AUTHOR’S NOTE: When upright, the Death card of the tarot is usually understood to mean something of great importance to the querent will come to an end to make way for something new. It echoes the Coffin, one of the “stop” cards in Lenormand reading, that always indicates a terminal event after which a different direction will present itself. However, in line with my current thinking on the trump cards, Death may create the environment for arrival of a critical “moment of truth” but it won’t necessarily deliver the “killing blow.”

As I see it, an “ending” (big or small) is the most reliable way to interpret this card since “major transformation” will have limited applicability in many day-to-day reading scenarios. But even at its most threatening, we could be waiting anxiously for a significant upset to occur when only the opportunity for a simple “reboot” of our current status is forthcoming. With that in mind, my subject here is the reversed orientation of Death in a spread.

In online discussions I’ve encountered the popular opinion that its reversal means “You don’t have to change” (or even more curiously, “You’re not going to die today”). This reflects the outdated attitude that reversed meanings are the opposite of the upright interpretation, but it’s more subtle than that. Perhaps a better way to look at it is “Forget everything you’ve been told about the subject of the reading; it won’t help you.” I believe that the upright message in a card remains intact when reversed, it is just presented in a different light, one of redirection and not merely refutation.

I prefer the assumption that the reversal of Death can imply “strings attached” to any instance of closure; it may not be a “clean” break but rather a “messy” one. (On a lighter note, I corrected a typo in this text by changing “stings attached” to “strings attached” that originally echoed the biblical quote “O death, where is thy sting? . . . .oh wait, there it is.”)

There can be a stubborn clinging to something that should be let go, but denial looms large in the equation. In such cases, deferring the experience of change may only make matters worse. I’m reminded of the scene in Roman Polanski’s film The Fearless Vampire Killers where the chambermaid holds a gold crucifix in front of a Yiddish vampire to fend off the fiend, who waves it away with a shrug and a smirk, saying “I’m not that kind of vampire” before closing in for the bite.

Fans of Terry Pratchett’s portrayal of Death in his novels may remember it as DEATH writ large who always spoke with overbearing gravity IN CAPITAL LETTERS. The wise tarot reader could take a hint from this satirical dramatization when confronted with Death reversed in a reading: don’t overstate the case unless other cards in the spread make it clear that more than a minor event is foreseen. Otherwise, prepare for something “new and different” to show up that may herald no more than a pause to reset the agenda.