Mary El Tarot - Death

cSpaceDiva

I picked Death as my favorite card in this deck. I find it incredibly serene. I don't see just lifeless grey, but the hair and skin both seem to have a golden glow.
The praying mantis is the grim reaper in this card.
With the scythes and the blood red leaf. I didn't make this connection myself, but I completely agree!

The way the hair floats out in all directions evokes the ritualistic floating of a body down the river. The black eyes, I feel, are the abyss that gazes back at you.
The abyss is...introspection - looking within yourself. Naked, you can see yourself for what you really are.
(Companion book, pp. 8, 46)
 

inanna_tarot

This card for me depicts all the beauty, honour and privilege I have as a nurse to do 'Last Offices', preparing the patient that died to go the mortuary. There is a real moment when the dis-ease, the pain, the suffering is gone and all you are left with is the precious essence of the person, of who they were, what they did and the lives they touched. Although the body is dead, the spirit lives on, their essence in the hearts of others continues.
If I look at her hair, it reminds me of how I would wash and comb out their hair, but here her hair is almost like the Veil between life and death itself.

The orchid adds to this beauty in death, and how life is precious and delicate, to be treasured, before the praying mantis comes along.
This is such a beautiful Death.