a soft death

(eɪ sɔft dɛθ)

Death is my favorite tarot card. It is the 13th card of the Major Arcana and signifies change.

The card depicts the grim reaper riding a horse into town and crushing its citizens. Death is ending what has been, mutating reality. I remember a tarot reader saying that it seemingly appears out of the blue, irrespective of whether we are ready for it, and sadistically marches through our lives. The image on the card recalls the visceral fear we experience upon intense, unexpected changes. Stability has been upended, forcing our hand to trade the known for the unknown.

A soft death is the counter experience. It is about change emerging in gentle ways, subtly coaxing our psyche into new territories. These are repeated shifts imperceptibly occurring across swathes of time. Perception changes in shades, acquiring color, until a new psyche emerges.

I’ve spent most of my life writing and extensively journaling. Online culture revolves around the selfie, whittling a person down to a dimensionless “face card.” My goal is to return attention to our internal reality and connect with the complexity of our being. My writing and instagram delicately attempt to subvert the mainstream commodification of the self and lure a more individuated being to the surface.