Death
Let it go.
Card Number XIII in the Marseilles Deck has no title, but it is clearly a depiction of the Grim Reaper. This character is the great equalizer. King and pauper alike all fall to his scythe.
So much has been written about this card that I find myself with little to add, but I’m happy to share what little I have.
The Death card is one of a very few cards in the deck which tend to inspire trepidation, if not outright terror. It and the Tower are the pair that I, myself, greet with a sense of dread.
Yet, if Tarot readers down through the years are to be trusted, this card seldom portends an actual physical death.
For me, it prompts an assessment of things in my life which no longer serve me well, or are simply finished, and ought best be dragged out back and buried.
Sometimes we are so used to some element of our experience, whether a habit, or a relationship, or a point of view or thought, that we do not recognize when it has outlived its usefulness, or when it has in fact already long since passed. It is like a familiar, well dressed-corpse sitting at the dinner table, and we just don’t have the consciousness or decency to give it a proper goodbye.
The message of Card XIII is to let it go.
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