The Tail of the Scorpion

When card  #13, Death, comes up in a tarot card reading the querent (person asking for information) usually draws in their breath for a moment.   Looking up with a pained facial expression, they might ask something like, “Does that mean someone is going to die?” More often than not the answer is “no.” 

Related to the Western astrological sign of Scorpio, card (or  “Key”) #13  rules the season from approximately October 23 - November 22. One of the 22 “high” cards in the tarot, called higher arcana (From arcane, which means secret), Death is probably the most fear producing card in the entire 78 card pack.  If unversed in tarot lore, one generally thinks that Key #13 refers to literal, personal death, the end of an individual life. While there is sometimes the possibility that it can indicate such a situation in a tarot reading, the Death card is designed to convey the essence of the meaning of death: letting go, irrevocable change.

November in our part of the world is the month where deep winter begins, vegetation dies and animals go into hibernation.  The life force goes into a period of suspended animation as all of life becomes dormant, but pregnant with the possibility of the new life that will begin in the spring. This corresponds to Scorpio’s significance in the zodiac.  Scorpio is the ruler of the 8^th house and presides over the areas of birth, death, sex, other people’s money and resources (inheritance), and as if that isn’t enough - transformation.

Nothing to fear but fear…

Permanent change can indeed be something to fear if one isn’t prepared well in advance. The dynamics of a Scorpio (Plutonic) transformation tend to chew one up and spit one out, much like people with strong Scorpio tendencies themselves will do to you if you get on their bad side. In the Rider-Waite deck, Death rides in triumphantly as a dark knight; most traditional decks depict some sort of grim reaper. Esoterically, the harvest really refers to te cycles of time: change, motion transformation.

Of other cards in the tarot deck it may be said “One door closes and another one opens.” Not with Key #13, the Death card. In this scenario the door is slammed in your face while you are simultaneously teleported through Alice’s looking glass, where existence is strange in every way, unlike anything that you have ever experienced. Did I mention that you are also standing on the lip of an active volcano while all this is going on? The Death card points to a near future that will be nothing short of a rebirth. Change is permanent and its effects far reaching, in keeping with Scorpio’s ruling planet Pluto–the great “transformer.” After the Scorpion has crawled up out the of slime and muck of the lower mind, it transforms into the evolved aspect of Scorpio.  This new, transcendent Scorpio is symbolized by a soaring eagle. In dealing with an un-evolved Scorpio type however, you will never beat a Scorpion at his/her own game: power, sex, money, revenge. So please, don’t tell any of these people where I live. ©DiNoto2005/first published in Colorado Lifestyles Magazine.

# 13, Death, from The Hermetic Tarot

Path on the Tree of Life: Netzach to Tiphareth (Victory to Beauty)
Hebrew Letter: Nun, meaning fish or growth 

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