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).
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. . . "
In the Roman pantheon Cronus is known as Saturn (from a word meaning "to sow") and is often shown with a reaping tool,
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
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 👄.
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| 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
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"
or, a tally mark
Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, KNT, F.S.A., 1920
. . . 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:
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]
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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.
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, 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.
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