The Cave in the Death Card of the Waite Tarot Deck
By Kerry A. Shirts
A good friend of mine (Rocketman) on the Internet told me today that the Death card in the Tarot deck had a cave. In fact, the figure riding the horse is the key to finding the cave. If you go down to his foot in the stirrup there is a tiny arrow at his heel which is pointing to the cave in the side of the mountain across the river. It is right above the viking looking ship which is in the river.
This immediately stirred my mind into thinking why a cave? Why is the cave so cleverly hidden right on the card? When you look at the card, of course, the prominent figure is the horserider and his horse with the huge black flag which has the white rose on it. Your eye wanders down, of course, to the priest who has his hands clasped fervently looking at the rider on the horse. A woman with her children are on the ground on their knees. And apparently her husband is already dead, because he is sprawled out on the ground. I was quite excited as I realized the cave was hidden. What is the cave? Why is it associated with the Death card? That is what this paper will explore.
Many of the books I looked through indicated that the cave symbolized the womb of Mother Earth.1 In its dark and mysterious aspects, caves function and did function as temples for religious rites, art, and understanding. Joseph Campbell explained that the art found in the caves of France from very ancient times were drawn in the first temple of humans. "A temple is the projection into earthly space of a house of myth; and as far as history and archaeology have yet shown, these paleolithic temple-caves were the first realizations of this kind, the first manifestations of the fact that there is a readiness in man’s heart for the supranormal image, and in his mind and hand the capacity to create it."2
The caves had ancestors who lived in them (sleeping heroes in some cases as in the cave of 7 sleepers) totem-gods who, after awakening from their sleep, come forth to redeem their people. The cave art of the France caves was for the ensuring of the fertility-multiplication of the people.3 This is reflected in the idea of the cave as a womb of Mother Earth. This womb brought forth the living and took back the dead. It was the place of transformation and was the binding link between the past and the future.4
In this light, let us reflect on Jesus for a moment here. Legend has it he was born in a cave.5
Luke 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
The Greek word for inn, being katalumati (katalumati), which following the BDAG (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., 2000, by Walter Bauer, University of Chicago Press) means lodging place. The sense inn is possible in Luke 2:7, but in Luke 10:34 Luke uses pandoxeion, the more specific term for inn. katalumati is therefore best understood here as lodging or guest-room, as in Luke 22:11; Mk 14:14, where the contexts also permit the sense dining-room (cf. Sir 14:25). In further favor of this rendering is the contrast between two quarters: a fatnh (fatnhe) and a kataluma (kataluma). The latter could be a space in various types of structures. Cp. also the use of the cognate kataluw (kataluw) (s. k.4) Luke 19:7 in reference to hospitality.
The legend is that the grotto was behind the inn. Now what makes this worth reflecting on is when we realize that not only was Jesus born in a cave, but he was reborn in a cave as well, i.e. resurrected. The description is of a sepulchre hewn out of stone, mnhmati laceutw.
The cave being in the Death card, is entirely appropriate since it is the portal of birth, as well as of rebirth, in the same manner as the Bible indicates with Jesus. The Death card is indicative of change and transformation, movement, etc. We move into a new dimension through the cave of rebirth. Death is not the end, again, as the Bible teaches.
Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death in victory….
The Hebrew xcnl twmh (lb (billa hammawet lanetzach) is to engulf death perpetually, in everlastingness, i.e. forever, hence it is a victory, because death is no more. The Septuagint Greek katepien o qanatoj isxusaj (katepeien ho thanatos iskusas) is the swallowing, (in relation to animals, "the devouring") of death with the requisite personal resources, i.e. the power, the validity, to be in control, hence victory. According to Koehler, netzach is to "uberlegen sein," to prevail over.6 Gesenius’ Lexicon includes the meanings of "splendor, sincerity, confidence, perfection, completeness,", etc., while natzach is to "shine, to be bright, pure, chaste, and superintend."7
The death of us is a change in our temporal situation. However, the resurrection is yet another change in us, transforming us literally into a new creature, as Paul taught.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
"New Creature" is the Greek kainh ktisij (kainhe ktisis) that is an unprecedented, unworn, fresh, established, founded creation. It’s similar to the New Jerusalem, or the new heavens and the new earth idea. The New Covenant at Jeremiah 31:31. The Hebrew #dx Chadash, is anything new, fresh, unused, which Koehler compares to the Akkadian hadashatu, as in a new bride.8
And this newness is depicted on the Death card, in the figure of the sun coming up between the two pillars on the right side of the card. This rising sun in the east corresponds to Tipheret, the sixth sphere on the Tree of Life in the Qabalah. So that what we see as death, is the movement the energy into a sunrise of a new day, when yesterday dies, tomorrow is reborn. As we change our ideas about what death is, we actually form new patterns of this thing we call our life.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 also says death is a change.
1 Corinthians 15:51-52 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
The Greek for "changed" is allassw (allasso) which is actually an exchanging of one thing for another, which is precisely how Paul puts it. This is the image of the sun rising in the Tarot Death card. The theme is there pictorially, i.e. symbolically. A new age, a new time, a new us is rising as with the sun. The entrance to death is crossing the river Styx (in the card! See the river in the card! The boat of Charon is even there!), which is the cave carefully pointed to inconspicuously because our consciousness is usually on our lives here on the earth. We worry more about our clothes, our station in life, our desires, hence that is what holds our attention in this card as well. But the key is subtle. It is also interesting that both the rivers Styx, as well as the Jordan were rivers of birth as well as of death. Another name for Styx was "Alpha," "birth." Recall the time when a man dipped himself in the Jordan seven times his flesh became again like that of a little child. (2 Kings 5:14). The Hebrew bw# (shuv) means to "sich wieder zuwenden," "to turn back to," or "erquicken" "restore the soul," and can also mean "wiederherstellen," "to restore." This is just a few of the many things it can mean.9
According to Jason Lotterhand, in his commentary on the Tarot Death card "the Cabalist teachings always equate birth with death."10 When we turn to the Zohar we find the rabbis teaching that man has three parts to his soul. Rabbi Hiyya told Rabbi Judah that "this may be compared to a man who went into the recess of a cave [!], and two or three children emerged together, widely diverse in character and comportment; one being virtuous, a second evil-doing, a third ordinary. Likewise there are three strands of spirit…" he then described how the soul is with man, and can achieve a joining with God in the next life.11
So when I learned there is a cave associated with the Tarot Death card, like I say, it turned a light bulb on in my head. I have always maintained that the Tarot cards are the pictorial form of the scriptures. In Medieval times with so many who were illiterate among the lesser educated, the Tarot cards were more used. I don’t believe even the lesser educated were entirely without the scriptures. They had heard the stories of the Bible as well as the legends and ideas orally, and had the cards to teach them further truths as they pondered and used the symbols for their understanding. They fit very well with what we know in the scriptures, and the symbols, like the scriptures, have multitudes of various meanings, different depths of dimensions one can understand and share, etc. They are simply amazing.
Endnotes