Death

A black skeleton crowned with the Osiris headdress dances with a scythe, and from its sweep rise bubbles in which new forms are being made. Around it are the three forms of Scorpio, the scorpion, the serpent and the eagle; a fish and a lily accompany the change.

Nun, the fish, on path 24 from Tiphareth to Netzach: the fish that lives in the waters of change, and the letter of the seed (Nun means both). Beauty descends into the emotions and is dissolved so that it can be reborn.

Scorpio, fixed Water, ruled by Mars: putrefaction and regeneration, the three stages of the sign shown in its three creatures. The decans of Scorpio are the Five, Six and Seven of Cups.

Thirteen, the number of unity beyond the twelve (and the value of the Hebrew words for love and for unity), and Nun's value 50, the gates of Binah. Death is unity restored by dissolution.

Ego-death, the nigredo of the alchemists, the dissolution that individuation demands before the Self can appear. Death is the great agent of shadow-integration: what is refused decays, what is accepted transforms.

Waite's armoured Death rides a pale horse past a king and a pope; Crowley's skeleton dances, and the emphasis moves entirely to the bubbling new life it generates.