There are 78 cards in a tarot deck, but there's only one that can change the energy in the room before I've even opened my mouth.
It's the Death card.
I've watched people laugh nervously the moment it appears. I've had clients immediately ask, "That doesn't mean someone's going to die...right?" Others instinctively want to move on as quickly as possible, almost hoping the next card will somehow undo what they've just seen.
I understand the reaction. We've been taught to fear the word itself. Death represents endings, loss, uncertainty. It's not exactly the card anyone hopes to pull.
The funny thing is, after hundreds of readings, I've come to think it's one of the most hopeful cards in the entire deck. Not because it promises that life is about to get easier. It usually doesn't. It asks us to be honest.
The Death card doesn't ask, What are you going to lose? It asks, What are you holding onto that's already over?
That's a very different question.
I've noticed something else over the years. People don't usually pull the Death card because change is coming. They pull it because change has already begun. They just haven't admitted it to themselves yet.
Sometimes it's someone who has known for months they're ready to leave a job but can't quite bring themselves to hit "send" on the resignation letter. Sometimes it's someone grieving the end of a relationship they know isn't right anymore. Sometimes it's someone who has spent years being exactly who everyone else needed them to be and has quietly started wondering who they are underneath all of that.
The circumstances are always different, but the invitation is almost always the same.
What are you ready to let go of?
Not because you've failed. Not because you've made the wrong decision. Because growth has a funny way of asking us to loosen our grip on the version of ourselves that got us here so we can make room for the person we're becoming.
That's why I've never thought tarot was about predicting the future. I think tarot interrupts us.
Most of us move through life so quickly that we don't give ourselves much time to notice what's happening beneath the surface. We ignore the little voice telling us something feels off. We convince ourselves we'll deal with it later. We push through because it's practical, because it's familiar, and because it's easier than admitting we've changed. A tarot reading creates space where it's a little harder to do that. The cards don't hand you answers. They ask better questions.
I think my openness to tarot actually started much earlier than I realized.
My mom is a two-time breast cancer survivor, and somewhere during that journey she found Buddhism. As a kid, I didn't have the language for what I was witnessing. I just remember thinking there was something different about her. She wasn't pretending everything was okay. It wasn't. But she carried herself with a kind of steadiness that I couldn't explain.
Looking back, I don't think Buddhism changed who she was. I think it gave her a way to move through one of life's hardest experiences with more presence and acceptance than I thought was possible.
That stayed with me.
Years later, when I found tarot, I wasn't looking for someone to tell me what was going to happen next. I was looking for a practice that encouraged me to slow down, pay attention, and trust that there was value in asking questions instead of rushing toward answers.
That's still what tarot is for me.
It's not about certainty, and it's not about handing your decisions over to a deck of cards. It's about creating enough space to hear your own thoughts.
Sometimes people immediately disagree with a card, and that's just as valuable as agreeing with it. Sometimes a card puts words to something they've been feeling for months but haven't been able to articulate. Sometimes it simply gives them permission to acknowledge what they've known all along.
Maybe that's why I've never been afraid of the Death card. Or maybe it's because it's the card associated with Scorpio, my sun sign. I've always thought that was fitting!
It has never felt like a card about endings to me. It has always felt like a card about honesty. It's about recognizing when a chapter has quietly come to an end, even if part of you is still trying to keep it alive. It's about trusting that letting go isn't the opposite of growth. More often than not, it's what makes growth possible.
I don't think people are afraid of the Death card because it represents death.
I think they're afraid because, every now and then, it confirms something they've known for a long time.
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