Ok, it’s the middle of the night three am – and I just woke up from an odd dream in which my deceased grandmother and cousin had both come back to life. I was hanging out with them at my parent’s farm. There was nothing specifically frightening about this dream, more generally so it was the casual closeness of the dead that I find disturbing. It was as though they had both just returned from a trip, sort of comforting. I don’t feel like I have had a nightmare. What disturbs me most is that images of death have been all around me all weekend long. The Dalai Lama emailed me Friday and advised me not to worry about death, as it comes to all people.

…You can confront the prospect of your own death and try to analyze it and, in so doing, try to minimize some of the inevitable sufferings it causes. Neither way can you actually overcome it. However, as a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process of life…Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

So, having woken up from an odd dream at three am it seemed that I should do a Tarot card reading as what else are you going to do in the middle of the night when death has come calling. The Rider-Waite Tarot deck, true to form, coughed up the Death card as the primary situation in the Celtic Cross. My on-line interpretation site advised me that Death is a card of new beginnings where one starts over after being stripped to the bone, only to travel higher than one ever has. Or it could just mean the death of yourself or a loved one.

Full reading: I drew The Empress as my mothering and creative self covered by The Queen of Swords – gat about of knowledge that she is. Behind me is apprenticing and hard working Eight of Pentacles and in front of me is the hold onto what you’ve got Four of Pentacles. Beneath me is the out-ed truth evident in the harsh words of the Three of Swords piercing a heart and above me is the knight of wands (red heads are wands and the card means journey – so this is me on a trip – I leave for California Friday). The next card – in the four-card side ascent is The Six of Pentacles (help comes from without in the form of money – this is also a card that reminds us to give).

Above that is the Death card, above that the nine of swords (which is a guy waking up in the middle of the night with nine swords above his head – signifying that most of your problems are in your head – how’s that for a card of the moment), and finally the Devil (Pan the revelous lord of addiction and desire) in the top position. According to my interpretation site “Most cards urge balance, unity, restraint, yin-yang. Not this card. Completely tilted toward the masculine, it is a card that revels in extremity. There is a convincing argument that this is the most powerful and dangerous card in the deck. Magically speaking, it is the one card in the deck that holds the secret of how to escape the material and temporal bonds of Earth. It is a very potent and fascinating card.”

Heavy reading. I want to know more about the Death card so I turned over the two of swords – maintain impartiality and allow for compromise. I wanted to know more about the Devil and so I covered it with the King of Pentacles – yup me again – me and my father both. I still needed more about this death card and covered it with the five of cups – there you go – my ubiquitous Tarot advice “let go of the past and recognize what you’ve got you dumb ass”. Also, go back to sleep you freak, whoever is dead will still be dead in the morning and if the deceased be you then perchance you’ll dream the companionship of lost loved ones until such time as reincarnation is deemed fruitful by the universal Tao.