Tarot Tales: R is for Rebirth (and Death)

Welcome to the 2021 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Tarot Tales. I am making a selection of folktales, legends, and other traditional stories that correspond to tarot cards. Storytelling and tarot go well together. Do other stories come to mind? Let me know in the comments!

The card: Death

Meanings: The Death card, while various TV shows like to use it for dramatic effect, is not as tragic as it sounds. Yes, it means something important is coming to and end, and things are changing forever, but it is not a bad thing. It is about transformation, transition, and new things growing out of something old. In a way, it is about rebirth. Look at the images above.

Selection process: Death is one of the basic motifs of the human experience, and figures into millions of folktales and legends. Some of them talk about death as an inevitability, or a curse, while others claim that even death can be cheated. I wanted to find a story that focuses on the transformational aspect of this card, where death is a natural part of moving on to another state of existence. 

The story: The origin of the coconut

Origin: Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia

Summary: The islands are suffering from a drought; people have no fresh water to drink. The gods want to help them. Storm and Typhoon offer to bring rain to the islands, but the divine council deems them too dangerous, and look for a more gentle solution. In the end, the god of the Coconut volunteers. He offers to be reborn from a mortal woman (because people will only appreciate a gift if they have a personal connection to it). The gods throw him a farewell party, since he will never be able to return to heaven.

Coconut descends into the womb of a mortal woman, and in nine months she gives birth to a coconut. The coconut instructs the - somewhat baffled - father to bury it in soil and wait. Soon, a tree sprouts from the ground, and it bears fruit. Ever since then, coconuts have been a good source of drinking water, food, and fiber for people all over the island world. 

(This story features not one, but two major transformations!)

Sources & notes: I found the story in this book.

Runner-ups: In a legend from the Maldives a sorcerer grows the first coconut trees from the graves of people who died in a famine - to save those who are still alive. In another story from Taiwan, a widowed father sends up the first sweet potato plants from the grave to feed and console his grieving son. I was also considering a legend from the Solomon Islands, where a girl is brought back to life by the roots of a tree after being buried, and then she travels to the surface along the underground streams.

If you had the chance to spend your next life as a plant, what plant would you want to be?