The Devil — XV

In the preceding card, Temperance XIIII, we discussed how temperance defines a space in-between the extremes. To the one side we have the adverse, Death XIII. But death is just a certain ending. What comes after an ending isn't nothing, but rather, something different, a new beginning. When death loops, it loops to its opposite, life/rebirth. A cycle of growth is created. Like the sun which symbolically dies each day and is then reborn in the glory of the morning. The morning isn't simply daytime, it is something new; something that has been tempered. It is the daytime specifically that is following the experience of the darkness of the night. It lands differently than a daytime experience of eternal daylight.

To the other side of Temperance, lies the experience of the good, which when taken to its extreme lands us in the territory of The Devil XV. The Devil speaks to the difficulties that can arise due to temptation, because the opposite of the adverse/evil is the good/beautiful, the experience of which can easily lead toward excess because it is pleasurable . . . , desirable, which eventually causes it to become evil/bad/darkness, i.e., the devil, due to excess of "the good." And if the light (the good, or the "light bringing" Lucifer) itself becomes the darkness (evil), what hope is there? There's no hope in hell!

I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.

I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.

I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.

SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.

I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,

PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTILLECT.

ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR

WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BYOND TIME I STAND.

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.  - Canto III, 1-9, The Inferno, Dante Alighieri, John Ciardi translation, 

Tarot de Marsailles - Subordination, decay, bondage, malevolence, weird experiences, seeming inability to reach one's goals, violence, shock, frailty, selfishment, temptation to evil, self-destruction, lack of principles.

Temptation is ultimately from Latin temptare "to feel, try out, test; attempt to influence,"a variant of tentare "handle, touch, try, test"[OE] (notice the connection between certain words beginning with *ten- and *temp-[an extension of *ten] both coming from the same apparent root meaning "to stretch").

Who is the one "feeling, trying out and testing"? Even though the person who is being tempted is being influenced to feel, try out, and test what is on offer, the tempter is equally feeling, trying out, and testing the temptee. Will they succumb to temptation? Such as Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert. The devil was feeling him out and testing the boundaries of Jesus' commitment (how far he would stretch), seeing if Jesus wanted try out what he was offering him. Jesus was in a vulnerable state, having fasted for many days. His ability to say no to what he viewed as illicit (to "die" to himself) proved (he passed the test/temptation) that he was not a slave to (bound by) his passions (holding onto an inordinate light). Jesus didn't choose the path that would be seemingly desirable in the moment, the path he was being tempted to take, in which his powers would be used for his own gratification (satiating his hunger), worldly influence and star status/glory. Imagine the life of luxury and fame he could have pursued with his same abilities.

Jesus is Tempted in the Wilderness, The Children's Bible, copyright 1965, Western Publishing Co., photo by Julie O.

Like Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings if she had accepted the ring from Frodo, Jesus could have gone very far. But he chose to "kill" that version of himself (as did Galadriel), and instead submit himself to insult, abuse and death by a cross in order to save the Day.

We aren't tempted in the same way by the adverse, i.e., that which is "turned against" us; that which is hostile, unfavorable. We don't normally get caught up in wanting to indulge excessively in the experience of adversity, as we do with pleasure. But we can have the desire to "try out" the adverse. In fact without the experience of the adverse, enjoyment ceases to have meaning. You have to get uncomfortable, such as getting tired, hungry, cold, sick, etc., to enjoy things such as sleep, food, warmth and health. We wouldn't want to never experience anything in the category of "the adverse," we just don't want it to go too far; to be too much. Too much darkness. Too much heat. Too much suffering. That is, we don't want it to be EVIL! But, in the same way we don't want our experience of the pleasurable to go too far and turn to evil either. Whereas death leads to life, like the seed of a plant that falls to the ground after its growth cycle, and a new plant grows in its place, 

life leads to death, or we could say "the good," "the beautiful," "the pleasurable" has the ability to lead us to death, or a death trap if it is not tempered, because there is a such thing as "too much of a good thing," or "a good thing at the wrong time." Even something that we think of being really fun, like a roller coster ride would very quickly become hell on earth if it didn't end, or if we were forced to ride it when we were sick. And if we went to the same amusement park every day and did the same things and ate the same food, we would come up against the problem of diminishing returns. It wouldn't be as fun as if we only went sometimes. The more we strive to engage solely in the polarity of pleasure, the less pleasurable we are able to access (the pleasure starts to die / loops towards death). Chasing after pleasure ends up becoming a vicious trap.

A certain tension between the good (what we turn to) and the adverse (what we turn away from) must be maintained in order to have the experience of pleasure at all, in the same way that a string on a guitar has to be plucked under tension in order to create a pleasing sound. Without the tension, there are no good vibrations. It is the movement between the polarities that creates the tension which is temperance.

So, it's not that a person can't do what they want to do. We don't need to glorify the Devil, fetishized objects of temptation, and forbidden fruit, as if pleasure is a bad thing. You can do whatever you want to do! It's not like God is a prude who can't stand to look upon people enjoying themselves. It's just that there are consequences to seeking pleasure. And sometimes the consequences are quite bad. If pleasure seeking isn't tempered with an appropriate willingness to also abstain for the sake of balance and health, then pleasure turns to pain. It's just a natural consequence of experience. Eating a piece of cake can be pleasurable, but eating more and more cake becomes less and less pleasurable, and at some point it becomes painful and feels evil. Eating too much cake may also make a person gain undesired weight and take the place of getting proper nutrition. These consequences are not intended as punishment, they are just the result of imbalance, that is, the experience of straying too far from the middle, too far from equilibrium, too far from justice.

  

 

Religion might attempt to save people from this trap by enforcing rules and discipline which  steers a person towards moderate behavior and purposeful engagement with suffering (i.e., engaging with the opposite of pleasure). Sometimes this is accomplished with the use of guilt and scare tactics, such as the threat of eternal damnation. This may be effective in saving some people from the evils which arise due to overindulgence, but does not necessarily create temperate people (although practicing temperate actions can be a way of learning temperance, if it is pursued with integrity), rather religion/rules just fetter the natural urges. And for those  who are not religious, these types of imposed rules might not even hold sway at all. But even in this case, the frustrating reality of the impending doom of dissatisfaction still looms, because even if a person says they they don't believe in God and they don't feel the shame of not following the proposed rules, they STILL cannot find happiness in simply just doing whatever they are inclined to do.

Even this person is somewhat dependent on the excitement that they derive specifically from NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES, or in engaging with the taboo. What fun would Aleister Crowley have had if there were no taboos? The very fact that something is forbidden can make it an object of lust, because when you haven't had something for a long time, or are forbidden from having it, and then you have it, this produces an experience of great pleasure, more so than if you were "allowed" to have it.  And let's not even mention the enjoyment that can be derived from acting salaciously! What would these people do if no one cared that they were doing? Therefore a person who has a lot of rules and restrictions placed upon them has ample ability to know that they could experience pleasure if they were only allowed it. They are not up against a dead end for experiencing pleasure. Whereas, on the other hand, someone with no rules or restrictions, and no imposed social norms might be bored with everything they have. For example, if you are forced to be out in the freezing cold all day and then get inside in front of a fire, you enjoy that warmth more than the person who was allowed to be inside all day. It becomes harder and harder for the person who is only indulging in what is pleasurable to even enjoy anything after a while. When this happens there are two choices 1.) turn away from pleasure (suffer a type of death) and regain balance or 2.) continue to indulge and seek enjoyment in more and more extreme ways in order to create novelty and tension, which leads toward perversion / corruption / distortion and  inability to experience pleasure [in normal ways]. Like King Midas who desired that everything he touched would turn to gold, but ended up not being able to enjoy anything because of his excess. He found a living hell in the fulfillment of his wish.

Dissatisfied King Midas

In order to be freed from his curse he was told to submit to an act of obedience, which is an act of humility and a type of death (death to oneself). Dionysius told Midas to rinse in the waters of the river Pactolus; which is a baptism "immersion," so, it was symbolically a death/rebirth, like the evening sun when it is "immersed" (sets) in the waters of the sky at sunset, thus symbolically dying before it is reborn, reemerging from the same waters at dawn: reset. A sun (a great light) that refuses to "die" in this way, is not part of "the Day" as we know it. A Day consists of "day, night, morning: one day," not eternal daylight.

This gift/curse of the Golden Touch is analogous to the gift/curse of a created being, being made in the image and likeness of God. To be like God is to be capable of creating or having whatever is wanted when it is wanted. But what happens when you can do whatever you want and you don't have a mature sense of balance? You find yourself in a hell of your own making. And if you yourself made that happen while only wanting what is good for yourself (the pleasurable), then what hope do you have to remedy your predicament? How does one get out of this hell?

Our life on Earth in the flesh creates the illusion of separation from God and veils our power as creators. So we don't encounter this problem of being gods in this way. Instead we are generally forced to some semblance of moderate behavior (experiencing the adverse as well as the pleasurable) by circumstances of life and being in a body. Such as people of antiquity, or people living in remote places without a lot of resources who have to work hard every day just to get their survival needs met, and don't have or can't afford the luxury of a lot of leisure time. As things are, we have to daily battle bodily discomfort and illnessl. In this way life usually forces us to experience a lot of adversity, while enjoyment, in contrast, is harder to come by. In modern society, a person needs money and so will work many hours doing things they don't necessarily want to be doing, which then creates this great thing called "days off" and " weekends." And their available income puts a cap on what they are able to buy and do, so they are kept in a state where enjoyment is readily accessible because they are so often not doing or getting everything that they want. Just the mere act of getting off work or out of school for the day brings a feeling of joy.

However, people are always wanting to get away from these limiting circumstances without understanding that when a person succeeds and gets to a place where they easily have access to an abundance of everything they desire (resources, time, etc.), this doesn't in an of itself automatically give rise to the happiness that they dream of. Because it isn't the mere state of not working that is enjoyable, but rather the movement or dance, back and forth, between the different polarities, such as between work(toil/effort) and leisure(pleasure/rest) that is satisfying and creates happiness. So, as in the case of retirement, a person must create some sort of disciplined routine for themselves to maintain balance in their lives or risk becoming sick and depressed. They have to actively choose to create the tension between the so called, "good and evil," for themselves rather than having it inflicted or forced upon them. They have to create a work/leisure balance and adhere to it. Whereas, once, they were forced by weekly grind and raising children to work hard and not have too much leisure (and thus appreciate it), now they may begin to see life as evil or cruel joke because they have reached the so called "golden years" but yet they are not happy. They can become trapped here again, not with the iron chains of responsibility, but with a bond that is even harder to break because it is really nothing. In their freedom do do whatever they want, they can become restricted from enjoyment by this very same openness. 

This is an interesting idea considering the story in Old Norse mythology of the bond that was made by the Svaltárfar "Black Elves" to to bind the wolf Fenrir (which we could say is representative of our animal appetites, desiring nature, or avarice/ greed). This fetter was said to be made out of six things 1.) the noise of a cat's footfall, 2.) a woman's beard, 3.) mountain roots, 4.) the sinews of a bear, 5.) a fish's breath, and 6.) the spittle of a bird, that some say are things that "don't exist" or are "impossible," since the text reads, 

. . . thou must have seen that a woman has no beard, and no sound comes from the leap of a cat, and there are no roots under a rock; and by my troth, all that I have told thee is equally true, though there be some things which thou canst not put to the test. [ch. 34, p.44] 

but from looking at them, we might say instead that they are things that are rather just "barely anything" or are "unseen," or are "of no consequence," things that are very subtle and so make a most subtle chain, and not simply that they don't exist.  This chain, called Gleipnir, was described as being like a soft smooth silken ribbon, unlike the two chains of metal that were first made, both of which Fenrir was able to break free from in a great exposition of raw strength. Some sources say the meaning of Gleipnir is "open one" and some add "lissom" as well, but others give such meanings as "entangled one," and "the deceiver." One possible etymological origin given is that it is derived from the verb gleipa meaning "scorn, sneer." It's not clear where the meaning of "open one" is sourced from, if it is an accurate etymology, however, being "open" does seem to have something to do with being lissom "thin, supple, graceful," in the sense that being lissom allows for some freedom, i.e., "openness" of movement compared to a thick, clanky chain made out of heavy metal links, and this would also make it more frustrating to not be able to break free from it, so it might appear to "scorn" in this way and be a "deceiver,"

Try and Fenrir, Illustration by John Albert Bauer (1882-1918), for Our Fathers' Godsaga by Victor Rydberg published 1911.

which would make Gleipnir similar to such words as gloat, glower, and  glare, which words are said to come from, "a large group of Germanic gl- words having to do with shining and glittering and, perhaps sliding. . . from PIE *ghel-" [OE]. So maybe we could say it is slippery, but not like Sleipnir the eight-legged horse of Odin whose name means "sliding one" or "gliding one," who was named such presumably because his swiftness of foot. And, we would also say it is "slippery" not just because it is smooth and perhaps glistening like a silken ribbon (or perhaps we could say,  rue-band, like Fenrir's "band of rue".),

Gleipnir looking like a glistening ribbon / rue-band,  Fenrir by Istrandar 

but we also could say that Gleipnir is "slippery" because it is like the snake in the garden of Eden who was a deceiver, a smooth talker, who perhaps we could say was a glib (archaic meaning "smooth and slippery") one (so a we could say,  glibnir [one who is glib]), and tricked Eve into eating the fruit, telling her she was open to do it, as a result putting the animal nature of man in a bind.

A gleaming glamorous ripon-like snake, Eve Tempted by the Serpent, William Blake

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desireable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Gen. 3:6

This serpent in Genesis is described as arum (aw-room') "crafty, shrewd, sensible, prudent, subtle"/ arom (aw-ram') "to be shrewd or crafty," which we could say would make him a "smooth" character, and this smoothness has a connection to arom (aw-romé) "naked," which would be something that is smooth as well (not covered with fur). He was very open in telling Eve the truth, but he was very crafty because his words had double  / diable / devil meaning, so his words were deceptive and ensnared her. He didn't force her to eat the fruit, he instead tricked her into thinking it was the right thing to do. Remember Eve/Chavvah "life" was perfectly innocent and without sin when she ate the fruit; she was lured into a trap. 

A snakey finger trap

Adam and Eve, in this story, represent innocent states of a polarized masculine and feminine perspective They are the two sides, ish "man" and isha "woman, wife, female," of adam "man." The tsela, translated as "rib," taken from the man, ha adam, Adam, was not one of his many rib bones, rather, it was one full side of man, it was one of a set of of two as the word is used in this passage from Exodus to describe the sides[ribs] of the tabernacle,

"Also make crossbars of acacia wood: five for the frames on the one side[rib] of the tabernacle, five for those on the other side[rib], and five for the frames on the west, at the far end of the tabernacle.  Exodus 26:26-27

and the tabernacle itself is a representation of the human body [which is a fitting place for God to dwell].

From the one side, the feminine perspective, the woman understood that since the fruit was good for food (nutritious), it was pleasing to look upon (looked healthy and appetizing), and was beneficial to gain wisdom (a good desire) making one to be like God (a seemingly good desire, since they were in fact made in God's image and likeness) that it couldn't be bad to eat it. Why would God make a good, and beautiful fruit that would kill them? Why would God create a tempter? Eve trusted in the goodness of God and did not believe God would make anything to harm her, therefore the fruit that God made was good and would therefore be good to eat. Why would an all good loving God make an evil fruit? She was trusting in the absolute goodness of her Creator and his love for her. It is the reasoning and faith of a child. And, in fact, when she (the feminine) ate the fruit in this state of innocence, nothing bad happened. She remained innocent. It wasn't until he (the masculine) ate it, that any negative consequences then appeared. 

Innocent Eve & Adam

Eve clearly was the one who decided the fruit was good to eat and ate it first. It doesn't go into detail about what happened after she ate it, but there was definitely a time when she had eaten the fruit and Adam had not eaten it yet, and nothing bad had occurred yet. Eve felt fine after eating it and this is why she offered it to her husband. Her conscience was clean at this point. However, here Adam was secondarily tricked by the devil's ruse. Adam had not reasoned to the same conclusion for himself as Eve had. He, in fact, acted without permission from his own authority and simply did what she had done, because she had done it. He mistakenly thought that since Eve had done it and nothing bad had happened that he could do it too. But this action upset the hierarchy of his own internal masculine and feminine, that is the "husband," his head, was not acting as the head (leader). Eve was tricked into to reasoning out [that is, HER head said] that it was OK to eat the fruit. Her conscience was clean. Adam was tricked into foregoing his reason [his head] by doing what his wife had done, simply because SHE had been able to do it. But Adam should not have subjugated his own reason to the reasoning of his wife when it went against the authority of his own conscience [his own voice of God]. Adam himself believed it was forbidden by God to eat the fruit, and that if they ate it they would die. Eve didn't know that her reasoning was not sufficient reasoning for her husband to follow for himself. Eve had the right innocence and purity of conscience to eat the fruit and not have it be a sin, believing wholeheartedly that her Father in heaven who loves his creation is all good and only made good things, so he wouldn't have made anything to be in the garden that would harm her. But Adam did not share this reasoning; rather, he knew it to be wrong to eat the fruit. So, it was after Adam ate the fruit that they BOTH began to feel shame for what they had done. When Adam (the head) felt guilty for eating the fruit, then Eve too felt shame (in her head) and believed she must have done something wrong. 

This is a very clever trick indeed! When Adam felt guilt for what he had done because he had not let his reason rule [he had not respected the voice of God in the form of his conscience], his action came to the light as a sin for him, and when Eve saw his shame and experienced his regret and disapproval of their action of eating the fruit, she felt guilty for of having given him the fruit to eat and being the cause of this darkness, and also felt the shame of her own seemingly deficient reasoning. Their eyes became *weid- ("to see") open. 

Eating the fruit in this story would be equivalent to the sun going to sunset (going to darkness) in the ancient Egyptian mythology, when Nut "Sky," who was also associated with Hathor/ ḥwt-ḥr "House/temple of Horus (the mother/consort of the reborn morning sun/Ra, rising from the horizon )" and Isis / [Egyptian] ist / ꜣst "seat, place," of the sun, (who were) the mother of the living [Eve/Chavva] or life [Ankh], this goddess swallows ["eats"] the sun(Ra) in the form of Tem /Atum, thus beginning his journey through the hours of the night (adversity), 

Nut as the Night Sky shown ingesting, gestating, and giving birth to the Sun [the red disk], Papyrus copy based on late Egyptian temple at Denderah, Getty Images

before he defeats the forces of chaos, aka, the world serpent Apep/Apophis, and is reborn as the morning sun, as discussed in the preceding card, Temperance XIIII. 

From this ancient Egyptian story it is more clearly illustrated, than in the biblical story, how it is proper for the feminine to be seeded (to eat the fruit) because a woman as woman is able to give birth and a man as man is not able to give birth . . .  unless his head is smashed open like Zeus. 

In the story of Zeus,  Zeus swallows his wife Metis, literally meaning "advice, wisdom, counsel; cunning, skill, craft" (who had already "eaten the fruit," that is she was already seeded, i.e., she was pregnant), and so Zeus is then secondarily seeded through his wife (which bears some resemblance to the story of Adam taking the fruit from his wife who had listened to the "metis[cunning]" snake). Zeus then is in great agony until giving birth to Athena (gaining the goddess of wisdom) through his head. 

Illustration from D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, p36

So, if we compare Eve "mother of the living" with the ancient Egyptian sky goddess (Nut/Hathor/Isis), when she eats the fruit she is brining upon sunset and the experience of darkness immanently just as when the sun sets, it is "swallowed" by the sky and this brings upon darkness. When the woman (Eve) ate this fruit she was impregnated with the seed of wisdom which then necessitated the experience of pregnancy and birth/labor as a result of the seeding. When the man ate the fruit that the woman had eaten, he had to journey (a toil/labor) through the perilous hours of the night like the sun/Ra, or the son of God, which is a death and rebirth experience and is definitely a real headache! Meanwhile the sky (the goddess, Mother of God, the new Eve) gestates and gives birth to the sun, the new Adam, the new man, the savior of the world, the Christ, the son of God at the dawn of the new day (that is, she provides a place by being a place [a seat/throne/tabernacle for wisdom] for this internal journey to take place, the night sky, the underworld, the realm of the subconscious). This is not just a story about the literal and physical phenomena in the sky, but also an archetypical story explaining the inner processes of a human being transitioning from the innocence of spiritual childhood through to spiritual adulthood within the course of the Day of life.

In the same way a child is naked but is not aware of their nakedness, Adam and Eve at first were not aware of their nakedness. The first knowledge that came to them after eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was the knowing (yada) that they were naked.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves. Gen. 3:7

Arom (aw-romé) "naked" is from ur (oor), "to be exposed, bare," which is similar in sound to or (ore) "a light"

And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Gen. 1:3

So, perhaps things that are exposed / bare / naked [ur] are things that are in the light [or], or they are not covered. And this would connect these naked/shrewd words from Hebrew with the Germanic gl- words, from *ghel-, meaning "to shine," like Lucifer is the shining light, and he is also the smooth(arum) talker, the deceiver, and he does this not by force or chains of iron, but by cunningness, or a glam/glamour, like light silken ribbon, talking with openness which we could say is talking with nakedness. He got Adam and Eve to step out into the light 👁👁 💡🧠 and they saw that they were mere creatures (created beings) made in the day (the cycle: light, dark, light) and therefore subject to change, which they thought made them less than God and they were ashamed.

Shadowscapes Tarot - Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Loosing independence, addiction and enslavement, caught up in the material realm, overindulgence, choosing to stay in the dark, pleasures, lust, and desire. Feeling hopelessness close in and limit he options. The Devil plays on your desires with a masterful touch. Break free from the puppeteer's strings by looking beyond the material blockades and temptations.

It's really a smooth trick because simply by having the experience of bad/evil, Adam and Eve became sinners due to their interpretation of the experience. They thought that the experience of adversity was a punishment for disobeying God, and they willingly took on the silken ribbon bonds of shame. The "barely anything" of their transgression became the source of forever damnation; a bond stronger than the strongest metal chains. They lost trust and faith in the love of their creator when in actuality nothing can separate any of us from the love of God.

"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Is. 43:25

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Is. 44:2

All they had to do was believe in the love of their creator as Eve had initially done in her innocence. Instead, they saw their nakedness as something to be ashamed of, rather than seeing their smoothness as a sign of their light: their intelligence. This led them into a fall from grace which spiraled out of control and still binds us to this very day. It is entirely understandable how this could happen since it is perplexing to think why, if God loves us, he would create a world where we all experience evil. It doesn't seem like a loving thing to do. However, when we realize that we were made to be like the one who made us, that is, we were made to be like God, then it is makes sense that we must also have the knowledge of evil to be like God, because God HAS knowledge of both good and evil.

So the the deception of the devil, like the smooth rope, Gleipnir, holds our animal/wolf (creature) nature in bondage until the gloaming of the Gods, Ragnarok, the "destined end of the gods," when we will take on the responsibility of our own divinity, that is, Christ Consciousness; the birth of Christ in us, and conduct ourselves accordingly, not by being bound by imposed rules and regulations, guilt or shame, but instead by enlightened self mastery (spiritual adulthood).

The name Devil, is from Ecclesiastical Greek diabolos (from dia "across, through"+ ballein "to throw") meaning "accuser, slanderer," which is from "a scriptural loan-translation" of the Hebrew satan," which has the meaning "adversary." That definitely sounds like someone who would throw you under (the bus, or into hell) as well. 

Spolia Tarot - artwork by Jen May, design by Tara Romeo, written by Jessa Crispin

The Devil as the Devil is not interested in liberating, even if succumbing to temptation can end up being a great teacher and a catalyst for liberation. There is nothing benevolent about the Devil's motives. When he seduces you to the fall he is hoping that you never get back up again. He only exists as the ruler of the dead end, eternal darkness/damnation. In the day he has no place because the darkness which is part of the day(day☀️ [night 🌚] ☀️morning) is surrounded by the light, so is not eternal darkness and therefore not evil. When the lights come back on to complete the day(the sun rises / morning), it's lights out for the Devil. His reign over eternal darkness comes to naught and evil vanishes like a mist. 

The Devil is alarmed by the first signs of daylight. Fantasia, Night on Bald Mountain, 1940

The devil is only the product of the fact that when we get too out of balance in any direction we cease to enjoy anything. We abhor becoming limp (too little tension) . . . yet we also abhor pain and love pleasure. The state of pure bliss we desire is hard to hold on to, it is ephemeral like the aroma of orange blossoms in the breeze on a perfect spring afternoon. Scent is very alluring and magical, yet if you try too hard, if you try and seize the beauty and cling to it, it escapes you. The longer you smell something the less your brain registers the smell, or in the extreme, smell can turn to evil; more is not always better. For example, one drop of essential oil can smell amazing and produce a magical bliss of emotions, but a whole handful placed to the nose produces nausea, and extreme aversion. The quantity of the scent must and needs to remain small, and the duration of smelling fleeting in order to be most profoundly enjoyed. When it remains so, it is a beautiful thing ,. . .  otherwise it becomes unsatisfying or even evil. We have to recognize it, breath it in, love it and then let it flit away like a butterfly.

Salvador Dalì Tarot

In this way we could say that aroma is arum "subtle," so then perhaps too it is arom "naked," that is, "smooth" like the serpent in the garden. Aroma is alluring as are the temptations of the devil. Aroma is odor, originally meaning "sweet smell, scent, fragrance" which is from PIE *hed- "to smell," which is similar to Greek hēdys "sweet," and hēdone "pleasure, delight, enjoyment." It's frustrating to want pleasure but not be able to own it. Instead the hēdone can own us. Instead we must trust the pleasure to come and go as it does. We have to enjoy it for  just a moment, a time, or a season and then let it go /die to it (for a time). We have to be OK with change and movement. But for some, it is so uncomfortable to not be in control that they are willing to forego goodness, just to have a firm placement. That would be hell. In hell you don't have to worry about being better, you don't have to work hard at anything, you don't have  the constant push and pull between pleasure and pain. Instead you can just sit and wallow in your misery eternally. There isn't anything complicated about that. . . And you can hate. You can hate God. You can be be the victim. And it won't ever stop . . . 'til you wise up.

We can only manifest what we believe is possible. If we are fooled into thinking that we are a prisoner with no means to ever escape we can exist in a kind of eternal hell. We are bound there until we believe we can be free, and this can stretch on eternally. We have this idea that we suffer because we are sinners. But what if we instead we say that we suffer because it is an experience. It is an experience which gives us the knowledge of evil.

A new Eve had to come along who would have such innocence of faith that she would view any darkness that she had suffered in her life, not to be the result of her own personal sin. She is the immaculate conception; she is she who is born without sin, and therefore she is she who allowed herself to believe that she was worthy to give birth the son of God because God had made her so, despite the fact that she was a mere mortal. Due to this acceptance, fiat, on her part of God's will, the "sun" (son) had a place to gestate and be born from creating the cycle of the day which turns the experience of darkness to light and envelops it in the safe confines of the Day: evil and Eve's ill being defeated.

The savior that is born, God made man, then, incarnates to show us how to get out of our own way. It isn't this savior who heals us, but it is God in us who heals us through our own faith. Jesus attests to this when he says, "Your faith has healed you." Mk 5:34, Mk 10:52. However it is Jesus/Yeshua, the Christ, who gives us reason to believe that we can be healed. It is Christ who allows us to believe again that God actually loves us and that we don't need to continue in a state of separation. This is what he died for to prove to us.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Gal. 5:1

Freedom, however, is never the purpose of the Devil.

Lost in the valley of the night

It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light

For the wretched of the earth

There is a flame that never dies

Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise

They will live again in freedom in the garden of the LORD

They will walk behind the ploughshare

They will put away the sword

The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

Say, do you hear the distant drums?

It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes! - Les Miserables, Finale

 

Death — XIII

Moving on from The Hanged Man XII, we come to Death XIII. In his state of suspension the Hanged Man gained daath / da'at "knowledge,"which in itself leads to a certain kind of death. He is forever changed. Can we even say he is the same man he was before? Think of Gandalf the Gray vs. Galdalf the White, a caterpillar vs. a butterfly, a child vs. the adult. The former has to pass away to make way for the later. We are surrounded by this type of death daily. Think of a river. It is literally passing away before our eyes; forever flowing.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. —Hereclitus

So death is a necessary component for any type of evolution.

Card 13 from the Tarot de Marseilles, "Death" is left unnamed

For those of us in a body, death is scary. He is shown here as the reaper of souls. So fearful is death to us that the maker of this card thought it was best to not even write "it" on the card. Death here is, "he who shall not be named." When we think about the ways in which people die, and what then happens to the body after death, it is quite dreadful. Death can be bloody, painful, oozing, there is loss of strength and control. When the heart stops beating the body quickly begins to decay. It starts to smell bad, perhaps we might even say, fume (from latin fumus, from PIE root *dheu (1) "dust, vapor, smoke" which is why we take care to burry people quickly so as not to have a fume-eral instead of a funeral), it turns pale, lifeless, grotesque. The bones start to appear. The shed body of the person we loved is transformed into a grinning skeleton. So, let's not make light of this and say that death is nothing to be afraid of, it most certainly is, however, the fearfulness of death is not the end of the story.

Halloween Tarot - by Karin Lee, art by Kippling West

"All endings make way for new beginnings. An abrupt, totally unexpected change. Destruction followed by new growth. Release from old patterns. New ideas and opportunities."

All change is a type of death. Death is the inevitable consequence of living in the the day, i.e., the dies in Latin. Dies is said to be from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine." The English word day is, rather, proposed (by Boutkan) to be from PIE root *dhegh- "to burn," being from Old English dæg, from Proto-Germanic *dages- "day," which is also the source of Old Saxon and Middle Dutch dag and German Tag (among others). However, the word dag (n.) can have the meaning "thin rain, drizzle, wet fog"(Scottish), in English now obsolete, dag is "a misty shower, dew," and Old Norse dögg "dew," from Proto-Germanic *daowo-, source of Old English deaw "dew," said to be perhaps from *dheu- "flowing." Dew may be flowing (*dheu-) in that it is a liquid, but also it is flowing in that it flows in with the coolness of the night and quickly recedes, or burns (*dhegh- ) up, with the advent of the daytime portion of the day. But dew can also be described as shiny(dyeu-y) during the day(dies) gleaming in the sunlight (which is both shiny and burning) 🌞 . 

Dyeu-y Dew on a Web, photo by Julie O./chthonickore, Sept. 2023

In Old Saxon and Middle Dutch "dew" is dau, in German Tau. Which is similar to the PIE root  (*dau-) of the word death, from Old English deaþ, from Proto-Germanic *dauthuz from verbal stem *dau- (+ *-thuz suffix indicating "act, process, condition), which is said to be perhaps from *dheu- (3) "to die." 

What does death dew to us? We are in fact changing from one state to another, which is what happens to water vapor when it condenses into dew. Does vapor die when it dews? Does water die when it turns to ice? Did Frosty the Snowman die when he melted into a puddle of water on the floor of the greenhouse? There is a similarity in the proposed root of "death" [*dheu- (3)] and the root of "dew" [*dheu- ], so also there is a similarity between things that *dheu- (3) "die" and things that *dheu- "flow." However, there is also a connection between things that are like dew, i.e.,  things that *dheu- "flow," and things that "shine" (*dyeu-) like the day (dies / dag); things diurnal. So then also, there is a connection between things that are "in the day" (de die) and things that die. 

Any sort of change is an expression of duality "twofold nature, state of being two or divided into two" It is no longer just one thing but now it is another. That is two, in Old French deus "two"(Modern French deux), from Latin duos "two." The very first act of creation was an act of duality. From out of the darkness came light,

The earth was without form and void, and darkness [obscurity] was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good. And God separated [badal, divided] the light from the darkness.  

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day [yom "age/time"]. Genesis 1:1-5 ESV

The day / dag / die is composed of both day and night. One whole day is composed of "day"+ "evening"+ "morning": one day. So this day is in motion, flowing, in flow (*dheu-) between states or parts. The thing that made the day to begin with was the creation of the light. So in a way we could vilify the light for making the peaceful, minding its own business, sea of infinite potential, darkness, into "night," a term sometimes used interchangeably with "evil." 

But God called the light "good," so we won't argue with that. God is called the light, and the sun, the great and life-giving light in our sky, has been called God or a god, either literally or by analogy. God in Latin is Deus, from the same root as the Latin dies,  *dyeu- "to shine. God is this Deus shining light, but we must know that God is equally, too, the darkness[obscurity] which exists with the light that is the day. And the day is said to be "very good," even "exceedingly" or "abundantly" good.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very[meod] good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Gen. 1:31

If God is the eternal light, then God must also equally be the infinite darkness which the light was born from [otherwise something would have been existing that was not God before creation]. In this way God is dual. . . 

Yin Yang

Yet also God is somehow also perfectly one, a unity. God is a perfect marriage of light and dark, which is the ultimate infinite unmovable prototype of the day. Without this marriage, the infinite nothingness / darkness / void / sea of infinite potential would be evil compared to the infinite light, but no part of God is evil. In fact evil can only exist when the image of God is distorted. 

In the same way the light was divided [badal] from the darkness in the beginning, the man was divided / alone [bad] from his other half at his beginning which was bad "not good." But this was not the end of the story, 

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man[ha'adam] to be alone[le·bad·dow]. I will make him a helper suitable [neged "opposite, counterpart"] for him. Genesis 2:18

So in the same way God redeemed creation by joining the light with the dark to be one (i.e., day, night, day[morning] = one day), to make creation a reflection of God's image, which is perfect unity of the polarities, so too he redeemed, his creation, man (adam), to be a perfect image of God by joining the one side, ish "man, male" with his other half, ishah "woman, wife, female," as one flesh / body.

That is why a man[ish] leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife[ishah], and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife - by Julie O.

The active principle is united with the passive, the conscious mind with the subconscious, the masculine with the feminine, and this act is creative, i.e., it creates new life.

It is not good for the light to remain alone. The being that we might say was most "shiny" and therefore, most like Deus [that is most like the active aspect of God which is visible to us (not obscured/dark)] which is from the same root as dies,  *dyeu- "to shine," was Lucifer, from Latin Lucifer "the morning [day] star," literally meaning "light-bringing," which is a translation of the Hebrew helel  "a shining one," and therefore we could say is like Deus, the *dyeu-y one. However, as it was said, the light is good, but the creation of the light then causes the infinite darkness to become evil, that is, "evil" to a created light. It is only ultimately not evil to the uncreated and infinite light, as is God the All, the manifest and unmanifest. However, how can any creature (created thing) be infinite, like God? And isn't anything not God, less than God and inadequate? 😒 😡 🔥 👿

. . . You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.  

You were in the garden of Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper. lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 

You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.  

Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Ez. 28:12-16

Sit down b*tch, be humble!

So the creation of the perfect light [lucens] also created the possibility for a Satan, an "adversary," who is called the Devil. That is /who is, the light run rampant, who compares himself to God, and ends up swallowed, therefore, in the infinite darkness. To truly be like God one must accept his own humility, i.e., his own darkness, and surround it by the light. As the Emperor (ish "man") is the boundary of the safe enclosure (paradise) and the Empress (ishah "wife") is the abundance contained /ordered within the enclosure. This is like the creation of the Earth and the Sun. This world is everything to us. We are not swallowed up in the infinite darkness of space, although we are in fact swallowed up in the infinite darkness of space, but rather we experience all good things in this paradise. We have everything provided for us here, we only need to maintain some humility about our position. Everything that the father has he has given to us so that we can be one with him, and share in his image, yet we are not THE God. As a created being, a creature, a being who, flows that is impossible.

Because we are not THE God, this is why the son of God (i.e., sun of God, the light, the masculine / yang), had to die (set) and, after the mourning, be reborn / resurrected as the son rise in order to surround the darkness of the night in the glory of the new day / dawn / morning (i.e., to redeem his mother, and therefore, the feminine / yin / night  [which was never evil, but only dark).

"Behold, I make all things new!" Rev. 21:5

If each day the sun "dies," and the sun is representative of God, the great light, the light of the world, then how much more so would we, mere creatures, be subject to death? But we also have hope in that, even though the sun suffers a symbolic death each evening, it is not really gone or dead (only to our view), and it is resurrected to the fullness of life every morning.

Shadowscapes Tarot - by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law & Barbara Moore

"Closing the door to the past and opening a new one, going through transition, changing status, shedding the old and excess, bowing to inexorable forces and sweeping changes. The old must be set aside and burned away to make way for the new."

We are creatures of change.

Inevitably the day leads to death because the day flows, it changes, it takes time, which is from the PIE root *di-mon, suffixed form of *da- "to divide," 

Father Time XIII —Winter Wonderland Tarot, by Joshua Franklin and Aaron Franklin

which is also the root of  the word demon. So, time is a little bit demonic. THE "time man" is

Χρόνος / Khronos / Chronos / Chronus (from Greek khronos "time"), and "Father Time,"  is often conflated with Death.

Spolia Tarot, artwork by Jen May, written by Jesse Crispin, 

". . . It is the dying of the old that makes way for the young. . . "

Who is also conflated with the similar sounding Κρόνος / Kronos / Cronus, the God of the Harvest, who overthrew his father Ούρανός / Ouranos / Uranus "Sky / Heaven" and was himself also destined to be overthrown by one of his children . . . so he swallowed them.

Saturn, by  Peter Paul Reubens, 1636

 Pretty demonic!

In the Roman pantheon Cronus is known as Saturn (from a word meaning "to sow") and is often shown with a reaping tool, 

Saturn seated in a chariot drawn by winged serpents, engraving by Pietro Bonato

similar to Death, the Grim Reaper.

Another agricultural deity is the ancient Egyptian, Osiris (a transliteration of the god's name transcribed in Greek, Οσιρις, from the ancient Egyptian wsjr / Asar / Usir / Wesir et al.) who also came to be known as the God of the dead, who dwelt in the 𓇽, Duat / Ṭuat, the land of the dead, who himself rose from the dead (God of resurrection) after being dealt a very harsh hand, being diced up like a deuce / dews  of a mess by his devilish brother Set. 

Osiris

Osiris-Nepra, with wheat growing from his body. From a bas-relief at Philae. The sprouting wheat implied resurrection.

Cartonnage of Nespanetjerenperre [back detail], Thoth and Horus erecting the Djed-pillar

He was also the God of the Djed, the pillar representing "stability, lastingness, permanency" as a hieroglyph. Some say the djed was originally fashioned after columns made from bundled reeds. It was symbolically representative of the backbone (i.e., the stability) of Osiris. So Osiris was definitely associated with bone, specifically the spine, and bone (os) is the stability of the body.

In the Crowley deck below, Death is wearing an Atef-like crown of Osiris. He is shown as an osseous man, that is, a man ossis "of  bone (os)" in Latin.

 Aleister Crowley's  Thoth Tarot - Transformation, Change, voluntary or involuntary, perhaps sudden and unexpected. Illusory death. Release through destruction - from Instructions for, written by James Wasserman

Os, in Latin, can have the meaning of other hard organic substances (not just animal bone), such as the hard inner wood (heartwood) of a tree, kernels of nuts, and the stones of fruit, and if a person is "bones" ossa they are one of the "dead." 

However, os also has the meaning in Latin of "mouth; face." In the ancient Egyptian language  the letter Rr, was made with a "mouth" hieroglyph, so the R in ancient Egyptian is a stylized os 👄.

R - "mouth"

And one name for the realm of Osiris [who was identified with Sokar/Seker an early god of the Memphite necropolis] was, Rostau / Rosetaw / Restau, rꜣ-sṯꜣw (as described in the Coffin Texts, in the so called, "Book of Two Ways," also called "Guide to the ways of Rostau"), also known as Imhet, it was also used to refer the arid sandy region around the Giza plateau, the necropolis (which has many caves and underground passages used as tombs),  The necropolis is the final place of rest, the tomb and womb of transformation (from this life to the next), the grave, land of the dead /of bones (ossa). 

I have passed the ways of Rosetaw witch are on water and land. These are the ways of Osiris. They are on the edge of the sky. As for any person who knows this spell for going down by them, he is a holy god in the suite of Thoth. Moreover he can go down to any sky into which he desires to go down. But as for him who does not know how to pass on those ways, he shall be taken by a stroke of death which is ordained being a nonentity who has no Maat forever.  -Ancient Egyptian Book of Two Ways , by Leonard H. Lesko, 1972

 

The Two Ways refer to two paths witch zig zag across a dangerous landscape beset with obstacles and demonic entities towards Rostau - the realm of Osiris. Rostau, which is said to be at the boundary of the sky, is locked in darkness and surrounded by fire. Here lies the body of Osiris, and any person who looks upon it will never die. The deceased also hopes to reach the Field of Offerings where they feast with Osiris and their every need will be met. Unfortunately, the road is dangerous, many of the paths cross one another and some lead to nowhere.  -Book of Two Ways, Ancient Egypt Online

Rostau / Rosetaw / Restau, rꜣ-sṯꜣw starts with the r "mouth" hieroglyph, and ends in the genitive construction stau / sṯꜣw "of pulling, of towing," from sta /sṯꜣ "to pull; to bring or usher (someone in). Some translate Rostau to mean "mouth of the passages." Sir Peter Renouf says in his  The Egyptian Book of the Dead,  "the name Restau 

Restau

signifies the Gate of the passages." [Chapter CXVII. Chapter whereby one taketh the blissful path at Restau.] He also indicates the sense of the meaning of stau here to be "flowing" rather than "towing." But perhaps we could say "towing / pulling" is related to flowing in this way. He says the word has the same meaning here as "when the Nile is said to flow into the Great sea," so that indicates a kind of force that is present at a passage in a river where the water flows (sta) into the sea, as Sir Peter Renouf explains in a footnote about a passage that mentions the "effluxes flowing (stau) from Osiris" in Restau [Chapter CXIX, Chapter whereby one entereth or goeth forth from Restau].  

Or perhaps we could even imagine that the water "tows" objects due to its  upward buoyant force. We might say that boats are "towed" along the surface of the water. We have the word in English undertow which is a "subsurface flow of water," which seems to bear this conceptual usage. The "towing" of an undertow has nothing to do with ropes; the current just pulls you out to sea. So we could say the solar barque flows (sta) or is towed across the sky with the stars, in their stations. Not too unlike how an astronaut is towed across the sky in a Space Station (which is not actually stationary).

Ra (holding a r-tau, ankh), traveling in the solar barque on the pt "sky" hieroglyph steering into a star-y (Middle English sterre) gate/door/portal

Ra / Re, the sun god

To the Egyptians, the sun god traversed the sky in a great barque, which carried both the god and his retinue. As the sun set on the western horizon, throwing orange flames across the foothills of the desert, the barque would plunge into the dark chasms of the netherworld, driving first in a marshy and fecund land, filled with stagnant ponds and reeds, known as the Waters of Osiris.

After passing these peaceful waters, the barque of the sun god would strike a far unfriendlier shore: By the fourth hour of the night, the barque reached Rostau, the vast desert realm of the falcon god Sokar, where the boat was borne by snakes rather than sailing of its own volition. . . by Nicky Nielson, Atlas Obscura, The Duat...

Well, being borne by snakes sounds like towing too! And entering this unwelcoming gate of the fourth hour also reminds me of a towing force like a tractor["pulling," stau] beam (like the Death Star), or an undertow (or waterfall as in Land of the Lost) that takes you along whether you want to be taken or not. It's the point of no return! And if it's, rather, the point of know return then that indeed is the land of daath encountered at death. It can't be unseen.

The Rostau hieroglyph ends with the wavy "hill-country" hieroglyph, which is a determinative(not spoken) for "the desert / the wild," such as the area of the necropolis, and is also used for "foreign lands," and a logogram for the word ẖꜣst / khast "foreign land," so we might say lands that are sometimes hostile environments like the desert. The lands of the *ghost-ti [root of hostile] "stranger, guest, host." The necropolis would definitely be the place to find strangers or guests in the form of ghosts.

The end sound, stau, also remindss us of Greek σταυρός stauros "cross, pole," and a star, such as an asterix * "little star," from PIE *ster- (2),  can be thought of as a kind of cross. Stauros can also refer to the top beam of a Ττ, tau, (pronounced as taf in Greek), derived from the Phoenician taw Χ (in Hebrew it is tav ת [Early Hebrew 𐤕; Middle Hebrew ✗), believed to be derived from the Egyptian x-like hieroglyph (shown below) which can have the meaning "break, divide; cross, meet"

Gardiner's sign list

or, a tally mark

Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, KNT, F.S.A., 1920

In Hebrew, such as in Ezekiel 9:4, taw/tav תו has the meaning of "mark," 

 . . . and put a mark[taw] on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.

Presumably this mark would have looked something like ✗ at that time, so like a cross or x. And the people who were so marked were the ones who were set apart to live and not be killed.

Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple. Ezekiel 9:6

So in this sense the taw would indicate the people who were "crossed over" and indicate those who would remain alive, rather than the meaning of "destroy, break," but perhaps, we could take the meaning "divide" instead, as in the ones with the mark were those who were divided (✗) from the rest (and NOT destroyed), but "passed by," that is, they were counted as the living, those who would have "life" ☥ (ankh) and were divided from the rest (those whose time was up), i.e.,  the dead ☠️.

An x is visually an intersection of two lines that mark a spot. An ✖︎ can mark a spot where something is buried underground like a treasure, or a ✟ can mark the place of a burried body.  The x exists at the crossing or meeting place between the world above and the world below or beyond. It can indicate death 😵 (lights out), or an x can be an ex lover, or ex spouse, someone who was part of a now dead / destroyed / broken relationship.  ❌ can indicate something that is being removed,  exed out "killed," or is the "wrong" answer.

So we might say Rostau is a "mouth" entrance or opening, as in the "mouth" of a cave, and R + x marks the spot of transition between worlds, or place of crossing over, or entrance to passages that lead to the Duat / Tuat where the dead live . . . if they have the right prescription ℞. And together those two shapes [mouth hieroglyph + tau] make something like an ☥ , which is a tau with a loop on top, a crux ansata, which in ancient Egypt had the meaning of "life." 

But a mouth is also similar to an eye in that it is an almond/mandorla shaped opening. And the name of Osiris is made with an os, "eye" ir in ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs as a component:

wsjr /wsir, "Osiris"

Which is similar in the hieroglyphic spelling to the name of Osiris' wife, whom we know as Isis, in that the name of this goddess is spelled with the "throne" hieroglyph which has the meaning "seat; place" as well as the name of the goddess, and represents the phonograms (i.e., sounds) st, as, htm, ws]

ist / ꜣst / ꜣusat "Isis" or Aset / Eset

But her name itself, is similar in sound to ishshah / isha / iša  "woman, wife, female," if we take her name transliterated into Coptic form Egyptian as ⲎⲤⲈ (Ēse), or Wusa in the Meroitic language of Nubia"(wiki./Isis), rather than "Isis" which is the English transliteration of, Ισις, the Greek transliteration of her name from ancient Egyptian. And in fact, the words for male and female in hieroglyphs are similar to the Hebrew iš "male" and iša "female," being  s / es "male" and st / set "female" [the t ending typically denotes the feminine in ancient Egyptian]. So we can pair the name of Isis and Osiris in some of their other iterations; Aset and Asar; Wusa and Wesir; Eset and Esir, et al. 

So Osiris / Asar / Asir / Wesir is spelled ws "seat" + ir "eye." And if the seat is his wife, the st "woman," perhaps we could say he is the one who is set on Isis and who 👁 "sees" her, which could be another way to say "knows" Isis, as when we sometimes say, "I see you," when we mean that we understand / know the person in an intimate way. Or, even more intimately, when a man, iš/ish / s, knows his wife, iša/isha / st, they are joined as one flesh, and the man being joined to his wife, who is his ezer "helpmeet," is therefore stronger than he would be on his own. Like the reeds that form the pillar are not djed "stability"until they are bundled and tied together, so too Isis (whose symbol is the tyet / thet /tjt the "Knot of Isis," a stylized knotted piece of cloth meaning "welfare" or "life" similar to an ankh) gathered the pieces of her husband Osiris (the djed pillar) and bound them together with a cloth and breathed the breath of life (ankh) into him, which caused him to be resurrected (saved).

With Nepthys, Isis roamed the country, collecting the pieces of her husband's body, reassembling them, and holding them together with linen wrappings. Isis breathed the breath of life into his body and resurrected him. Deities in Ancient Egypt - Osiris - Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum 

Djed & Tyet

And being put back together he was made to be oz "strong, like the "eye" or the "center" of a tree, the "heartwood" os, the "bone" of the tree, that is stability, like the djed. [as discussed in The Mighty Oak and Tyet Knot].

Sunset at Mondo Beach, Ventura, CA, 2014, by Julie O./chthonickore

The seat of the eye could also be one way to describe the west (ws st), the place of the sunset, as well, where the sun is "put" or "seated" at night, where the great eye in the sky ⨀, Ra / Re, symbolically dies each evening entering the "mouth" of the Goddess (Nwt goddess of the starry heavens), and is then reborn (re-"created" "becoming" khpr/) each morning (from the other opening "mouth") as Khepra /ḫprj.

     Khepra, the god of the morning sun, khpr (beetle) + r (mouth) + A (feather) + seated god determinative

Both a mouth and the entrance/exit of the birth canal, and the entrance/exit to the womb,  the cervix (os of the cervix) have a "mouth" r hieroglyph shape, as well. Which all have some resemblance to the entrance/exit of caves. They are all slit, or O shaped openings.

Mouth of a Cave, El Scorpion Canyon Park, CA, photo by Julie O/chthonickore, 2023

And the mouth of the night sky (Nut), is an entrance to the 𓇽 Duat / Ṭuat / dwꜣt the place of the afterlife. It is at the st "place, seat" of, or entrance to the womb/tomb (in the body of Nut, the starry sky). And the stars themselves divide the night into "hours," and certain stars, ⭐️ sba / sbꜣ "star," were thought of in ancient Egypt as gates or doors. The same word  sba / sbꜣ also had the meaning of "gateway, gate, door." A sba "star" could indicate a passage in the sky, as certain stars would be seen hourly rising or setting in the ⭐️-light [ṭua-light / dwꜣ -light] and the dual-light of the twilight ("half"-light) lit sky.

Sign list, Hiroglphs from Unicode 5.2 

An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, Knt., F.S.A., 1920

And there was certainly reason to pray, tua /twꜣ / dua /dwꜣ "prayer, worship, adoration; praise, respect; supplication" with the dawning of the morning star and the rising sun.

Which is at the horizon (Akhet/ꜣẖt) the place where the sun rises above the mountain (ḏw/Dw)[which mountain hieroglyph is also used in the word Dw N26 "bad, evil, sad of heart" *at the bottom of the list]

So we are back to things "dew-y" and "two-y" being related to things relating to death (*dau-), dying (*dheu-ing) and change, things that *dheu- "flow," like the "shinny" (*dyeu-y) stars in the sky (Duat), that from evening to morning change their place, flowing from hour to hour, and represent the deities, the "shining ones," who are immortal and worthy of adoration.

So, death is not always the end of the story. We are only a little over half way through the Fool's Journey! There is much more to come, and even once we make it through to the end of the Major Arcana, it all just starts over again . . . with the fool. What ever thing is being called  death at any time and place is just an indication of transformation in progress. And some transformations are more difficult than others, like the earthly death of the living, when a soul is separated from its body, which is, as far as we experience and care, final for the rest of our lives. Once a loved one dies, we go on, sometimes for a long time without ever seeing that person (or animal) again. It's not like wheat, or even flowers. No one cares if the wheat dies and is consumed, when more wheat will grow (unless you want to have your cake and eat it too). There isn't a personal attachment to grains of wheat, and even the sentimentality that might accompany a special beautiful flower when it withers and dies and has to be thrown out, is nothing compared to the loss felt at the death of another human being. Death can be hard to stomach. Thanatos [Death] himself is described in the Theogony as having, 

. . . a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods." —Hesiod, Theogny 765-766, translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White

Death can't be too concerned with feelings, he just needs to do what needs to be done at the time it needs to be done. Nothing personal!

So Death can be dreaded, and being the unnamed card, this makes its association with the number 13, XIII all the more mortifying. If he had been named, in the Tarot de Marseilles he would be, Le Mort, from Latin mors (genitive mortis) "death," from PIE root *mer- "to rub away, harm," also "to die." Which might remind us of myrrh, which is used as a type of  medicinal rub, which in Hebrew is mor, and was used as an ointment for embalming, therefore used for those who die, which is muth "to die" in Hebrew, sounding like mooth which reminds us of "moth". And in ancient Egypt the so called "man with bleeding head" hieroglyph was a determinative for mt / mwt  meaning "to die," but mt / mwt was also the "griffon vulture" hieroglyph, which also had the meaning "mother," which English word is from PIE root *mater. The vulture hieroglyph (mwt) also represented the protective mother goddess Mut. All this then brings more light to the depth of the symbolism in the Halloween Tarot Death card than might have been first observed.

Saturn / Cronus, a vulture(mwt), full moon(an osseous looking eye in the sky), an ankh, a star, a bony man as a sower/gardener, a death head moth

This brings us back to the notion that the original creation of mater out of our mother, the dark abyss, is in fact, the cause of our mortality and death. If nothing was ever born into mater out of our mater (mwt), we would never die (mwt), and then the point of all this would be moot . . . because nothing would exist. But we do exist, and presumably because God loves us.

Really love is all there is, but it doesn't mean that the story isn't a bit (even a lot) scary at times. But through this story of "the day" and the conquering (or enveloping) of the light over (around) the darkness each morning, we are promised in the end to overcome death, as we too are partakers in the same mystery of creation.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death[thantos] he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Heb. 2:14-15 ESV

And . . .  it just so happens, that in timely fashion, this post is being finished on Good Friday in the evening! A good time to contemplate death as we enter into the tomb with Jesus. 

And we know how the story ends.