Observations placeholder
Schwabe, Carlos - The Death of the Gravedigger
Identifier
003753
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
For anyone who is spiritually minded, being born is 'death' and dying is 'life'.
As such this is an allegory involving the tunnel to the Higher spirit.
On ordinary death one ascends up the tunnel and meets the Higher spirit. The Higher spirit is shown as a woman with scythe shaped wings. She is surrounded by the branches of a Weeping willow, which in this context [because Schwabe knew his eastern symbolism] means she is in the world of the spirit. This is one meaning.
But it is also an allegory of spiritual ascent in life, and the process of annihilation. Death in life. On annihilation one ascends the tunnel and meets the Higher spirit and figuratively the Personality [the masculine] dies. The Intellect goes. And thus one experiences in life what happens on actual death. But you become a 'god' as a result and gain wisdom instead. No longer 'clever' but wise. This meaning is clearly the one Schwabe was aiming at most because of the use of snow and green as well as the use of snowdrops around the edge of the 'grave' - the tunnel.
Death is life - annihilation and life is death - birth.
The spiritually aware look down the tunnels that trap people in the rather grey world of the physical and spiritually ignorant, and are nothing but piteous, this look is captured somewhat in Schwabe's 'angel'. The sign is that of ascent.
There is a slight pun in the use of the phrase gravedigger. A person who continually reincarnates is in a sense a gravedigger, they go round and round in an endless cycle of birth and death. But achieve annihilation and there is no more gravedigging.
A description of the experience
The Death of the Grave Digger |
The source of the experience
Schwabe, CarlosConcepts, symbols and science items
Symbols
AscensionBeard
Darkness and Light
Green
Masculine and feminine
Scythe
Snow
Snowdrop
Tunnel
Weeping willow
Wings