Month: May 2012

‘We who proudly make unto ourselves every graven image,
shall have great copulations and are allowed to love our Gods,
for we know the Sacred Alignments.’

Austin Osman Spare

xaos:

Death – The Urban Tarot – Robert Scott

Robert Scott

“It seems to me that the Death card in the tarot is sort of a running joke, because every time it comes up in a reading, it has to be accompanied by the words “Oh, but don’t worry! It doesn’t MEAN death necessarily.” It feels necessary to say that, because people see the card and immediately think it means they’re going to die, or someone else is, and that the card is a simple prophecy of doom. Which of course it isn’t. 

“The Death card symbolizes change. Sometimes a painful change (and what large changes are not painful?), but one that is often necessary in order to allow new things to take root and grow. It has implications of rebirth and renewal as well as of endings. 

“Or, in other words, it does mean death. But perhaps you need to think more deeply about what death really is. Death isn’t always the enemy, as much as we want to cast the grim reaper as a movie villain. Sometimes when things, when people pass on… it is simply time. 

“With this card, I wanted to create an image that was immediately one that created a sense of discomfort… even when death is necessary, even when it is anticipated or wished for, it is never a comfortable idea. Especially in our modern world where we are more removed from death and dying than generations past have been. In the urban context, death happens most often in a hospital, under the care of doctors and harsh fluorescent lights. Doctors spend their career trying to save lives, but they are also often the people standing at our sides when life ends.

“I wanted to indicate with this card how death can lead to life, and it occurred to me that the perfect modern metaphor for that cycle comes with being an organ donor. Because there is a little heart on my state ID, there’s a very real chance that if I’m killed unexpectedly, my organs may go to help someone else live. That’s a kind of very real reincarnation and rebirth.

“Quick note on some of the other symbols included in the card – you may notice that the heart is overlaid on a pattern of 10 dots and a Star of David, which together indicate the kabbalistic tree of life. It’s not really my intent to delve too deeply into kabbalistic mysticism with the deck, but I wanted to make a nod to it here as a cycle of life and creation, and draw a connection between the veins of the body and the roots of a tree. The insects on the wall are dung beetles, or scarabs, a classic Egyptian symbol of rebirth and immortality. And the scarabs are of course crawling to a clock without hands which should be a fairly obvious symbol of endless time/timelessness.”

The process of crafting these cards is fascinating.

newageofhorus:

Sermo VII

The Seven Sermons to the Dead 
Septem Sermones ad Mortuos

by Carl Gustav Jung, 1916

Yet when night was come the dead again approached with lamentable mien and said: There is yet one matter we forgot to mention. Teach us about man.

Man is a gateway, through which from the outer world of gods, daemons, and souls ye pass into the inner world; out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and transitory is man. Already is he behind you, and once again ye find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or innermost infinity. At immeasurable distance standeth one single Star in the zenith.

This is the one god of this one man. This is his world, his pleroma, his divinity.

In this world is man Abraxas, the creator and the destroyer of his own world.

This Star is the god and the goal of man.

This is his one guiding god. In him goeth man to his rest. Toward him goeth the long journey of the soul after death. In him shineth forth as light all that man bringeth back from the greater world. To this one god man shall pray.

Prayer increaseth the light of the Star. It casteth a bridge over death. It prepareth life for the smaller world and assuageth the hopeless desires of the greater.

When the greater world waxeth cold, burneth the Star.

Between man and his one god there standeth nothing, so long as man can turn away his eyes from the flaming spectacle of Abraxas.

Man here, god there.

Weakness and nothingness here, there eternally creative power.

Here nothing but darkness and chilling moisture.

There wholly sun.

Whereupon the dead were silent and ascended like the smoke above the herdsman’s fire, who through the night kept watch over his flock.

ANAGRAMMA:

NAHTRIHECCUNDE
GAHINNEVERAHTUNIN
ZEHGESSURKLACH
ZUNNUS

‎But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Mark Twain (via ancora-imparo)