XIII--Death

I really wanted to draw this card because I wanted an excuse to draw a magnificent horse and to draw a skeleton in the style of Hans Holbein--I love his Dance of Death series of woodcut prints. I also wanted to pay tribute to Albrecht Durer's etching of the Abduction of Proserpine (death is abducting spring).

Death is an ending, of course. A great change. The eventuality that every living thing must experience. And even if you have a hard time believing in fate, you can be sure that it's in your cards. 

In the picture, a human skeleton representing Death rides animated atop a beautiful unicorn, a phoenix seeming to emerge from the ripples of the mane. The skeleton shows what the body looks like at the end of the life cycle--no flesh, no breath. Even so, it was always there within from the time of birth. It is now time to return to the earth to start the cycle anew. It rides triumphantly, brandishing the black flag with the white rose, as if his arrival and victory were inevitable. Indeed, the triumphal arch atop the mount underscores the supremacy of death. As Heraclitus believed, everything is in constant flux, nothing remains the same. You can never step into the same river twice.

Grass sways in the wind over the reared haunches of the great beast, and there is a pond with a lone polliwog and a frog sitting on a stone. In Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," there is a passage: 

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he... 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves...

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

The calla lilies behind the horse are curious flowers that thrive in bogs and that are extremely poisonous. They are frequently used in weddings and also in funerals--a very apt flower to signify Death, a card of beginnings and endings.

The scarab on the horse emphasizes this role that Death plays in natural cycles; many beetles are detritivores, feeding on carrion, dung (certain scarab beetles are coprophagous), and fungi. When they eat living remains, beetles recycle nutrients back into the soil, thus making the soil more fertile.

The frog and the tadpole reiterate the theme of natural order: the metamorphosis from frogspawn to actual frog is a very recognizable example of transformation. Also, I think the tadpole looks like a sperm, thus signifying a beginning.