Tarot Card Series: Death

DEATH

Your eyes will open like roses

blooming to reveal

that you are not alone.

You see, I come after.

I’m the real patron of lost causes.

I’ll lift you

out of the hole the

priests put you in.

There are no tears,

no ashes, here,

take this silver necklace,

wrap it around your neck.

Come, ride this pale horse

to the ending of this world—

the veil between,

my black tattered cloak

around your shoulders.

Whenever I draw this card for someone who is new to tarot, they gasp in horror. On the card, a skeleton rides a pale horse. The skeleton holds a black banner with a white rose on it. All around the figure on the horse, the dead rise from their graves.

However, this is my favorite card to draw. The Death card is about rebirth. It signifies a new journey and that change is coming in one’s life. Something new is on the horizon.

I wrote “Death” during 2020, during the Pandemic lockdown. I was thinking a lot about the journey into death that one takes.  I was also bingewatching Supernatural for the first time. I particularly loved Season 5, when the first apocalypse happens. Death, played by Julian Richings, quickly became one of my favorite characters. He was cranky but affable, offering his help to the Winchesters in exchange for fried foods.

I would rather look on Death as a friend. I believe that the veil between this world and the next is close. That the two worlds touch. That those we have loved who have gone on are close by.

Bad Omens is out tomorrow, 2/17!