Birth/Death Day.

Ah, another B2D arrives marking 35 trips around the sun for this particular human. I’ve been interpreting the event as an occasion of both birth and death for many years now—perhaps as long as I’ve been linking Oct. 2nd to mark a transition from one major arcana to the next, which means I’m leaving the year of the Hanged Man and entering the year of Death. So yeah, maybe the ‘death’ part of this year’s B2D seems extra significant.

I mean, I’m gonna’ live through the year and see the next: what I’m more feeling in the works are major shifts and transformations in my life (which is more often what the Death archetype of the Tarot means). There’s likely a change coming with regard to what I do to earn money—I’m getting pretty tired of my job—and that is at least one transformation on the horizon. Also, I’m going to make the effort and quit smoking! I feel these are two positive major changes in my life, and am looking forward to others—the more for the best, well, the better. Although, I’m pretty sure they won’t all come easy.

So yeah, back to the “B2D,” the ‘birth to death’ journey that began for me thirty-five years ago. The renaming in my interpretation intends to acknowledge the duality of birth & death, or what is sometimes referred to by some as sex & death—a more alchemical, mystical, and/or magic(k)al dyad—a human birth implying sex, after all (although, in these modern times, not necessarily, heh). Also note, perhaps, that a French name for an orgasm is la petite morte, “the little death.”

I mean, it’s pretty clear that birth and death are not possible without One & Other: a thing is birthed, literally or more metaphorically, when it comes into existence, and all things that exist will end at some time. There is no death without birth, and birth guarantees death. These two polarities make space for manifestation, for life.