Meditation on XIII – Death Card

As I have been walking alongside my mom toward her death these last couple of years, and seeing and feeling and knowing how the journey is magnetic and pulls at everyone who loves her and is connected to her the meaning of this card holds so much more depth than it once had for me.

I posted this photo and people responded with “transformation,” “change” and “rebirth“. Transformation/change/rebirth – yes, this is an (the) interpretation of the Death Card. All those words sound easy. They don’t say enough for me anymore. These words are a little too light and  “la la la”. There is so much rage and frustration, sorrow, isolation, madness, letting go letting go letting go (over and over and over again) and acceptance, grief, and getting down to what is of value in life.

Death feels like a deep rumbling even in the slightest whisper. 

The tarot cards hold universal principals of the cycles of life – the Death archetype is the thing that drives fears and distractions, religions and addictions. It is also the contrast to (and encompasses) beauty, love, drive, pleasure, focus. The comfort in the cards is that they illustrate we are not alone in our experience.

Death is not a shift to be taken lightly – obviously. There is much fear and pain and helplessness and cost and sorrow around it. And time.

When Death finally comes, he takes us in an instant. But the future and past rippling out all around that gravitational moment . . .

How do we live our lives so that we move toward an easeful death? In my meditation, Death was compassionate. He gave me his flag. He told me the flag was a reminder to meditate – and to practice dying through meditating on the Divine Self, the Self that is no Self, the Divine aspect of Self that is no longer individual but is connected to everything.

There is much to think about here. Or much to let go of here. Many years ago in the Amazon jungle during a plant medicine journey, the shaman said, “This ceremony is where we practice dying so that we are not afraid of Death.” I was afraid. I was so fucking afraid. I was crushed, I could not let go. Finally in the end, my mantra, the only thing that eased the pain of that journey, was to endlessly repeat – “Compassion . . . compassion . . . compassion . . .”

I realized I was not ready to die. When I shared I was not ready to die, I felt like I had wasted so much time up to that point. It was as if I had been wrestling with the bones of my ancestors in some attempt to break apart the life that had been passed down to me.

Rather than tear them apart, how do I play these bones?

I don’t always know the next step, but I am grateful for this body to actually take the step. I’m navigating as I go.

This transformation/change/(chance for) rebirth has been so long. So slow. And looking back, I’ll think, so fast. And then, I’ll stumble along to the next change, and the next, and the next. As we all will.

Questions to ask (and to let go):

• What am I doing?  What am I gonna do? Can I do it with compassion? Wonder? Curiosity? Kindness?
• What if the life I am living at this very moment is the life my Divine Self wants to experience?
• What if I remember my experience, my circumstance, my goals, my body, are not the Self, but the Divine Self experiencing reality as the Self?
• What if I remember everything is Divine, including Death?
• Can I have the courage to be curious?

I am packing up the apartment and studio in Brooklyn, it’s time to move. I am going to visit friends and take care of house and animals in northern Arizona for a couple of months.

My mother may die before I return. She may not. Grief is a current in my life now, snaking and braiding like an underground river that is sometimes near the surface, sometimes a very long way away.

I am coming back to New York after Arizona with no address to land, yet.

Yesterday it was 81 degrees in New York City, today it is cold and raining. I think the cold is here to stay for a while.

Winter’s moving in.

Not-knowing is how it’s going.

And today, I feel free. 

October 29, 2023
Sunset Park, New York