Death's White RoseDeath's White RoseThe Tarot seems to manifesting itself in my life quite a bit lately. (Or maybe I just have something in my eye.) Most recently, I held Death's white rose in my hand.
But before that happened, last week, we went to dinner with a friend who is a maitre de cabine (head flight attendant) for Swissair. She had an international flight on, what was for us, the same day as the SR111 crash. She arranged for white rose boutonnieres for the entire crew on her flight. I didn't relate it to Tarot until the funeral.
Friday, September 11, 1998, funeral services were held in Zurich, as well as New York and Geneva. In Zurich, the victims' families and friends congregated at St. Peter's, and there were facilities set up outside and elsewhere for the public, connected via a live broadcast. Swissair employees followed/participated in the service from one of their hangars.
The people in the church were united by the grief of their losses. Standing outside the church, I felt very removed from the loosely-gathered group of strangers there. It was like no one really knew why anyone else was there, and each person was closed off in own their misery. I felt so sad and alone that I wasn't even capable of reaching out a hand to anyone else.
During these ceremonies, representatives from Swissair (SAirGroup), local and national government, and Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths spoke, read (Psalm 142 was very appropriate), chanted and sang. Then all the mourners were gifted with long-stem white roses. They must have distributed 3000 of them at St. Peter's and Swissair alone. The speaker said it was for a symbol of hope, but that the beauty of the white rose isn't to be seen on the outside. Only with unfolding is the secret in the core revealed. He didn't fail to mention that there's no rose without thorns.
Two women in Swissair uniforms came out of the church carrying a huge basket of white roses between them, and distributed them to the crowd outside. When the woman handed one to me, she gave me comfort with her eyes and expression - the human contact and understanding that I needed then. "The light of the body is the eye . . . " - Matthew 6:22.
There was no burial, no trip to the cemetery after the service. Walking back through the city at 5 p.m., it began to become apparent that many people had listened to the radio broadcast of the service. People would see the white rose, and look away, as if they didn't want to intrude, or just didn't want to face it. Or they would make o's with their mouths, then whisper to their companions, "swissairswissairswissair. . . " Crossing the main train station, eyes downcast to avoid contact with the masses of casually-curious people, I glanced upon another white rose. I looked up and met the eyes of a young blond woman in a Swissair uniform. We gave each other a small sympathetic smile as we passed. It was a soft light on a gray and dismal day.
Death's white rose has five petals - two arms, two legs, and a head. I've always taken this, as well as a five-pointed star, as signs of the human race. Death comes to all humanity, but through the white rose, I was able to glimpse that hidden inner core. I feel that I have a personal relationship, based on life experience, with the Death card and its symbols now. People from 22 nations around the world, men, women and children, whole families, of various backgrounds, accomplishments, stations, religious beliefs, &c. fell (literally) into the Abyss of Death. On the day of the crash, I saw a man with the reddest eyes I've ever seen. That inspired the graphic on my web page. Look at the RW Death card -- it's all there: red eyes and white roses, and the sun rises and sets.
Yet the white rose also reminds me of our wedding, and of a woman's 'bloodless' time before giving birth. Weddings and births also bring tears of emotion and red eyes. The times of our lives, huh?
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In yet another tie-in, I found three similarities in:
1) my web page that I put up after the crash includes this quote: "The dead shall not remain forever in the land of the dead. They are like the leaves that fall, brown and dead, in the autumn. They shall come back again. When the grass grows and the birds sing, when the leaf buds open and the flowers bloom, the dead shall come back again." Coyote -- The Story Telling Stone (Wishram, Plateau)
2) looking back in my archives, I found that I once wrote: "The white rose on the black flag symbolizes how the red rose of life's passions is purified by the process of death (loss of blood, lack of material/physical desire). What I think of is how all the plants wither and die and fall to the earth, get soaked by the winter snow/spring thaw, decay and provide the life for the next cycle."
3) the service, which included a reading of Isaiah 35:10 - "And the very ones redeemed by Jehovah will return and certainly come to Zion with a joyful cry; and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain, and grief and sighing must flee away." (NWT)
Amen.
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http://www.moonchild.ch/Tarot/major/Death/13exp.html
