11/3 Death #13

#13 Death final version, art by Rian Hughes

TEMPLE artefact #16

XIII. DEATH

KEY WORDS – MAJOR CHANGE. ENDINGS AND BEGININGS. DEATH.

Death is unlucky Trump 13 of the Major Arcana.

Death is some say, a card of Change, not to be feared...

Colours are RED, PURPLE, BLACK and SILVER.

Our Death, like that of Jim Starlin and Neil Gaiman in the comics, is a female gothic figure, voluptuous and fetishistic in that inevitable intertwining of Sex and Death that followed when some opportunistic eukaryotes moved on from fission cloning.

This is the Empress Death, Mother of Skeletons, who also culls in endless abundance what she brings forth.

In many Death cards, our POV is at a safe remove, watching Death at work in a field, culling kings and commoners alike.

In ours, there is no doubt that the figure is advancing toward us, taking all the time she needs.

She is approaching, implacably, step by step, her huge scythe swinging like a pendulum, she gets closer, change by change, moment by moment.

In the meantime, on her way, she can be a card of Radical Change, a harbinger of transformation and personal growth!

On her head, she wears a bishop’s fish-like mitre (the fish is related to Death via the Hebrew letter NUN attributed to this Card, the fish swimming in the ‘underworld’…) with an armored VISOR pushed up at the front as if from a knight’s helmet.

On the mitre we see the astrological sign for SCORPIO with its hooked tail.

A weblike VEIL draping down from the mitre and the raised visor to her shoulders, covering her head. Under the mesh we can tell there is no face, only the sockets and grin of a SKULL.

Otherwise, she has a Burlesque pin-up body – waist cinched tight by a strappy leather corset.

In her black-gloved hands she wields a big and formidable scythe sweeping back for the cut. The angle of the scythe makes a diagonal slash across the centre of the image suggestive of a falling guillotine blade.

We can tell where she’s been by the swathe of cut blooms and floating flower heads in the swirling wake behind her.

A GIANT SCORPION clings to Death’s back, so that see only its legs and pincers wrapped around her body like some nightmare couture. These articulated scorpion legs clenched around her midriff resemble the bones of a corset. The huge, upraised PINCERS at either side, like ghastly wings. The thorned venomous tail curled up behind.

Death wades through the brackish waters of a LILY POND that come up above her knees to her thighs. We can see the tops of tight thigh boots and fishnet tights above.

Flaring out either side and dragging on the water a SKIRT.

RED HEART-SHAPED LEAVES on black branching nervous systems, we see flowers with black stems and red heads growing from the bloody acrid waters –under the surface in the red swamp water, we can see skeleton fishes swimming among the stems of flowers.

Seen through the misty gloom that fills the background above the lake -

A BOAT - simple punt belonging to CHARON boatman of the dead, moored at a rundown wooden jetty.

A forest of five SQUARE CHIMNEYS bristle in background. Cremation smoke rising in straight lines from each.

Cypress and weeping willow add to the mournful landscape.

A red, smoky sun simmers behind Death’s head, setting into the miasma. It seems to be held between the upraised pincers of the scorpion riding on Death’s back. In the sun can be seen the skeleton of an EAGLE.