Death
Song Pairing
“Bury a Friend” by Billie Eilish.
This song has the eerie intimacy of Death’s energy. It crawls under your skin with whispers and heavy breaths, asking uncomfortable questions: What do you want from me? Why aren’t you scared of me? Like the card, it forces you to face what’s ending and surrender to the inevitability of change.
Astrology
Scorpio and Pluto. Death is ruled by Scorpio, the sign of intensity, transformation, and emotional depth, and its modern ruler Pluto, the planet of rebirth and power. This energy digs deep, tears down illusions, and rebuilds from the roots up.
Historic Interest
The skeletal figure wielding a scythe (The Grim Reaper), now synonymous with Death in tarot and pop culture, traces its origins to plague art of 14th-century Europe. During the Black Death, artists depicted death as an unstoppable reaper who harvested human lives like crops, reinforcing the idea of mortality as part of nature’s cycle.
The scythe itself was never a weapon; it was a farmer’s tool for cutting grain, chosen as a metaphor for life’s impermanence. This image endured through centuries, evolving into the Grim Reaper archetype and finding its way into tarot. Today, it reminds us that endings are not chaos, they are the necessary clearing for new life to emerge.
The Death tarot card represents profound transformation, endings, and renewal. It signals the release of what no longer serves you, making space for growth and rebirth.
Vibe
Brutal endings, fertile ground for rebirth.
Affirmation
"I release what has ended and trust in what’s next."
Card Pairing
Death + The Tower.
When paired, these cards mark total upheaval. The Tower shatters your illusions, and Death clears the rubble so something real can rise.
Kindred Spirit
Queen of Wands. She thrives on reinvention and knows how to turn ashes into art. Confident, magnetic, and a little wild, she reminds Death that endings aren’t just closure…they’re creative fire. Together, they turn loss into liberation and rebirth into something bold.
Esoteric Connection
Black Obsidian. Known as a stone of protection and deep transformation, black obsidian helps cut through illusions and release what no longer serves. Use it in rituals or meditation when you’re ready to let go and face the truth with clarity.
Element
Water. The element of Water gives Death its emotional depth and power to cleanse. This is the tide that washes away the old so new life can emerge.
Misconception
Pulling the Death card does not predict literal death. Despite Hollywood tropes, this card signals transformation, endings, and rebirth: not doom or disaster.
Full Interpretation
"You can cling to what’s gone or let go and anticipate transformation.”
The Death Card meaning: transformation, endings, and renewal
The Death card has to be the most misunderstood card in the tarot deck. In pop culture it’s often presented as the doomiest of all cards. (Ten of Swords and The Tower are like, “Hold my beer”. 😂) As much as I love horror movies, I blame Hollywood for creating scenes where a tarot reader ominously draws the Death card as foretelling someone’s actual death. And to be honest, Death cards do often have the most badass imagery. But actually, Death has nothing to do with literal, heart-stop-beating death. It’s about something deeper and more universal: change that cannot be avoided.
Death is transformation in its most uncompromising form. It’s the ending you’ve been resisting, the identity that’s outlived its purpose. It can represent the truth that burns down your old life so something new can grow. It’s uncomfortable, often devastating, and yet absolutely necessary. Yes, it’s sort of doomy, but in a spiritual way that should prompt reflection on what needs to evolve.
Interpretation
I wanted the imagery on my Death card to carry weight and make a statement. I didn’t want to soften its visceral impact: endings can be raw, messy, and final. So I leaned into the discomfort.
Here, Death rides the traditional pale horse, but without the pageantry seen in the Rider-Waite-Smith card. Instead, there’s a bloody body in the foreground with their blood seeping into the grain of the wood. The truth is plain: something has died that you can’t resuscitate.
My grim reaper is carrying a scythe, but was it used to kill this person? A scythe isn’t for killing; it’s not even a weapon. It’s a tool used for harvesting. It clears what’s past its season so the soil can feed new growth. Death is the harvest of endings.
Death doesn’t wait for permission. When the time comes, the world moves forward. You can cling to what’s gone or let go and anticipate transformation. I can’t help but reflect on the medium of woodburned as a metaphor. It’s created on a material that was once alive, and transformed into living art through fire. Destruction and beauty can coexist. Like the rebirth of a forest fire, something burns away so something else can be revealed.
Card 13
Death is card XIII. Culturally, that number carries a certain scary significance and superstition.. We skip the 13th floor in hotels, avoid 13 people at dinner parties, and treat Friday the 13th like a cosmic prank day. Here in San Francisco, Funston Avenue runs parallel between 12th and 14th avenues. (Curiously, on the opposite side of town, 13th Street does exist.) Why? Because 13 disrupts the pattern. Twelve feels complete: 12 months, 12 hours on a clock, 12 zodiac signs, 12 apostles. A dozen donuts and a dozen eggs. Thirteen breaks the circle. It’s the number of rupture, the wildcard that says, “The old order is over.”
In tarot, that disruption is essential. Death follows the Hanged Man, the card of suspension, surrender, and uncomfortable stillness. You’ve been hanging in limbo, but you can’t live upside down forever. Maybe the grim reaper’s scythe is used to cut the Hanged Man’s rope, ending what cannot continue and making space for what’s next.
Change and decluttering the soul
To reiterate, Death almost never predicts literal death. The card's core meaning is about renewal and letting go of what no longer serves you. It’s about endings that lead to new beginnings. It signifies a period of significant change, both internally and externally. It may speak to a breakup, a job loss, or shedding a self-image you’ve outgrown. The most powerful transformations in life start with something dying: a habit, a belief, or even a dream that’s keeping you small.
Here’s something to think about: Death is sort of the Marie Kondo of tarot. It asks, “Does this spark life?” If the answer is no, get rid of it. It may feel harsh, but it’s also freeing. Most of us hoard old identities like sentimental clutter. Death clears the attic.
What it means when the Death card appears
Death can show up in any part of life, and it’s always a sign that something has reached its limit. This isn’t about punishing you, it’s about liberating you.
Love & Relationships:
If you’re clinging to a relationship that’s long dead, Death is your intervention. It might be time to stop trying to resurrect what’s already gone. You have two choices: let the relationship go, or allow it to undergo a complete transformation. Death doesn’t do minor tweaks. It doesn’t suggest spicing things up with a weekend getaway…it’s no Knight of Wands.
If you’re single, this card often points to the emotional baggage you’re dragging into new connections. Maybe you’re still chasing a ghost of an ex or clinging to fantasies of what love “should” look like. Death asks you to bury those old attachments so you can show up open and real.
Sexually, this card can hit on deep intimacy issues. Maybe desire has withered because resentment or unspoken needs are rotting beneath the surface. Maybe shame has been killing your erotic life one silent night at a time. Death says to drop the stale routines, the guilt, and the obligation sex. Sometimes that means rediscovering your body and your partner with radical honesty. Sometimes it means facing that what you’ve been calling intimacy is really avoidance.
Death can feel brutal, but when you let it clear the dead weight, intimacy can come back to life.
Work & Career:
Death in your career isn’t about polishing your résumé for the tenth time, it may be about saying “take this job and shove it!”. If you’ve been enduring a job that’s draining you dry, this card says the expiration date is now.
This isn’t a gentle pivot or a new productivity hack. Death calls for something bigger: quitting the job that’s crushing your soul, closing the chapter on a business model that’s outdated, or finally admitting the dream you’ve been chasing belongs to an older version of you.
I know that letting go can feel like failure, but clinging to something dead is unhealthy. When Death sweeps through your work life, it’s often followed by reinvention: a career that fits who you are now, not who you were five years ago. But that rebirth doesn’t happen while you’re still dragging the corpse of a job you hate.
Money & Finances:
Financially, Death means dramatic restructuring. Maybe it’s closing the chapter on debt that’s been haunting you, letting go of investments that aren’t bouncing back, or walking away from toxic partnerships. This isn’t the time to cling to the sunk cost fallacy. Cut your losses.
It can also signal a shift in your relationship with money itself. Maybe you’ve been defining success through status symbols, or clutching scarcity mindsets that keep you anxious or hoarding. Death invites you to kill those old narratives. Clear the clutter and create a system that aligns with the life you want now.
Sometimes this card even signals major life changes tied to finances: divorce, selling property, walking away from “golden handcuffs.” Sure that can absolutely be scary, but what you’re losing is only the illusion of security, not your worth or your future.
Personal Growth:
This is where Death gets deeply intimate. Forget self-improvement clichés and motivational podcasts. Death is ego death. It tears down false identities, outdated coping strategies, and beliefs that kept you safe once but are choking you now.
It can feel like you’re unraveling. But that unraveling is the grief before the rebirth. Shadow work is often in the mix here: facing the parts of yourself you’ve tried to exile, letting old stories die so you can live unarmored.
The question this card asks, “Who are you now? Do you recognize the person you used to be?”
The real truth of Death
Something has already ended. Pretending it’s still alive won’t bring it back. Death asks for courage, not comfort. Will you cling to the corpse, or clear the ground for what’s next?
"The most powerful transformations in life start with something dying."
Reversed Interpretation
Reversed Death is the inevitable storm you’ve been holding back with denial. It doesn’t mean transformation isn’t coming, (remember, reversals aren’t opposites) it means you’re gripping the old life so tightly that your knuckles are bleeding.
When Death appears reversed, an ending is overdue. Something in your world is past its natural life cycle, but instead of allowing change, you’re bargaining with it. You’re trying to revive what’s already dead and clinging to it is draining you.
The Energy of resistance
Death reversed often signals fear. Fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear of who you’ll be without the thing you’re clutching. Maybe it’s a relationship that stopped feeding you years ago, but the idea of walking away feels like erasing part of your identity. Maybe it’s a career path you’ve outgrown, but the thought of starting over feels like humiliation.
It’s human to resist change, but resisting Death doesn’t stop endings. It could end up making them messier. It turns clean breaks into drawn-out collapses.
What the Death Card reversed might look like in your life
• Love & Relationships: You’re staying out of habit, guilt, or fear instead of love. Or maybe you’ve ended a relationship in name only but still stalk their socials and keep the possibility open. Reversed Death asks: Do you want the comfort of the past, or the possibility of the future?
• Work & Career: This often shows up when you’re clinging to a job, title, or identity that’s crushing you because the unknown feels scarier than the misery you know. It’s the energy of “I hate it here, but what else would I do?”
• Money & Finances: Hanging on to debt patterns, toxic financial partnerships, or investments that are clearly circling the drain. Or maybe it’s fear of losing a certain lifestyle, even if maintaining it costs you peace.
• Personal Growth: You’re stuck in an old version of yourself. Maybe you’ve outgrown your coping mechanisms, your self-concept, or the stories you tell about who you are. And yet you keep performing them anyway because they feel safer than allowing change.
Why we resist
We tell ourselves endings equal failure. We think holding on is loyalty or strength. But reversed Death whispers: This isn’t strength. It’s stagnation. You’re trying to breathe life into something that’s already gone. And the more energy you pour into preservation, the less you have for creation.
Avoidance is its own death
Here’s the irony: when you resist endings, you don’t avoid loss, you just live in a sort of permanent half-life. You keep the job, the relationship or the identity, but it’s hollow. It feels familiar, but ultimately empty. It’s emotionally draining.
So what do you do when Death shows up reversed? Start small. Name what’s rotting. Stop pretending it smells like roses. Give yourself permission to grieve what’s gone. And then, when you’re ready, take the first honest step toward the next season of your life.
Reversed Death isn’t a dead end, it’s a flashing warning sign. Transformation is waiting outside the door, but you’re barricading it with furniture. How long will you hold the door shut before you admit you’re suffocating?
Pause and Reflect
What are you holding onto that no longer fits who you’re becoming? If you let it die, what new space would open up for you? Does that possibility scare you more than the loss? Why?
Take Action
A lot of what the Death card deals with is how we fracture and compartmentalize our lives by refusing to let go of things within us that have already died. Or being unable (or unwilling) to be honest with who we are right now.
Here’s one of my favorite exercises. Print out some pictures of yourself and fragment them: cut them up into various pieces and assemble them into a collage of you. See what remains when the old patterns are broken. Then decide: keep it as art, or destroy it completely.
Also, look at the fragments you’ve cut, whether you’ve reassembled them or left them scattered. Notice this truth: you are still whole, even when rearranged. You are not the pieces you cut out let go of, you are the life that moves through them.