Okay, we’ve all been there, you’re sitting at the cloth covered table and your tarot reader begins to flip the cards over and you’re all, “Please don’t be the death card.  Please don’t be the death card. Please don’t be the death card.”

Amiright?

Here’s the thing, the deal, the skizzy.  There are no bad cards in tarot.

There, I said it.  It’s done.

Even though some cards may LOOK bad.  Like really really bad.  Oh, like say, this one:

They’re really not “bad”.  They are giving you a message.  For example, the above 10 of Swords actually makes me kind of laugh when I see it.

Stay with me here.

Whenever I see this card come up in a reading for myself or others, it usually means someone is being a bit of a…. eh hem… Drama Queen.  Basically, imagine a little bubble floating above this guy’s head that says, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m FINE.”

Now, let’s really look at this card for a second.  Yes, this poor guy has ten – count ’em T-E-N – swords plunged into his back and pinning him to the ground.  I mean, OUCH, right?  And in the background there are some storm clouds and stuff, also not too perky.  But there is something so ridiculously exaggerated about this scene, that it is just over-the-top with the drama.  Not to mention that beyond the clouds the sun is coming up.  There will be another day of sun.

Every single time this card has come up in a reading and I say, “Someone, and it could be you, is being a martyr around this situation.  A bit of a Drama Queen.”  The querent pretty much falls off their chair with, “Holy shit balls, you are RIGHT!”  And then we can talk about who it is, and if it is them, well then they can have some self awareness around their attitude, or passive aggressive stance over the situation asked about, and usually it ends up as a pretty big laugh all around.

No really.  Actual laughing.

And then there’s the classic and almost always dreaded Death Card:

I mean look at him  up there, the Grim Reaper, and his horse is trampling some poor guy!  And there’s a kid watching it all for god’s sake!  Brutal.

Or is it?

The only people that don’t freak out whenever this card comes up are usually either fellow tarot readers, or people who have an understanding of the tarot.

Well, I’m here to put this to rest in your mind once and for all.

Death is good.  At least most of the time.  I’m not saying it never indicates an actual death, and because I am not a predictive reader I wouldn’t be able to tell you that anyway, unless it is about a death that has already happened.  But usually when this card comes up it means that there was, is, or may be a deeply transformative change coming your way.

Like huge.

But not the catastrophic kind of change like The Tower, just check this baby out:

Seriously, YIKES!  But we’ll get to this one in a minute.

Death is more like the kind of change that comes once in a life time, and the “bad” part is, it is usually not the easy peasy lemon squeezy kind of change.  Sometimes it’s when you are finding yourself needing to re-examine who you are at the deepest level, like when an identity crisis hits.  Or when you have to say goodbye to a loved one for whatever reason, and you must make that deep change where you move forward without them in your life.  Are you following me here?  It is a transformation, and then you become something else as a result.  Shedding an old belief, or way of life, or environment.  Getting rid of something, having it die, to make room for something new.

In fact, The Death card in the Shadowscapes deck is represented by a Phoenix.  Whenever Death comes up for people, I always use the Phoenix as the energy behind it.  Which is why I love this version of Death so much.

Now, if the Shadowscapes version of Death came up, people would probably think it is beautiful, and inspiring. So, even though the Rider Waite deck, which is what I and many readers use in readings, looks scarier, the messages are still meant to help – not terrify.

Speaking of terror, the final card we’ll look at is The Tower, pictured above.  It kind of looks like there is really nothing positive in this card at all, and occasionally when it comes up it does speak to things being kind of brutal, in a swift explosive way, but each of the tarot cards that appear as “bad” are meant to help you transform or heal in some way.  This one just does it by telling you that the universe is going to kick you in the ass to get your attention. Sometimes it might indicate a sudden job loss, or a sudden break up in a relationship, or sudden devastating circumstance that explodes into your life.  Do you see the energy that keeps coming through?

Sudden, explosive, unavoidable event.

BUT, here’s the good news!  It is usually something that will, in the long run, be good for you.  It’s true!  I usually explain to people, like the Death card, when it is happening to you it feels like garbage, not pleasant, and even hard, really really hard, but let’s face it… deep life changing transformation is going to be hard.  If it wasn’t, than we would just call it switching gears, or changing direction.

Nope.  These cards are all speaking to the times in our lives that we survive from.  And we DO survive.  And like a gorgeous tree that is being battered by the winds and the rain, the roots and branches become stronger and stronger, and every year that tree grows more and more majestic and solid in the ground.

You will know more about who you are.  And why you came to be here on this planet.

I’ll help you through it.

No fear.

You’ve got this.

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