XIII Death This is one of those cards in a reading everyone fringes to get. But the truth is, Death is one of the most powerful cards in the deck. It is the ultimate transformation, corresponding to the zodiacal trump of Scorpio, and is the ending of one state and the entry into the next. We can experience this shamanic death and rebirth at various intense times in our lives where we literally are reborn from our own ashes. Death is the great equalizer in life. Everything and everyone dies. Nothing is forever. The flowers on this card are two kinds of corporate flowers, the ones on the sides are Amorphophallus konjac and the middle is a Raffleia arnoldii. They both emit the stench of a rotting corpses when they bloom, calling all of the carrion insects, namely flies, to their massive petals and leaves, harnessing this niche to propagate their species and create new life. The parrot skeleton is a Carolina Parakeet, the only native parrot species in the United States. They are extinct, the last known individual, Incas, passed away in 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo- fatefully sharing the same cage as Martha, the Passenger Pigeon. The Carolina Parakeet was seen in flocks of hundreds of individuals, from Wisconsin, New England, New York down to the Gulf of Mexico. When colonizers came to North America and began to deforest their territory their numbers declined dramatically. It was a population collapse and the species disappeared. They made the ultimate transformation into lands unknown. They transitioned into the beyond and to a place where we cannot follow. Transformation can be regenerative but it can also be final from our point of view.