The Death Sun - My Brain Buzzed LOL
I had a fun little revelation today that I thought I would share. This may not be anything new to some of you, but it was to me, a little breakthrough for my wee brain, and I'm just really hooked on it right now.
So, basically, I've been getting back on doing my daily meditations and following it up with daily tarot readings for myself, and since my (slightly failed) run of shadow work on the 20th, I've been getting a lot of really positive reassurance about a lot of what I'm doing and plan on doing. Today was no different, but the way things came through was very interesting and it has completely altered the way I look at The Sun and Death in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. I won't go into detail about the full reading, but I really feel the need to share this bit.
The images of these two cards have never, in all the years that I've worked with this deck, EVER looked as if they went together, but in today's reading, they did. Obviously, the most noticeable similarity is the horse, right? Both the child and the armored skeleton ride white horses, symbols of bringing in purity and cleansing energy, that's always been a thing, no change there. What was pointed out to me in this reading was that all of the LIFE in The Sun, all of the flowers and The Sun itself, are behind the child and the horse, whereas all of the DEATH in the Death card is in front of and below Death.
This is what struck me, and again, I don't know why this was such a big revelation to me — the armored skeleton, the Grim Reaper, did not come around to kill these people, Death did not bring death, these people were already dead and this armored skeleton is there to clean up and guide the souls to the afterlife. Death is what the armored skeleton and his horse are moving toward, it's what they've arrived at, but what's behind them? THE FUCKING SUN, THE FLOWERS, NEW LIFE.
The child and the armored skeleton are literally the same fucking person, the same being, the same exact force, it's just a matter of how you perceive it. Seriously, this seems so obvious now, but my brain is literally buzzing at this realization, lol.
The Death card has always been a positive one, it's always been a precursor to new life, Scorpio before Sagittarius, the 8th House before the 9th, death before rebirth. Very simple. But even so, it's still scary as shit when it comes up because it brings about this sense of loss, this question of, "okay, what's going to be taken from me now? What's this skelly-man going to take from me?" My altered understanding has me seeing Death as not an indication of what is to come, but what has already happened, Death is a card of realization, of reality really coming down hard being like, "this is already done and over with, it's withered away, you’re hanging onto a corpse, dust, a shadow, a memory. There's nothing there anymore."
This actually made me think of breakups and how the moment that the relationship ends, THAT can feel like Death, that can feel like one person killed the relationship by ending it, but really, that person is cleaning up something that had already died some time ago, right? Whoever ends the relationship is not killing anything, they are clearing what has died and are giving both themselves and the other person the opportunity to change and grow. Obviously, if it's unexpected or unwanted, if you're comfortable in the relationship, this end will look like Death, not The Sun. A matter of perception.
So, yeah, Death and The Sun are the same. The baby and the Grim Reaper are the same. Do with that what you will.
(To clarify, I'm not saying any of this to alter YOUR perception or understanding of these concepts or the cards themselves. I myself will probably still read The Sun and Death as I always have in readings, but the way I apply these to myself, and the way I perceive change and alteration in my life has changed quite a bit, and at a perfect time as well. I just felt the need to share as this alternate perspective and perception could maybe help one or two of you have your own little breakthroughs that you can babble on about as well, lol.)