Death
XIIIMajor Arcana
- Element
- Water
- Astrology
- Scorpio
- Numerology
- Thirteen: transformation, the dissolution that precedes renewal
- Yes or no
- No
Upright
- endings
- transformation
- transition
- release
- inevitability
Reversed
- resisting change
- stagnation
- fear of endings
- decay
- delayed transformation
The end that makes room. Death clears away what is finished so that something else can begin.
On the card
A skeleton in black armour rides a white horse, carrying a black banner emblazoned with a white five-petalled rose. Before him a king lies dead, a child and a young woman kneel, and a bishop stands pleading; no rank is spared. In the background a river flows toward two towers, between which the sun is either rising or setting, and a boat crosses the water. The white rose stands for purity and life renewed.
Upright
General
Something is ending, and the ending is final. This card rarely means physical death; it marks the close of a phase, a relationship, an identity or a way of living, and it insists that you let it close cleanly. Grief is appropriate. So is the freedom that follows.
Love & relationships
A relationship ends or is transformed so thoroughly that it becomes something new. Old patterns of relating die off, and that is what allows intimacy to grow.
Career & money
Leaving a job, an industry or a way of working that no longer fits. An old source of income may close; cut losses rather than propping up what is done.
Reversed
General
The ending is being resisted and the resistance is causing decay. Reversed, Death describes clinging to what has already died, a fear of change so strong that it produces stagnation, or a transformation happening slowly and painfully because you will not cooperate with it. Nothing new can start until the old thing is released.
Love & relationships
Staying in a relationship that ended in spirit long ago, or being unable to move on from one that ended in fact.
Career & money
Refusing to accept that a job, project or business model is finished. Prolonging the inevitable drains money and morale.
Advice
Let what is over be over. Mourn it properly, then turn toward the towers where the sun is rising.