Symbolism of the Death Tarot Card
This card is usually represented by a skeleton riding a horse. Surrounding him are dead and dying people from all classes, including kings and peasants. This perhaps implies that Death affects all equally. The black banner with a white flower symbolizes rebirth.
Death bears the number “13,” and is the symbol of rebirth for the Fool after his encounter with the Hanged Man.
The General Interpretation of the Death Card
When appearing in a spread, this card implies that something must come to an end. This may or may not be a painful process, depending on your willingness and ability to recognize and accept the inevitable. The Death card can herald the coming of a new life, but if you are to embrace the new life, you must let go of the old.
The Fool, prepared to continue his journey, enters the underworld. He is prepared to leave behind his previous life, and meet an as-yet unknown future.
The Inner Meaning of the Death in Tarot
In Tarot, Death is the image of a permanent and final end to a cycle or chapter of life. The old way of thinking, of being, is dead, and will not return. This is a card of finality, a symbol of the mourning which must take place before a new phase of life can begin.
This is not necessarily a bad ending. This card could herald the end of an old phase of life in the form of a marriage or perhaps the birth of a child. The old way of life, that of being single or not yet a parent, is over, and must be mourned, but that does not mean the new life will be any less satisfying. This is not a card of physical death, but rather of the inevitable changes associated with the cycles of life.
The Fool descends into the underworld. He is unable to bring with him the patterns and thoughts of old, and instead must prepare to develop new ways of thinking and being.
Death is what the Fool must encounter after he meets the Hanged Man, on the path to his meeting with Temperance.
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