Editor’s Note: This article continues our weekly series on the tarot. You can find some of the earlier ones by clicking the “tarot” category link above. In case you want to experiment with the cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator. The formation is called the Celtic Wings spread. It’s based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells how to use the spread. We’re happy to respond to questions and will take direction from readers who comment, so please let us know what you think. Today’s installment looks at Death and The Tower — two of the most potentially charged, and often misunderstood, cards in the major arcana. You can visit Sarah’s website at this link. –efc
A few weeks ago, in our discussion of The Lovers card, I wrote that, “I’m not aware of another card that is as immediately recognised and positively received…. The Lovers seems to amplify any feelings of hope and expectation when it shows up.”
Well, conversely, there is nothing like drawing Death or The Tower (or any card in the swords suit for that matter) to throw the reading into a new light for a client. Responses are varied, but many of them run along similar lines, from “Death. That’s not great, is it?”, to “I don’t like the look of that one.”, or, “Tell me I’m not going to get bad news!”
Whether we have been in that position or not, whether we have had a similar reaction or not, I think that we can all relate in some way. This is in no small part due to the imagery and the archetypes that it evokes — something we’re going to be exploring in more detail a little further on.
But first, I think the subject begs a question. Yes, the imagery is vividly uncompromising; and, yes, one card in particular — Death — has become part of the vernacular.
But what is that fear, and what lies beneath it?
I think the fundamental, often conscious, fear that inhabits our hearts and minds when we draw a card like Death or The Tower is the one we deal with when we confront our own mortality. In essence, these cards bring up a fear of death or annihilation, even if it is only there for a nanosecond before we buffer it with reason and diversion. It is visceral, charged with emotion, and our ego tries everything it can to avoid our thinking about it, feeling it, or experiencing it. Coming to terms with it is one of the greatest challenges — if not the greatest challenge — in our human experience.