--By Hyperion Night, of Beanblossom's Tea and Tarot
Death
Letting go of attachments. Natural and inevitable change.
So. There was this guy.
For a lot of very logical reasons he wasn't Mr. Right. But that was fine. I was okay with Mr. Right Now.
In fact, I was more than okay. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I played it cool on the outside, but he knotted me up good. And it got a little ridiculous. I realized I'd become attached to this fantasy in my head, and that this attachment wasn't doing me any good. And the really weird thing about attachments? Deep down, a lot of us believe that if we give them up, we won't get what we want. But the truth is, if we're attached, we end up with this needy and desperate drive which ensures we don't get what we want. After a lot of inner work which took me down the painful rabbit hole of shadow work, I let him go. And then, of course, I did find Mr. Right.
At this point, you're probably wondering why I've got the Death card in the title rather than the Lovers. But it's all about letting go. Death represents releasing attachments. Change is coming, whether we like it or not. Me? I don't like change. In this, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. Change is chaos and uncertainty, and I'd much rather stick with the comfortable known. But life is change. And if we try to keep the status quo, hold on to our attachments and expectations about what should come next, we just end up making things worse.
If you can't let change happen, you end up with the Tower card. In other words, change is going to happen even more painfully and dramatically, in Tower-like fashion. (While some Tarot readers see the Major Arcana as a natural progression of internal growth, I see it more as a choose-your-own-adventure. You can take the road of Death, let go, and move on to the virtue of Temperance. Or you can get lost in the illusion of the Devil, and head for the crash of the Tower.)
But Death isn't an ending. If you look carefully at the Tarot card, you'll see in the background the sun rising between two towers. The towers are gateways, symbolizing transition. This card tells us there's more to come, a new beginning... if you let go of expectations and embrace the change. The white rose on Death's banner shows us the way, symbolizing freedom from lower forms of desire, internal purity and peace. There's more to come, a new beginning... if you let go of expectations and let it happen.
So, when you get this card, don't freak out. Just ask yourself what beliefs, ideas, and expectations you're holding onto, and what maybe you need to let go of.
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