Upright

• The end of a marked phase in life, possessing many characteristics which one may have grown comfortable with.
• Complete change, upheaval, "Nothing will ever be the same."
• Saying goodbye, perhaps forever.
• Leaving behind an old life. Starting a new life.
• A change that cannot be prevented; something that must happen.
• Letting everything go.
• Walking away from a doomed venture.

Death represents stark conclusions, sweeping changes, and irreversibility. Such changes are often necessary and cannot be avoided. Though it very rarely represents actual, physical death, it may involve leaving behind familiar people and places, and ways of being.

Alternatively, this card may represent that something should be let go, whether it is a project or a relationship or something else, because it is ill-fated.

On the other side of Death new beginnings and daunting unknowns await.

Reversed

• Cheating fate, avoiding something believed inevitable.
• Delaying the inevitable.
• Overstaying a welcome.
• Hanging on, being unable to let go.
• Trying to attain permanence.
• Bargaining with fate.
• Making lesser adjustments that prevent complete change.
• Old issues from the past, thought gone, paying a visit again.

Death Reversed signifies that moving on or letting go, which may be necessary or unavoidable, is being resisted to the bitter end. Alternatively, matters thought left in the past may have become significant once more.

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