death; freedom, release, ascension

Transformation: The genesis of a new realm of possibility

The Skeletal King is the great transformer; he deals the blow of death and in doing so releases one of their current constraints.

Do we not die so that we can continue to partake of life? Millions of cells in our body are being destroyed so that new cells can build our bodies.

I see a cycle; a cycle that goes from being the simple & lowly scorpion, to being the serpent, skillfully maneuvering through the waters, dodging predators, shedding its skin when necessary, to being a fish, slightly more sophisticated, evolving into a BEING of a higher order, trapped in the constraints of space, time and form until it is finally released from the bonds of space, time and form so that it may ascend outside of the water until it dies once again, only to repeat the cycle.

Ankh

Thank you for posting your results Al-Shariyf. You have giving me a lot to think about.

Al-Shariyf

@Ankh said

"Thank you for posting your results Al-Shariyf. You have giving me a lot to think about. "

You're welcome Ankh!

I'm honored to be a contribution to you!

Danica

(Smoked a cigarette “salted” with small amount of marijuana, 30 minutes before meditation, for experiment)

Color is very pleasant, it matches my inner state - I feel that this is the color that represents me now, not only in this moment or day, but wider, during the current life-phase. But there is some mental resistance to entering into communication with images from this Card.
“Talk to your Death, often – every day let it be your secret, inner friend, and parent, and child.”
Death = orgasm, a matrix-moment of begetting new Forms; also, Death = Marriage, there is a parallel with ATU VI (a sort of symmetry, with Tipheret as central point, and Binah & Netzach on opposite sides).
(My mind is in chaotic state, I find it very hard to concentrate; and sexual drive is intense; I’m withdrawing from meditation now, and keep on observing the sexual drive, in the manner of I Ching’s Hex.20)

It’s almost impossible to express how much this color suits me; I feel it’s permeating & filling me, relaxing the physical body instantly.
Death = trans-formation; the form is changed so much that the new phenomena can not be defined as the previous one any more, but the energy is the same (although differently “refracted”, through a different form ).
Death is so joyous! It is portrayed as a dancing figure here.
If consciousness is attached to some particular transient form (identified with it), it disappears during the “moment” or process of death; if not, if it is focused on the essence of form, that which is its inner “content”, it does not disappear during this transition (destruction of some existing-form).
Death = A Portal to another dimension or dimensions….
Do not talk to your Death, dance with it! Daily!

I see flowers, various kinds of them, and green leaves and wreaths; it’s an entrance into a graveyard; I feel thrill, joy, death is freedom!
It’s a deeply intimate phenomenon, no one can teach you regarding this experience, you are alone, with attention focused either to the transient, or to the transcendent; this focus of attention during experience/process/moment of dying is essential for further motion of the being of “diseased” (there are various kinds of death)!
There is Beauty in the transient and the passing – exactly in its being transient and passing! Such unutterable Beauty!

It’s hard to formulate the color right, I keep making it more green than blue…
The fulfillment of desire = death (orgasm)
Bones, skeleton, Binah – Neshamah is that which does not die, only Ruach & Nephesh do.

Imagination: what you create in moments of Death (of one kind or another ) “stamps” itself into some layer of astral plane, and becomes a living form. Also, the way one imagines what his experience of physical death would be like, that is what actually experientaly awaits him during first “phase” of dying (strongly imagined forms are there, guiding /or tormenting/ the soul in transition).
Death is a Great Sacrament, one of the 3 main during particular existence (the other two are birth and marriage; Aleph, Zain, Nun)
Seen from the point of view of Aspirant rising “up” the Tree, this Path is a crucial point in SOLVE part of the Formula: refinement of what has been “analyzed” thus far, purification.
Fish has no voice! It dwells silently in the deep.

Mephisto

Tarot Meditation: "Death, XIII."

11:03-11:28 A.M. [No date. I assume 4.28 or 3.1.14]

Tired; less that satisfactory meditation. I recall the old pack with the laughing face of Death; I note the Saturnian connection with time and the eternal sine wave of space (motion which makes necessary changes in order for manifestation to appear--the play of incarnation.)

Difficulty w/concentration.

3.2.14 10:47-11:06 A.M.

"Death is the road to awe." Kings and beggars alike meet with death. Each breath is an act of dying and rebirth. The white eagle above the crown of Osiris represents to me the glory of death. (Again, not much intellectual import with this mediation.)

Anael Lucis

Meditation 1

First thing that becomes apparent is the intricate net intermingling death with life – new life-in-formation being represented by the souls circling inside the bubbles to the right. These also indicate that death is not the end, but it’s a rite of passage into new realms and forms of being.
With his scythe Death doesn't merely end things, but puts them into a new type of motion. Hence Death could also be considered a giver of life.
He wears Atef crown of Osiris indicating him to be the master of the underworld.
To his left is a blue serpent – indicating wisdom element.
Eagle emblem is connected to the net in upper left corner which might indicate the idea that there is an opportunity to experience freedom through death – in Tibetan Buddhist tradition this is so, as one enters the bardo one’s mind is extremely subtle and one has a good opportunity to realize one’s true nature of mind, and if one does – liberation follows; if not the consciousness proceeds to incarnate in a new body.
The image is full of motion – there is great level of activity taking place. Death is usually associated with final rest, but here I get the sense of quite the opposite.

Meditation 2

Fish can represent Christ which in turn represents resurrection – another indicator in the card that Death is not the end of all, but that there is continuation of consciousness. Serpent surrounds the fish symbolizing that there is potential great wisdom inherent in the fish archetype. The domain of the fish is water – river or ocean which doesn’t have beginning or end, but is in the state of perpetual motion, circling in different forms throughout the ecosystem (vapor, rain, ice, steam, etc) – this is a good metaphor for the cyclic existence (Samsara) on one hand, and never-ending stream of consciousness which has no beginning and no end, on the other. Also water represents the subconscious and fish as Christ symbol might indicate inherent quality of enlightened nature of our minds.
Flowers on the ground – though plucked and withering are simply in the state of transition, eventually fertilizing the ground from where they will continue on - in new form and with a new purpose in the material realm.
Scorpio – a sign of mystery and secrecy perfectly fits the image of Death which arouses fear of the great unknown.

Meditation 3

Just occurred to me that the blue flower on the right is the blue poppy – symbol of sleep, peace and death. In Tibetan tradition the state after death is called the Bardo. But bardo is also the name for states experienced during deep sleep, during dreaming, etc. Bardo represents the transitional state of consciousness hence the connection is indicated between sleep and death - and this idea being reinforced by the poppy symbol which represents both.
The skeletal form of Death is reminiscent in the wire-frame form of the web of interconnectedness between life and death – “ the bare bones” of reality, a very thin line that separates forms of existence. This also reminds me of various states of consciousness being separated by a thin line; and the idea of line (as the web of interconnectedness in the card consists of many straight lines) also reinforces the image of a “flat line” – or indication of death.
The lower portion of the card indicates some sort of circular motion as indicated by lines and forms – reminding me of the fact that things are in perpetual motion, everything takes place in a cyclic pattern, and then there is the idea of Samsaric wheel of life that keeps on turning.