Death Tarot Card Meanings
Death’s Upright & Reversed Meanings
Ideas: Bad habits, old things, unpleasant experiences
Traits: Appreciative, hesitant, indecisive, indulgent, patient, slow
Emotions: Contentment, enjoyment, frustration, pleasure, satisfaction
- Actions:
- Appreciating the old things while you can
- Enjoying what you have currently
- Holding off temporarily
- Learning from unpleasant experiences
- Moving on with your life
- Sticking with what you have started
Ideas: Conclusion, departure, ending, passage, transition
Traits: Decisive, firm, punctual, rational, realistic, serious
Emotions: Gladness, nervousness, relief, sadness, uneasiness
- Actions:
- Becoming a new person
- Bringing an unpleasant phase of life to an end
- Leaving one person, place, or thing for another
- Letting go
- Putting bad habits to rest
- Recognizing and celebrating the conclusion of something
Ideas: Half-baked effort, premature conclusion, random departure
Traits: Abrupt, fickle, hurried, impatient, irrational, superstitious
Emotions: Disappointment, fear, grief, neglect, regret
- Actions:
- Being affected greatly by the loss
- Concluding things ahead of time
- Failing to take good care of yourself
- Giving up halfway
- Leaving a situation randomly
- Obsessing on death and dying
Death’s Advice
Personal Growth
Grasping the short, fleeting nature of life is one of life’s hardest and most sobering lessons. Acknowledging your own impermanence can help you live your life more fully.
Relationship
Identify what’s not working and put it behind you. Take stock, too, of the relationship itself. Dying flames can be rekindled with mutual effort, but embrace an ending if, in fact, an ending is what’s best for you. Poets used to call orgasm the “little death,” so, at times, this card can also point to a consummated relationship!
Career
Close out lingering projects and tie up loose ends. Now is a good time to consider all your options, including the possibility of moving on. Alternatively, you could put an end to feelings of unrest by deciding, once and for all, to stay put. Do what’s best for you.
Spirituality
Spiritual scribes write of “dying to the world”—realizing that the physical world and its concerns are illusory at best. For you, the Death card is a reminder to focus on what really matters. Alternatively, the card can suggest a need to contact or honor your ancestors.
Death’s Symbols & Insights
The Rose Flag
Oddly, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Waite writes, “[The] black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose … signifies life.” In your situation, how might ending one thing give rise to another?
The Skeleton
Bones persist long after the decay of the body; so, they are symbols of the enduring and eternal. Which aspects of your situation have persisted over time? Which aspects are temporary?
The Pale Horse
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death” (Revelation 6:8). How do you feel about death? How might your feeling about death be a metaphor for how you feel now?
Sunrise/Sunset
In many illustrations, it’s difficult to tell whether the sun is rising or setting. Is your own situation just beginning, or is it coming to an end? How can you be sure?
Doomed Figures
The sprawled bodies and scattered body parts seen on many cards reflect death’s disruptive force. How might the need for disruption figure into your situation?
More About Death Tarot Card
- Predictions
- A relationship or illness ends suddenly.
- Limit travel and risk-taking.
- General gloom and doom.
- Timing
- Between October 23 and November 21
- Affirmation
- “I embrace change and transformation as a natural part of life.”
- Archetype
- Death
- Hebrew Alphabet
- Nun/Fish/50
- Numerology Number
- 13 = 1 + 3 = 4
(the status quo: stability, equality, persistence) - Astrology Element
- Water
- Astrology Sign
- Scorpio
- Myths/Spirits
- Christ in the tomb
- Hades
- Hypnos
- Thanatos
- Stories of journeys into the underworld
- Storyline
- At the midpoint of the story, the main character believes all is lost. Alternatively, a helper or valued ally dies or is believed dead.
- Questions to Ask
- What needs to end?
- How might an ending actually be a blessing in this situation?
- What’s next?
- Related Pages
- Tarot Card Meanings Guide
- Tarot Birth Card Meanings
- Exploring Today’s Tarot
- Consulting the Tarot
- Traditional Tarot Card Meanings
- Thirteen Fun Things to Do with Tarot Cards
- Where to Go to Learn More
