Death

Upright

Endings are what this card is about, and in the tarot tradition they are part of change rather than the opposite of it. Readers take it as a chapter closing, a habit or role falling away, or a transformation that asks you to let something go. It says nothing about anyone's physical death.

Reversed

Holding on to what has already ended is the usual reading of the reversed card. Readers take it as resistance to change, or as a situation stuck because nobody lets it close. It can point to fear of what comes next.

In love and at work

Asked about love, readers take it as the end of one phase of a relationship, or of a relationship that has run its course, making room for something new. For work, it is linked with a job ending, a career change or a restructure.

In the picture

A skeleton in black armor rides a white horse and carries a black banner marked with a white rose. A king lies fallen, while a bishop, a young woman and a child face the rider. In the distance, the sun rises between two pillars, which Waite calls the sun of immortality. The Golden Dawn gave the card to Scorpio.

In a Caelumia profile

When Death comes up upright in a Caelumia reading, it counts toward these themes for that day, alongside the rest of the profile: Transformation, Emotional depth.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
• Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Book T: The Tarot (1890s, published by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn (1937 to 1940)). The source of the planetary, zodiac and elemental attributions of the cards.

Updated October 9, 2026.