Hard Tarot Truths: The Death Card, Death, What We Sometimes Don’t See, and What it all Means
What does it mean when “big-energy events” like death, don’t show up in the cards, and how do we handle it when they do?
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What does it mean when “big-energy events” like death, don’t show up in the cards, and how do we handle it when they do?
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Welcome to the Litha Tarot Blog Hop. Perhaps you are joining me from Tierney Sandler's blog. When you finish here, continue on to the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI). If you find a break in the chain, here's the Master List.
For this Tarot Blog Hop commemorating the Summer Solstice, our wrangler, Olivia Destrades, has asked us to write about “joy.”
Today is the longest day of the year. Tomorrow, the night will begin to eat away at the day, little by little.
Today, we celebrate the sun at the height of its power.
Tomorrow, that power begins to wane.
The summer solstice has always felt ironic to me. We celebrate it as the first day of summer, but it heralds the return of the darkness.
Maybe in this unalterable reality is the root of what it is to me to be joyful.
I find joy in the simple moment when I do not fear what comes next, or what I might lose. I find joy when I release attachment to what has come before and what will come next, and simply live in the light of the moment.
There is a state of spiritual grace that comes from that place of acceptance, non-attachment and gratitude. To me, that is the essence of joy.
But what tarot cards might convey that joyful lesson? What cards might teach us to release our unjoyful attachments?
For me, the cards that most clearly teach that lesson are exactly the cards we don’t usually associate with joy.
The Devil teaches us to acknowledge and release our attachments.
Death reminds us that change is inevitable. We can’t ever guarantee tomorrow.
As I embrace the lessons of these two dark cards, I find a light within that is not subject to season or time.
In that light, there is joy.
A few years ago, I wrote a chant for the sumer solstice. In reading the words over and getting ready to use it for my festivities this weekend, I realize it expresses this same idea of finding joy in the fleeting moment. Here it is.
Litha Fire Chant
The wheel turns
The fire burns
The dark night will soon return.
The shortest night
The longest day
Gather flowers while we may
While it’s ours we’ll seize the day.
Now it's time to continue on the Litha Tarot Blog Hop. If you are working backwards, visit Tierney Sandler's blog next, or continue forward to the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI). If you find a break in the chain, here's the Master List.
Have you ever noticed how easily many of us speak of death, dying and killing in the first person?
“It will kill me if I find out he has a new girlfriend!”
“It’s killing me to have to live in Florida.”
“I will kill him if he scratches that car!”
“I will die if I can’t have that dress!”
Often we speak these sorts of statements with so much vehemence that some might wonder if we really believe our life is on the line.
Sometimes in our vernacular “dying” is a good thing.
“Mama will just die when she sees this house!”
“The movie was so funny we died laughing!”
I’ve often found these exaggerations disturbing. No, you won’t die without your boyfriend. Really.
On the other hand, I don’t believe, as some metaphysicians do, that we shorten our lives when we say such a thing.
Words do have power. At the very least, saying that something is killing you certainly takes away some of your power to fight it.
I wonder where this idiom comes from, and why we so cavalierly toss around words like die and kill. Sometimes it seems that the people who do this tend to be a bit dramatic overall, and sometimes to their own detriment.
Maybe if we take the extreme words from our language we will also remove some of the emotional extremes.
In the Major Arcana of Tarot, card thirteen is Death. Typically, Death does not discuss an impending physical death. Death generally predicts a major change in life, such as a pregnancy, a job change or a wedding.
The thing is, change can be scary and change can be hard.
Let’s look at the statement “It will kill me if I find out he has a new girlfriend!” What if instead of “kill me” we looked at it through the perspective of Major Arcana 13, Death.
“If I find out he has a girlfriend I am going to have to accept some changes.”
We don’t physically die when we have to accept changes. Sometimes we feel like dying, though. The more quickly we accept the change, the less difficult the process is. The lesson of the Death card in Tarot is acceptance.
Perhaps, subconsciously, we sometimes use the kill and die words when we are wishing we could avoid painful changes – the painful changes symbolized in the Death card.
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So many folks who do not understand tarot are afraid to see the Death card in a reading. It does sound and look ominous.
Spiritually, the lesson of this card is simple. Change is inevitable. We can't always avoid change. When change occurs we can always choose between seeing it as trauma or seeing it as an opportunity for transformation.
And transformation is what the Death card is really about.
It is interesting that in numerology the Death card is a 4. Four is the most stable number, but Death indicates change. To me this means that change is the only constant one can expect.
Death is ascribed to the element of Water. That indicates the deep emotions we have about change, but also that change is as inevitable as the tides.
Most often, the Death card does not predict a physical death. I often joke that I see it more often to indicate pregnancies and weddings than funerals. That makes sense though, because parenthood and marriage are both drastic changes, although usually joyous ones.
I wrote a poem about the Death card as part of my 78 Poems Project. This pretty much sums it up for me.
Death
For the caterpillar in the cocoon
Does transformation come too soon?
Does the snake mourn the skin after it's free?
If change is the door, letting go is the key.
Does the chick regret leaving the nest?
Would we prefer not to outgrow our mothers' breast?
What is it in us that clings to the past
And dreads the unpredictable, inevitable last?
All things must evolve, age and transform
Every way dies, and new ways are born.