Softening the impact...

[Splungeman]

I may be close to death all the time, but that does not blind me to all the possible metaphorical interpretations of the card. I just don't think it ALWAYS should be seen as a good card. I think this whole saturation of the general public that Death=change was done so people wouldn't be scared to get a Tarot reading. I know that Death can sometimes mean "change" but it can also mean and ending of something, decline, inevitability, acceptance of things we cannot control...AND....physical DEATH (Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, y'know?) These concepts themselves are not necessarily good or bad. But I think lately the trend has hit to defang the Death card. It never seems to be connected with anything sad or troubling. Even if it is something not good, it's not something that is too much of a big deal. I think that is a pity. It is perhaps one of the most powerful cards in the deck because of the deep emotions, fears, and thoughts it stirs up when we first glimpse it. It reminds us immediately of how finite things are. It is a wonderfully compelling and fascinating card.

I don't think we should be too hasty to take that away because of either our own fears and insecurities or because we are scared to allow the sitter to feel the impact of the card. Yes...it sometimes CAN be good, but I think wishing that it will be good interferes with objectivity and compels us to be dismissive of its power.

The same with The Devil, Tower, RWS 5 of cups, RWS 9 and 10 of Swords, etc...

 

[Splungeman]

It boils down to what a person "sees" and their skills as a reader BUT I wonder if the death card for you is really about a death at work. To me the predicting a death would be far more personal. In your line of work you see death daily sometimes multiple times a day it isn't a shock when someone passes (with all due respect). I am sure it is hard and I am not trying to minimize a life but I wonder if it is more personal.

I understand where you are coming from here. But it IS quite personal to me because for one, I feel it is my calling in life to do this. I LOVE my job. I love being there and bringing comfort and dignity to the last moments of someone's life. I love bringing comfort to the families of my patients during this stressful time in their lives. I love that my mere presence alone as a nurse comforts these families, some of whom have been without sleep with anxiety.

I don't think anyone ever really gets used to people dying. There's always a moment of awe when you witness someone's final breath, regardless of how often you see it. The families can also affect you...as can a patient with pain you just cannot control no matter what you do...or a patient who dies with nobody who loves them around them. You don't really become numb to it, you just learn to function in the midst of it.

I know I'm getting off topic here but I wanted to comment on that a bit.

 

[le fey]

It seems like it'd be pretty hard to even guess at what Death meant in the various readings you've seen it in and whether it involves something you'd experience as positive or negative or (more neutrally) simply so inevitable you've got to simply accept it and the changes it puts you through without knowing what the subject of the reading was, the position where it turned up and what the surrounding cards were.

I don't know that it's a given that Death showing up frequently in a variety of readings with different readers would mean the same thing at any given time for you either - so maybe for at least some of them, they were pointing to a positive transformation...for some, it'd point to your work environment... who could say?

I do agree that no, it's not realistic to assume that that sort of transformation (whether it's symbolic or a physical transformation from living matter to dead meat - sorry for the bluntness) is always perceived in a positive way or even leads to positive change... Death Is. It is what it is - how much you'll like the transformation that is beyond your control is up to you, not this card.

The most recent time I drew the Death card in a reading for another, the question had to do with how to get an SO to understand that it was time to move on, and Death showed up in the area of what the subject of the reading would need to do (that is, what the SO would not be doing).... and we softened the discouraging answer by joking for a moment that this probably didn't mean putting out a hit on the SO and then moved onto the grim answer (because the subject was strongly hoping not to have to play the heavy) that the only way it was going to be over was to make it OVER and quit softening the blow with mixed signals and trying to maintain some kind of relationship while ending the primary nature of it. No resuscitation measures.

Now, that was a negative answer - but acknowledinging and ruling out the physical death aspect (playfully) was a way to offer that reality check while putting into perspective the actual 'badness' of the answer.

You can 'soften the blow' without muffling the message. Be as kind to your readee as you would to your child coming to you with a tough question. Don't lie... but remember that they do have feelings and its not your job to hurt them.

 

[Nevada]

I think a job like yours is the exception rather than the rule. I think in times gone by when death was more common then it meant more. These days people survive nearly everything.

And yet everyone dies. There is no escape from that eventuality.

I do think our culture places too much fear on death, but there seems to be no way around that. People will always fear it. Including the readers, not just the sitters.

I see your point now, Splungeman, and what I said before holds:

I also wonder, if a reader softens the impact of a reading, is the reader protecting the querent, or herself? Doctors don't like to deliver bad news either. But if it's one's job . . .

However, it's possible that the failure to ever read Death as Death, even when one should, is also a hesitancy and lack of confidence on the part of the reader.

What if they're wrong? Then are they upsetting the sitter unnecessarily? Will they be seen as one of those scary readers, or even as cruel for frightening the poor reader? Or scorned for predicting something that doesn't happen? That may be a bigger factor than fear of death -- fear of being wrong.

I know it scares me. . .

Nevada

 

[Splungeman]

What if they're wrong? Then are they upsetting the sitter unnecessarily? Will they be seen as one of those scary readers, or even as cruel for frightening the poor reader? Or scorned for predicting something that doesn't happen? That may be a bigger factor than fear of death -- fear of being wrong.

I know it scares me. . .

Nevada

I understand completely. Keep in mind though that in the rare instance (has ANYONE actually predicted this to someone??) you would get the Death card and it meant physical death for your sitter, it may not be regarding an imminent Death. It might fall in a spread in the "Fears" position. This would mean this person might fear their physical death...or even disease leading to death. Sure it means physical death, but just because it means physical death doesn't mean it will be imminent.

I think that death, that our mortality, is a part of our daily lives. Most of what we do every day is stave off death. We work to be able to afford food for ourselves. We obey traffic laws so that we don't get in a wreck and die. We institute safety standards at work so we don't die. As living organisms, our purpose is NOT to die as long as possible! It is an idea ever constantly looming in our peripheral life vision. It is a part of life we like to not dwell on too much, but it is always there.

I think though we're focusing too much on Death as physical Death. My main point is that the Death card, the Devil, the Tower, etc should have just as much of an even shot at being "ill-dignified" as the others. Let's not forget the others now!

Oh...and regarding "what if we're wrong"...Well...techinically speaking predicting someone's physical demise is a correct prediction 100% of the time.

 

[Hooked on TdM]

Yes, I have got the death card for a physical death. However it was my own. And I'm not the walking dead! I just took medical steps and avoided that fate.

Recently I got the death card to mean the death of an object. A friend of mine was looking for something she had lost and death was the outcome. I told her it was a loss and she needed to move on.

That is the only two instances I have gotten death as death. However, I wouldn't skim over it in a reading. I read what I see, although I do try to be tactful in how I say it.

Hooked

 

[Nevada]

Oh...and regarding "what if we're wrong"...Well...techinically speaking predicting someone's physical demise is a correct prediction 100% of the time.

True and I agree that readers need to balance their approach more, if they're only respresenting the brightest side of card meanings. For any card, and any interpretation of it.

Nevada

 

[franniee]

I think though we're focusing too much on Death as physical Death. My main point is that the Death card, the Devil, the Tower, etc should have just as much of an even shot at being "ill-dignified" as the others. Let's not forget the others now!

Oh...and regarding "what if we're wrong"...Well...techinically speaking predicting someone's physical demise is a correct prediction 100% of the time.

I like your sense of humor!

I think I focused on the death card because that is one thing I will not tell. I just won't.

I went to this one reader a very long time ago. She read playing cards - she was jewish and only spoke yiddish. I am not and do not. So I had my friend with me who was translating. It got to the point where I didn't need the translation (I don't read playing cards). I was asking about the fate of my brother.... he was quite ill. She rattled off in yiddish, I have no idea what the translation was but I looked into her eyes and I knew and I stopped her - not necessary - didn't want to know.

As for the tower and devil and 9 & 10 of swords all the rest I tell people what I see. I had the devil and the moon a couple of weeks ago and I told the person that her loved one had a mental issue.... I had the devil and the moon a month ago and I asked the man before me if he was an alcoholic - then there was the 9 of wands and I said OH! and cocaine or something of that sort? I tell them what the cards say with all of that because there is a reason why the cards have come out. When cards like that come out it is so the person can overcome the issue and find their way out of the darkness and of course that is the essence of the reading. I just won't tell someone they are going to die in a (insert time here).

I worked with a guy who told me he was told he would die on a motorcycle before he hit 30 - he is 50 or so right now. He stopped riding motorcycles..... did he change his fate? Not sure. Sure he is going to die but when?

 

[Baroli]

I have gotten the death card as the death or end of a friendship or if you want to be nice, a change in the friendship. I have gotten the tower just before I was let go from my job. I wasn't expecting it. I have gotten the death card as meaning death of a person, however I also have a visitation from the "death dude" when it is someone in my family. He has been visiting me 2 weeks before the death of a family member.

I have also gotten the tower for something totally unexpected and it was a good thing, so go figure!

 

[Discordia]

...

As for the tower and devil and 9 & 10 of swords all the rest I tell people what I see. I had the devil and the moon a couple of weeks ago and I told the person that her loved one had a mental issue.... I had the devil and the moon a month ago and I asked the man before me if he was an alcoholic - then there was the 9 of wands and I said OH! and cocaine or something of that sort? I tell them what the cards say with all of that because there is a reason why the cards have come out. When cards like that come out it is so the person can overcome the issue and find their way out of the darkness and of course that is the essence of the reading. I just won't tell someone they are going to die in a (insert time here).
...

I agree with all of that.

I can see where the OP is coming from - I went to a few online sites for a quick flip of the cards, and if I didn't actually know the meaning of the cards in the layout I would've been clueless, in a sense.

Not everything in life is rainbows and butterflies, and the way some of these sites interpreted things...I felt...hard to say how I felt...I guess like I was being pandered to, kind of like it was saying, "Oh poor dear can't handle the truth! There, there..." :ats head::

You see what I'm getting at?

There's a balance to be struck, no doubt - and I won't predict someone's demise - but to appreciate any kind of light in our lives, we must cuddle up to the dark, imho.



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