I'm sorry
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Catholicism sees the serpent as "temptation".
Native American lore sees it as "healing".
Other culture sees it as "danger".
One upon a time, XIII was the only Arcana without a name, because Death was too strong a word. It is not something we want to welcome in our life.
Something similar happened when Death began to be seen as Transformation. Tarot needed to focus on positive... and that change was (i suppose) never intended as a "it's not death", but rather as "every death is a transformation".
Think about the sequence: Hanged Man (ritual death), Death (journey in the underworld, being dead, darkness), Temperance (healing, rebirth, coming to the light).
As we lost (partially) the ability to see the structure, we had to see the whole journey of three cards, inside each of them. So death was seen as death and rebirth, and then just as transformation.
Anyway... all these aspects should be complimentary one to each other, and not just mutually exclusive.
Looking at this death (one of the best I've seen, along with the Death of the Goden Tarot) I wonder what I see.
Was he carrying her... then he died, and he continued to carry her? (love beyond death, total loyalty, extreme generosity, doing things because you heve, even if there is no reward)
Is he the death angel, coming to ferry her on the other side of the river (pardon, it's a desert).
Is it death as mercy... the sweet darkness that swept away all pains (I think Hamlet:
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
)
It is hope... because I can see her just sleeping.
But I also see the desert... it continues in fellow cards. Temperance give a sign to find the way. The devil burns the tower, but let them pass (he is a good boy after all), the star plants the seeds, the Moon waits for them to blossom. And then they blossom in the Sun, and are ripe in the Judgement.
So... maybe I just don't like Death and Rebirth only in one card.
It seems to suggest that the "in-between" is not important.
It seems to suggest we should be scared of death... of endings... of pain...
(I don't want to look, I don't want to see!!!) while maybe all that this card says is: "do not be scared"
ric