Scorpio & death: Tarot, myth & astrology

La Morte / Death, Nefertari Tarot.

This is the second in a series of blogs that explores the connections that astrology has to the Major Arcana in the tarot. Last month I wrote about Libra, the tarot card Justice, and the ancient Egyptian Goddess Ma’at. You can check out that blog here. If you are learning the tarot for yourself and want to understand how symbolic associations connect to astrology, I hope you’ll find these posts educational. With that said, let’s dive right in!

Scorpio Astrology 101

Scorpio, dark, sexy and mysterious. They are often given a bad press, perhaps due to the sign’s association with death, sex, money, and transformation - which are all pretty intense subjects!  Scorpio is a fixed, feminine water sign and falls from 23 October to 21 November.  In the northern hemisphere, Scorpio season falls the second month of autumn, with the pagan new year Samhain occurring within this time, which coincidentally, or not, is the Sabbat to honour the dead and celebrates the end and beginning of a new cycle.  

Scorpios are said to excel in research, psychology, detective work, and medicine and, like all the water signs, possess psychic abilities. Physically, Scorpio governs the reproductive organs, which are linked to the idea of sex and rebirth, and the excretory functions, which relate to regeneration. In Western astrology Scorpio is the eighth sign of the zodiac and is sometimes referred to as the house of death. In addition, Pluto is the modern-day ruling planet of Scorpio (traditionally it was Mars), its astrological associations are death, destruction, and the underworld. 

Death tarot card, Rider Waite Colman Smith

Tarot Symbolism & Myth

Arthur Edward Waite, scholar, mystic, and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, probably best known for this collaboration with Pamela Colman Smith, the artist behind the iconic Rider Waite Colman Smith deck, allocated the zodiac sign Scorpio to the Death card, number 13 in the Major Arcana. I find this card fits quite well with Scorpio, which is the sign that rules death and rebirth. If anybody can bounce back from death’s door, it is a person with a strong Scorpio influence in their chart.

Let’s begin by looking at the Death card from the Nefertari deck, which features Anubis. The ancient Egyptian God Anubis, God of mummification, healing, funerary rites, and guardian of the tombs, is depicted here in his jackal-head form. He stands central in the card with two people cowering below him.  Anubis represents to us the first entity that we meet when we die, the beginning of the journey the soul takes in its quest to the Field of Reeds, an ancient Egyptian copy of this world where the soul can rest in eternal bliss, like heaven.  Anubis was responsible for protecting and guiding the souls of the newly deceased through their trials in the underworld where they would be judged by Osiris, the ancient God of the underworld, and the forty-two judges. He is frequently portrayed as black perhaps to signify the expansive nothingness, the void or decay, but also the rich black soil of the Nile River Valley.  When we die, our bodies are incinerated or decompose in the ground, becoming worm food, slowly becoming one with nature again. The cycle of life continues, from fertile soil life begins again.  Just like the beginning of human life in the dark of the womb.

Rider Waite Symbolism

The Rider Waite Colman Smith interpretation of the card is particularly rich in symbolism. The skeleton knight, Death on Horseback, wearing a black suit of armour brings to mind the Grim Reaper. It also suggests a biblical reference.  In the book of Revelation, a passage states: “As I looked, there was a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death. Hades followed along behind him.” Revelation tells the story of the Four Horse Men of the Apocalypse,  and Death, the fourth horse is the only named rider and is non-human. 

Hades following behind him is symbolised as the river in the middle ground of the card, depicted as a river, which could be interpreted as the River Styx. In Iliad, the River Styx acts as a boundary between the world of the living and the land of the dead, a soul must cross the river to reach the land of Hades, Lord of the Underworld.  This is also one of the trials the soul must make in ancient Egyptian myth: when in the Hall of Truth, a soul must cross a river to reach the Field of Reeds.  Again, we are going full circle, connecting back to Scorpio - Hades is the ancient Greek equivalent to the Roman God Pluto, Pluto being the modern-day ruler of Scorpio. 

Sunset, sunrise, Nut and Circe.

Is that a sunset or sunrise in the background of the card? Perhaps it’s both, suggesting the cycle of rebirth - the cycle of a day, the cycle of life. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the sun died at the end of each day and was swallowed by the Sky goddess, Nut, travelling through her body to be reborn at dawn. In Greek mythology, Circe is the daughter of the Sun God Helios. Her Island Aeaea is called ‘House of the Dawn and Rising Sun’ or Ground of the Dances of Dawn’ the place where Odysseus stops before continuing his journey to the underworld.  

Death is one of the most misunderstood cards in the tarot. People fear seeing this card, probably due to Western society’s conditioning surrounding death and dying and partly because death is life’s greatest mystery, we have no idea what happens when we die. Rest assured that 9 times out of 10 the Death card doesn’t mean actual death when it comes up in a tarot reading. It usually means a major change is coming, one which will bring a profound transformation, rebirth, and potentially a new way of living.  The insights we learn from working with the Death card ultimately teach us about life, and how to live in accordance with our highest spiritual values. To grow and be the best version of ourselves, we must allow stagnant ways of living to die. Let the old self die to be born anew.

Bibliography

Nannó Marinatos, The So-called Hell and Sinners in the Odyssey and Homeric Cosmology, Numen, Vol. 56, No. 2/3, THE USES OF HELL (2009), pp. 185-197 (13 pages)

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/185/the-forty-two-judges/

https://www.worldhistory.org/Anubis/

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%206&version=NTFE