Tarot Tip #13 – Let’s Talk Death

Death is such a touchy subject that when people see the death card in their reading they sometimes actually freak out.  Even some readers seem very uncomfortable with the Death card. There’s no need to be.

The Death card in a reading, talks about transformation.  Nothing more, nothing less. The cards that fall around it in the spread will tell you what is being changed.  If the Death card is inverted, the transformation it brought about has already occurred.  What’s interesting about that, is that if you see Death inverted in a future position in the spread you are using, your client is probably going through the transformation NOW. That’s one of the reasons I like to read the cards both upright and inverted.  You get extra little insights like that.  To be inverted in the future, it must be upright now.  Simple.

So, Death is more often representative of a change in consciousness, attitude, or thinking, than it is physical.  Your client could be changing their mind about a career path, a marriage, a pattern of behavior, a relationship with a friend or family member.  For Death to be present as the agent of transformation, you know, as the reader, that this change is truly a profound one that has totally changed the person the reading is about, in some way.

In your reading, Death will always refer to your client and their transformation, of course…but it can also refer to that of another person who will be identified as a Court Card falling near the Death card.  If Death is surrounded by Cups the transformation is emotional or intuitive.  If Pentacles are involved the transformation is about money and physical things.  With Swords it’s about a pattern of thinking or perhaps a psychological issue or even gossip that’s brought about the change of thinking or relating.  When Wands are involved, a physical experience has occurred. That could have been a conflict of some kind, or an illness or accident that created a profound change in the person.

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned physical death yet. Using the cards, I have actually predicted physical death’s many times.  But predicting a physical death requires far more than the Death card and a Wand.  I would want to see several Wand’s, of course; but also use Temperence, inverted, which roughly means that things are out of balance, as my health-indicator card.  When Temperence is upright, life is balanced and healthy.  Inverted, life is out of balance.  Add some Wands, and it is a physical thing that is out of balance. At this point even if Death was present in the reading, I’d still not be predicting a physical death, though, until I could see the actual cause of death.  That will show up in certain other cards, mostly specific minor arcana cards, that create certain health issues when they fall near Temperence. 

In my next tip I promise to go into some of those cards. Meanwhile, let me leave you with this – to predict the death of the physical body I want to see Death, inverted Temperence, several Wands, and another card that actually tells what the cause of death is.  In that formula, if Temperence is upright, there will not be a death.  The person might suffer the accident or illness, they would certainly go through a transformation as they recovered – but they would not die.