Learning to Read Tarot Cards: Death

I suddenly got the urge to write about tarot again after my short comment-advice for sexynomad

As we are on the topic of tarot cards, I will discuss a card that struck fear in the hearts of my querents (read-ees) in the past. I remember one woman, upon seeing the card, immediately stood up, dropped cash on the table to cover the coffee and the reading and left in a hurry, saying that she has somewhere else to go. The waitress told me “natakot na” (you scared her), and I was a bit flabbergasted because I was not in any way a “doomsday” reader.

The Death Card

(image from bluewitch.com)

Depending on the placement on the spread, the Death card does not necessarily mean death in the physical sense. It usually means change. However, the kind of change that it implies is not something that is taken lightly. It is a total overhaul of something that is important to the querent. A change that is painful, heart-wrenching even.

Most people have dilemmas that are such just because it forces them to choose between 2 important things. These problems are big to them, only because these ask of them to commit ties with one thing (or person) and severe ties with the other. Most people cannot handle this and would rather let time do its magic. Some just let things be as they are, unwilling to choose and live with the consequences.

A lot of problems are resolved by the person making a decision or external factors making it for them. Nonetheless, change happens, one way or another. And when this happens, the person feels at a loss, like he is mourning something that can never be retrieved. That is usually the message of the Death card: something important being taken away from you that you feel as if a part of you died right there and then.

This thing could be an abstract idea, like pride or love. Some people I read to were at the lowest points in their lives, where in they felt they had nothing left, not even an iota of pride to hang on to. They could have lost a lover or a close friend, their careers, or even their sanity.

The challenge of the Death card is to be reborn. To live again after the smoke has cleared. To regain the will to live a better life. A part of you has died, either by your doing or by others, but it is time to go beyond that.