“This Changes Everything”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I sometimes think that history could not have played a more malicious prank on the earnest 21st-Century diviner than the Death card. Cherry Gilchrist is undoubtedly correct in asserting that many of the trump-card images as we know them originated as “triumphs” (“parade floats”) in the processional queue of a Medieval pageant, and Death was most likely intended as a cautionary moral lesson: “I come to everyone sooner or later so don’t get too comfortable.” As the saying goes, “It is what it is” and there is no point in denying that fact in pursuit of a high-minded revisionist ideal since, as another homespun verity assures us, “You can’t get there from here.”
As tarot readers we do our level best to cast this often-demoralizing archetype in a positive light, or to at least allay the predictable fear of its morbid “sting.” You know the shtick: “Oh, you’re going to experience an important transformation, so prepare yourself for change” (although we stop short of saying “Settle your affairs and prepare your will”). But we can be so hell-bent on our mission of psychological empowerment that we “miss the forest for the trees.” Sometimes Death means nothing more (or less) than a necessary “ending” of something, the kind of finality we all experience at critical junctures in our lives. The first thing that comes to mind when I see the Death card in a draw is that it could represent a “game-changer” for the querent. Unfortunately, while trying to find the literary or cultural source of the quote in the title, all I can come up with are references to the climate-change documentary of the same name, which is not what I was looking for. I’m thinking more of the kind of conceptual paradigm-shift that totally invalidates an earlier premise — perhaps blowing it clear out of the water — and replaces it with “something completely different.” Not necessarily better or worse — after all, the card is silent about what comes next — just different.
At its most basic, Death is reductive: it subtracts or removes something from the picture. (“You have two of those, you don’t need the other one.”) Several rather dire cliches fit the occasion: “All bets are off;” “Don’t look now but . . ;” “It’s no use crying over spilt milk;” and my favorite from an old Hallmark birthday card showing the Grim Reaper in a car’s side-view mirror, “Things in the mirror are closer than they appear.” All of these sentiments convey resigning oneself to an uncomfortable truth with no attempt to gloss over or sugar-coat it.
But the experience of Death does not have to be catastrophic since small things come to an end as well as large ones and, as I’ve said previously, I now believe Major Arcana cards create the environment for such an occurrence but they don’t necessarily precipitate it. Perhaps in your mind’s eye you envision “that smell” Lynyrd Skynyrd sings about but you never encounter an actual event of that magnitude no matter how anxiously you await its arrival (or at least not until the final “biological imperative” catches up with you, hopefully much later). It could just be a speed bump you encounter this time around and not a sheer drop-off, and life can pass you by while you agonize over the possibility of worse consequences.
I will explain this to sitters and ask how confident they are that an important development is likely to overtake them. They may have suspicions of such an eventuality or they may not, but in either case I caution them to take it under advisement and keep their eyes and ears open, as I do with any card of less fortunate import. While I subscribe to the assumption that nothing about a reading is carved in stone, I see no reason why we should blindly thumb our nose at Fate when a bit of foresight costs nothing. Death may represent little more than a minor inconvenience in the larger scheme of things, but I for one am going to pay attention to the message and position myself accordingly for the effective duration of the forecast. In other words, I won’t step off a curb without looking twice in all directions — front, back and sideways with maybe a quick glance above for meteors or falling “space junk.” I may not make meaningful alterations to my habits or my plans but I will live my life more vigilantly from the standpoint of situational awareness. While it might not “change everything,” this kind of predictive eye-opener can certainly entail an “attitude adjustment.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on April 10, 2023.
