What It Means When You Get The Death Card

My client is sitting in front of me, eager to see what messages the cards have for her. I can tell she's a little nervous, which is normal, especially for first-timers. She has asked her question and she waits patiently as I shuffle the cards. I cut the deck in my traditional way, and I begin laying out the cards in the spread I've chosen.

She looks at each card as I place it on the table, and I can tell she's already trying to draw conclusions. Despite her efforts, she's unable to effectively make heads or tails of what she's seeing. Suddenly, though, I see a look of horror on her face. She stiffens, and her complexion goes just a little bit pale.

I've pulled the Death card.

I can immediately feel her internal panic. My heart sinks just a little as I reach for my "go-to" speech that I've already prepared about that particular card.

I hate that card. I hate it and I love it at the same time.

I hate it because of the fear it evokes in people. The moment a client sees that card, they immediately snap to "oh, my God, I'm going to die." This usually goes one of two ways from there. One, they start to panic and shut down as a result (like the client I was talking about a minute ago). Two, they jump to disbelief, and the phrase "this is a scam," starts running through their minds. Either way, it's a huge added challenge to pull a client back from whatever happens after they see that Death card.

"Now, that's not what you think," I say, and it's true! The Death card rarely comes up as a reference to physical death. It's a different kind of death, which brings me to the reason why I love this card. The meaning of the Death card is actually more beneficial and helpful than it is ominous.

Why? It's trying to indicate the death of a situation rather than your actual death. This card comes up when there's an aspect of your life that no longer serves you and that absolutely needs to end. I've seen this card come up to indicate that a relationship is a complete dead end. I've seen it warn that there is absolutely nothing good that can come out of a choice I may have made. I've seen it point out that a client has reached the very end of a certain career path and it was time to move on. It's even come up to tell me that I need to come to terms with the fact that I'm just not the same person that I used to be!

If you see this card, it means that there is nothing the situation has to offer you anymore, and you'll need to let it go in order to make room for something else to enter your life.. Its purpose is to point out the stuff that's weighing you down and getting in the way of you moving forward. It's showing you where the dead matter is and telling you how to clean it up so new growth can flourish in the space you've cleared. Although this card can sometimes be a hard one to deal with because of the nature of its meaning (no one is ever really thrilled to have reached a dead end), it is one of the most bluntly eye-opening cards in the deck.

Of course, I'm not saying that it never, ever has anything to do with physical death. If there were a death looming on the horizon for you, this would be the card to point that out. However, it would have to be a part of a very specific combination of cards to indicate to me that we're talking about real death. Unless those rare conditions are met in your reading, the meaning of this card is going to be much more metaphorical than literal.

The Death card and Four of Swords (pictured left) is one of the only combinations I've ever seen that might potentially refer to a client's physical death.

I've had several instances where the combination of the Death card and Three of Swords combine to tell me about the death of someone who the client is close to, but not the client themselves.

Even if you do get the Death card as a reference to your actual death, I still wouldn't start making funeral arrangements. Remember how I said about how your future is never set in stone? If you missed my post on how your future is totally dynamic, you can read about that here. The whole point of a Tarot reading is to tell you what's ahead on your current path. If you don't like what you see coming, you have the choice to change your path. Use the information in your reading to guide you onto a different path that leads you to a different outcome! That's what we get readings for... to make sure we're on the right path and to get us back on track if we've strayed.

Trust me when I say that the Death card is nothing to be afraid of. I do admit, the artwork in some decks do make it out to look pretty terrifying. The name of the card alone is pretty scary if you don't know what it actually means. I mean, what is a poor unsuspecting person supposed to think when they sit down for a Tarot reading and see the word "Death" written across one of their cards? Nonetheless, its purpose is to help you move forward in a positive direction, and not so much to prepare you for your impending demise.

So, if you happen to get this card in a future Tarot reading, you can rest easy knowing that a major change needs to happen and is on its way, and you can still live a long life to see those changes occur.

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