Taroga: Death and the Forward Sitting Bend
Part of the Taroga series, exploring the connection between Tarot and yoga. Catch up on An Introduction to Taroga and Taroga: The Hermit if you're new here.
Releasing Fear — A Forward Bend for Letting Go
Today I want to look at the Death card, and the yoga pose it inspires in me: Paschimottanasana, the seated forward bend.
When Death appears in a reading, one thing it brings up almost without fail is fear — fear of letting go, of what's out there, of what's unknown, and perhaps most of all, the fear of being alone in the blackness of space.
Paschimottanasana helps release exactly these kinds of fears. It can fill us with courage as we connect with our own senses and gather a quiet understanding of self and spirit.
The pose: This is a seated posture where you bend forward from the hips. Start with hands resting on your thighs, palms up. Inhale, lifting your arms overhead. Exhale, drawing your hands back down the midline of the body to your thighs, palms up.
Inhale again, drawing your hands up to heart level. As you exhale, turn your palms away from you and fold forward from the hips, arms reaching toward your feet. Let your hands roll out so your palms face the outside of your legs. Breathing in, draw them back up along the length of your legs to heart level as you uncurl from the base of the spine.
There's a surrendering in Paschimottanasana — an acceptance of your existing limitations. You'll feel exactly how flexible you are, or aren't, and how your ego responds to that.
Death from the Tarot Oil Tarot Deck (aka The TOT Deck)
When I first learned this pose, I struggled with it badly. I wanted the movement to feel easy and fluid, and it took me ages to accept my body's limitations. But eventually, the surrender came. One day, hands resting on my ankles, I focused on my breath — in through my feet, up the back of my legs, my spine, to my head, then down the front of the body and out through my hands and the soles of my feet. I stayed with that circular breathing for a while, just feeling where I was. It kept me present with the limitation, rather than fighting it. My head went quiet enough that I could feel energy moving up into my chest, and I felt peaceful. Really peaceful. When I released my hands and let them flow back up along the outside of my legs, something had shifted. I've loved Paschimottanasana ever since.
As in life, we have no real control. When we accept that, we become free to enjoy the experience as it is, instead of living in a state of struggle.
Look at the Death card in the Rider-Waite deck: the King — the Ego — has died. The little girl can't face what is, and looks away. But when I breathe and hold my focus on what's actually happening in my body, I get a child's experience of honest, open acceptance instead — and that brings its own kind of joy.
This posture is great for people in relationships, too. Personally, I often want things to be oh-so-perfect — just like that young girl, I've struggled to face an imperfect picture. Embodying Death helps me get a feel for my own patterning, so that sometimes I can move beyond ego and get to the truth of what is, and start owning it. Death helps.
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