Tarot Cards - Major Arcana - Death - 13
REVERSED: Resistance to change, personal transformation, inner purging
DEATH DESCRIPTION
The Death card shows the Messenger of Death – a skeleton dressed in black armour, riding a white horse. The skeleton represents the part of the body which survives long after life has left it; the armour symbolises invincibility and that death will come no matter what. Its dark colour is that of mourning and the mysterious, while the horse is the colour of purity and acts as a symbol of strength and power. Death carries a black flag decorated with a white, five-petal rose, reflecting beauty, purification and immortality and the number five representing change. Together, these symbols reveal that death isn’t just about life ending. Death is about endings and beginnings, birth and rebirth, change and transformation. There is beauty in death, and it is an inherent part of being alive.
A royal figure appears to be dead on the ground, while a young woman, child and bishop plead with the skeletal figure to spare them. But, as we all know, death spares no one.
In the background, a boat floats down the river, akin to the mythological boats escorting the dead to the afterlife. On the horizon, the sun sets between two towers (which also appear in the Moon Tarot card), in a sense dying each night and being reborn every morning.
Reversed Meaning
Keywords (Reversed): Resistance to change, fear of endings, prolonged stagnation, repeating patterns, decay.
When Death appears reversed, the natural and necessary pruning of the old is blocked by fierce resistance. The scythe is held back, leaving dead situations, relationships, or habits to linger in prolonged emotional decay. The querent clings to familiar security even when they know in their heart that the chapter has fully concluded, needlessly extending their own pain.
In spiritual growth, the reversal represents the refusal to let an outdated persona die so that a renewed, authentic self can emerge.
Guidance & Remedy: Trust the cycle of rebirth. What you are clinging to has already completed its purpose. Open your hands and allow the autumn leaves to fall so spring may return.
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