Death

Michael Palmer

I researched death symbols in Marija Gimbutas's book, The Language of the Goddess, and found that the "White Lady" or "stiff, nude" usually carved from bone or light-colored stone, was often present in graves in the Neolithic, Copper Age, and Early Bronze Age. I liked the idea of Death represented as a goddess rather than the male, skeletal figure. These figures are schematized, with arms pressed to the sides or folded in front, and have large pubic triangles. I came up with my own version of the White Lady. The 13 dots above her pubic triangle represent the Death card, being the13th card in the tarot deck.

Because the Death card represents changes, renewal, and rebirth, as well as destruction, I wanted something symbolic of that meaning. Referencing Gimbutas's book again, I found drawings depicting "the column of life, manifestation of the life force, [which] appears with eggs, spirals, and other symbols of becoming." Even the 'x', which is a major motif in one of the carvings and felt to me like a death symbol, is said to signify the "energy inherent in the egg"! I created five of these "life force" carvings and used them as the background behind the White Lady.

As a side note, during the weeks I worked on this card, death touched my life twice. First, my grandfather died (after a full life of 90 years). This week, we had to euthanize my 3-year-old cat after a traumatic fight to save his life from some unknown autoimmune disorder. It was handy having the swap to work on both to distract me from my grief tand to remind me that life is a cycle.