tarot card meanings · major arcana · XIII
death — tarot card meaning
- ending
- transformation
- clearing
The end of a chapter, veiled in the one card everyone misreads; behind the flag, the sun still rises (Waite, 1911).
reversed
Reversed: refusal to let go, stagnation — the same force turned inward, blocked, or overdone.
- refusal to let go
- stagnation
two philosophical anchors, cited
Death is nothing to us · Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (tr. Hicks)
“Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and when death is come, we are not.”
Epicurus dissolves the fear, not the fact - freeing attention for the life still present.
Worn-out garments · Bhagavad Gita 2.22 · after Besant
“As a man casts off worn-out garments and takes new ones, so the dweller in the body casts off worn-out bodies.”
Endings as wardrobe changes of something that persists; grief and continuity in one image.
the question we would ask
What are you keeping on life-support that has already finished its work in your life?
how a reading is composed — and why it ends with a question, not a prediction.