Happy Halloween! Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of Mexican skeletons and sugar skulls appearing alongside traditional Halloween decorations. These fun, whimsical figures are popping up everywhere, so I wanted to write more about them and how they can help connect us to the celebration of life, death and our loved ones.
In Mexican and Latin communities throughout the world, “Dia de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead) is observed on November 1st and 2nd in festivities to honour, commune with, pray for, and celebrate deceased loved ones as they visit the physical world in spirit on these special days. Related to the Catholic holidays of All Souls Day and All Saints Day, these celebrations have been tied to societies in pre-Hispanic and ancient Mexico as well.
Tarot Card of the Week: The Death Card
Tarot of the Week — July 1 – July 7
Death
The Death card is one of the most commonly known of all the Tarot cards.
It has been used in movies, television, and books as an omen of and associated with things to come.
The Death card can certainly be viewed this way. I have found, in my personal experience, that Death coming up in a spread is not always a bad thing.
Archetype of the Death Card
In the Major Arcana the archetypal picture of Death is not unlike the physical experience of Death.
One thing that is important to point out here is that Death does not mean a physical Death.
The best way to explain the Death card in the Tarot is that it represents a transformation or change that is so profound that there is no going back to the way things were before.
Consider a physical death. It is a transition from one reality to another. You can call it heaven, the spirit world, the astral plane, or movement onto a new life.
However you put it, death itself represents a profound shift or change, and of course there is no going back to the way things were before.