Lets talk about Death!

tarotbear

Lorraine1100 said:
As I say, don't count on Death to give everybody a big welcoming hug, for me it made huge - and I mean whopping great huge - transitional changes because I had to and not because I wanted to. The situation it has put me in was worse than previous!

I do believe that one of the lessons of the Death card is that 'you can't go home again' and that you need to prepare for what may come next - which may not always be peaches-and-cream, unfortunately, but the lesson is 'You can't expect to go back to what was before - ever.'

Would you have felt better about it if your Death card looked like this one? Beats the 'skeletons on horseback' motif by a mile!

bluelagune

@ Lorraine

Agree with you about the Death card takes long to get over. Ive gotten it for a question regarding getting a job, actually it was more of getting out of an abussive environment. It wasnt just the job change, it crashed my career. Im still getting over the blow. However, im still alive, Im not married to an old lizard, my children are not stuck in a cult ... I chose a path that required for another path to die. It hurts but the alternative is being a zombie. Do I see it as a blessing? Im not there yet.

The death and page of cups... you are right about new begining.
in order for an obsessive person (stocker) to stop stocking you, your image must die. That is the fantasy they had about you must no longer exist. Death of an image is never a good thing but if you want to live. Its better that way.

tarotbear

Lorraine1100 said:
some may say that the sun is rising over the Death card but actually how do you know it is not in fact an actual setting sun - the sun going down?

Does you card have a crown hidden in the sun's dying rays?

I've always thought it was a setting Sun ...

bluelagune

In RW deck the priest and a child are still standing. Does innocence of a person ever read into the outcome?

Ace

I was taught Death does NOT mean death...ever. Until once it did, in looking for information about someone already dead. (A friend's father had died earlier that year in a motorcycle accident. A Shaman had told him that his father was already walking to Death when Death came up to greet him. So he asked me if maybe his father as already dead when he hit the truck that killed him. I pulled the Death Card and said, you can't tell a stroke from a major head injury. Which he had sustained. So we think he may have already been dead. That is the ONLY time Death meant Death.)

I see the RWS as showing Death mowing down institutions (as the Anarchists of the time tried to do.) He is mowing down a Pope, a King and a "family". NOT individuals. Also: I DO see it as a rising sun, it is a half empty/half full distinction but I ASSUME rising unless the needs of a reading would see it as setting. It is a reflection of the "Golden Dawn" after all.

My favorite Death is the Robin Wood: a red robed figure pointing down a side path while blocking the main, straight forward path. I like to think of Death as "take another path" or try something new or something new is coming for better or worse. It isn't always a good thing but change is to be welcomed and whether you like it or not, with Death it is coming.

Death plus 4 of wands may not be bad (nor IMHO is Death plus Tower--just that THAT combo is a bit more explosive.) Charge to better and happier circumstances, more solid (4's are very stable to me.) So just understand that change can be painful, but being shaken out of a bad rut is never a bad thing.

barb

My .02 cents.
barb

tarotbear

Ace said:
My favorite Death is the Robin Wood: a red robed figure pointing down a side path while blocking the main, straight forward path. I like to think of Death as "take another path" or try something new or something new is coming for better or worse. It isn't always a good thing but change is to be welcomed and whether you like it or not, with Death it is coming.

Yes~! The Robin Wood Death highly influenced my card design back in post # 11.

Grizabella

Death does mean actual death of a person in some instances. For over a year, I drew the Death card over and over again. During that time one of my sisters passed away, a dear family friend passed, an uncle passed away, a more distant family member passed away, my closest sister found out that she had terminal cancer, another family member learned that she's at the hospice stage with her cancer that can't be defeated so far in cancer battles, and yet another learned that she has non-Hodgkins lymphoma in a rather advanced stage and my mother passed away---the modern concept of people who want to use the cards but don't want to think there's anything "bad" in them will say the Devil is just wonderful sex and that Death doesn't mean death are kidding themselves. The Devil isn't always a good thing and Death certainly does mean real, literal death. Do these two cards sometimes have benign meanings? Sure, sometimes. But in a spread with certain other cards, it means actual Death.

celeste777

Grizabella said:
Death does mean actual death of a person in some instances. For over a year, I drew the Death card over and over again. During that time one of my sisters passed away, a dear family friend passed, an uncle passed away, a more distant family member passed away, my closest sister found out that she had terminal cancer, another family member learned that she's at the hospice stage with her cancer that can't be defeated so far in cancer battles, and yet another learned that she has non-Hodgkins lymphoma in a rather advanced stage and my mother passed away---the modern concept of people who want to use the cards but don't want to think there's anything "bad" in them will say the Devil is just wonderful sex and that Death doesn't mean death are kidding themselves. The Devil isn't always a good thing and Death certainly does mean real, literal death. Do these two cards sometimes have benign meanings? Sure, sometimes. But in a spread with certain other cards, it means actual Death.

It most certainly can be death. Tarot always tells the truth. My husband whom I separated from kept calling me and I didn't want to respond. I asked the tarot cards why was he contacting me. I got the death card in reverse. At the time I thought it meant he was pretending to be sick and dying because he told me he was sick. I later found out he truly was dying just not the way I thought. He committed suicide..

This year a tarot reader drew the death card and 7 of swords as a scorpionic person entering my life.. I believe it must be a future child of mine because if I'm pregnant now, which I believe I am, the child would be born around of/Nov causing the major "transition" she spoke of..

danieljuk

I really have a belief in tarot that a reading doesn't leave you without hope! Death can be an awful card but it isn't always! It can mean a real death but it mostly doesn't. Like I wrote in my post before there is people praying and a holy man and they all are trying to bargain with Death and it doesn't work. Every single person on earth will experience Death in their lives and ultimately we all will die. But also things will die in our lives, friendships grow old and we lose contact, our interests change, our goals change. We have to give up the old things and look for the new things. I like when the card is called renewal because it's a big part of our lives.

I always see the sun as rising but some see it as setting, there is a big old thread discussing it which is worth reading here

bluelagune

Ace said:
I was taught Death does NOT mean death...ever. Until once it did, in looking for information about someone already dead. (A friend's father had died earlier that year in a motorcycle accident. A Shaman had told him that his father was already walking to Death when Death came up to greet him. So he asked me if maybe his father as already dead when he hit the truck that killed him. I pulled the Death Card and said, you can't tell a stroke from a major head injury. Which he had sustained. So we think he may have already been dead. That is the ONLY time Death meant Death.)

I see the RWS as showing Death mowing down institutions (as the Anarchists of the time tried to do.) He is mowing down a Pope, a King and a "family". NOT individuals. Also: I DO see it as a rising sun, it is a half empty/half full distinction but I ASSUME rising unless the needs of a reading would see it as setting. It is a reflection of the "Golden Dawn" after all.

My favorite Death is the Robin Wood: a red robed figure pointing down a side path while blocking the main, straight forward path. I like to think of Death as "take another path" or try something new or something new is coming for better or worse. It isn't always a good thing but change is to be welcomed and whether you like it or not, with Death it is coming.

Death plus 4 of wands may not be bad (nor IMHO is Death plus Tower--just that THAT combo is a bit more explosive.) Charge to better and happier circumstances, more solid (4's are very stable to me.) So just understand that change can be painful, but being shaken out of a bad rut is never a bad thing.

barb

My .02 cents.
barb

Thank you for pointing out the sun between two towers. I totally missed it. It does look like the moon card but with the sun brightly shining. Sun instead of moon. Clerity instead of hidden fears. It is true, a lot of imaginary fears die too. The clerity is not what I would like. More like an excessive sunburn but its better then wondering at the gates of hell.

Lets talk about Death!

tarotbear

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