Why the Death card is welcome in a reading ...

Okay, so this is renegade thought but I stand by it, we should welcome the Death card when it appears. There are a few times, and always in context with other cards, that this card may signify actual physical death (and that is another post for another day in regards to reader ethics and integrity), but mostly this card is change and metamorphosis I believe.

Everything that lives must die. Our universe is polarised, we cannot know light without dark, life without death ... This polarity is very aptly shown with Death in his black armour astride the white horse. A fallen king, a helpless clergyman, nothing escapes the power of death. In the Rider Waite deck in particular this card is rich in symbolism. The boat on the river could be carrying a king to his flaming burial at sea, it could be the river we must cross to enter the underworld. Even the number of this card, in every Tarot deck, is the unlucky thirteen.

That sun, is it rising with hope and rebirth? Or does it set on on this life as we leave it. Both horse and rider give no clue, they are steadfast and unshakeable in their forward momentum.

Still I say welcome. That forward momentum is what this moment is all about when this card appears. Death is the one thing we cannot return from as we were. No matter what your beliefs are, this change is unstoppable and irreversible. It is a one way tunnel. Yes it may be physical death, but more often it is the end of a way of being, or a relationship, or even the end of you seeing yourself in a particular way, experiencing the world through the belief. Some parts of our belief system have to die from time to time so that when they fall away, the new growth can emerge.

So for me, this card is really rebirth, metamorphosis, change. Inescapable change. As part of our journey we must embrace change, hard as it can be at times, that is the real transformation right there.

And real transformation is why we are here.

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