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[0:13] The symbolism and meaning of the Death card in Tarot readings.
Aloha and welcome to Your Heart magic and illuminating space where psychology spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright, the clinical psychologist with a mystic mind.
Aloha, everybody. Welcome to Your Heart magic. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. And today we are continuing our archetypes of the Tarot series, and we are talking about the card death. I named this episode death and rebirth because sometimes when we hear the word death, it's really scary for people, some people are comfortable with it, if they perhaps done a lot of work around it, and really grappled with the term and grappled with grief and loss in their life.
But for a lot of people, especially if you're just doing a Tarot reading, and you pull this card, it can look really scary to some people. And usually, it's been a while, but back in the day when I used to do readings for friends, and you know, sort of DVS group readings for people. If ever I flipped the death card, almost inevitably, the person I was reading for would be like, oh, you know, there's something about it that elicits fear somehow in people. And so I named this episode death and rebirth, because I think that is the other side of the coin of an ending is the fact that when something dies, when we let go, when something goes through some sort of cessation, the other side of that is also new life.
And I feel like that is the hope and understanding death. And it's the crux and understanding death, that nothing really dies, it goes on to alchemize into new form some way or the other. And I think in order for us to have a holistic relationship with the archetype of death and the concept of it, we have to be able to not only come up with some sort of understanding of what is life's mean, how do I face endings in my life?
How can I find perspective in this to move through this with as much peace as possible, even if I'm experiencing heartbreak or grief or difficult emotions, but how can I hang on to some shred of hope, or some spark of light, or some kind of belief or just observation of the natural world that when something passes in one form, something else is often reborn.
So those are the kinds of perspectives that we are talking about in today's episode. Overall, the meaning of the card death and the Tarot, usually symbolizes some form of letting go loss, or some kind of profound transformation. More often than not, if somebody is using it for reading in their life, I think it really represents something that they might be in the process of releasing, cutting ties with, letting go in some form, some kind of loss, and this profound shake up and disruption and awakening that might be slowly happening and their life as a result of something where it was time for it to go, or life move things along.
And something ended whether or not we were ready. So when we think of the card deck, we can think of the idea of being invited to go through a transformative experience, and being invited into transformation in our own lives. And whether a loss or a letting go is something that we have chosen.
And we've chosen to move away from something or let something go or say goodbye, or whether it's something that was just thrust on us. And life kind of did its thing where it will remind us periodically that regardless of how much we think we're in control, there's this greater process that all of us are in and that is called life.
[4:34] Embracing death and endings for personal growth.
And sometimes life just comes along like a tidal wave. And it knocks things out and takes things away that we never saw coming, and we're forced to deal with those consequences. I've written quite a bit about loss, especially through the lens of losing my brother Brent, I've talked about that a lot in the podcast. I've certainly had some other losses in my life. But that's the one that I've really excavated the most. And the one that I've come to the most understanding of, because I've talked about it so much.
And something that I really learned from that particular grief journey. And I just continued to learn the same lesson, but in new ways, is that on the other side of the coin of grief and loss, and an ending, is really love. And it is a beginning and it is something new that's being sparked inside of ourselves.
And that is how I conceptualize it. When we think about how do we approach the idea of working with death working with endings in a way that is holistic in a way that feels complete, I don't think we can understand it without the context of seeing what's on the other side of that coin. And again, recognizing that it's not this black and white either or thing, that it is death and rebirth, grief and love, an ending and a beginning.
And that, to me brings not only a lot of comfort, but a reminder that nothing is permanent. Some things might be and the passing away of something in one form, there might be a permanency to that loss, where we're never going to see it again, I've often thought about that with brands I felt so strongly multiple times have on the other side, I feel spiritually he's still very much there, I talked and written about some of those experiences.
And yet when I lost him, part of what I was coming to terms with in those initial months of my grief journey was the form that he was entered in this lifetime. And being the other half of the dynamic compound ski sibling duo, that form had ceased to be the way that it was, and coming to terms with that ending and coming to terms with just understanding and trying to find peace and acceptance.
And that is ultimately what allowed me to continue to embrace my life moving forward without him edit in the same form that he had been. So I think we need to expand our mindset around the archetype of death. And many people listening to this are already doing that work. This might not be new information. For some of you, it might be something that you know, in theory, but struggle to do in actuality. That's okay. We are where we are.
And when we feel uncomfortable when we have fear when we have, but I don't want to let go, I don't want anything to change, I just want it all to stay the same. That is simply an invitation to learn to love ourselves, and try and bring self love into that space of ourselves that does not want anything to change. And it's an invitation to see where we can do some more work around. What am I so afraid of? Why am I afraid of letting go? What do I think is going to happen if I let go? Because death comes around all the time. And what's interesting to me is that so often we are so afraid of something ending.
And yet if you were to sit down and make a list of all the things that have already ended in your life, starting with the aging process and biological development, and anytime that you passed any kind of a milestone, or taken a rite of passage, anytime you've made it through a life stage, there might be things on the list where you have weathered some sort of a job loss, relationship loss, loss of identity, loss of self in some sense, loss of somebody that you love to loss of a dream or something that you hoped for in your life, how did you make it through that.
And if we were to write all those things down, I think we would see that we have a very rich relationship with death and endings in our life. Now we might not always like them. How you work with them depends solely on you and your experience. But the relationship is already there because it's happening all the time.
[9:22] Embracing life's cycles through nature and personal growth.
And it's happening in the natural world around us. Every time we see the passing of a season. Every time we see nature go through some sort of a completion. We might see animals grow around us we see things happen in the natural world that are sometimes hard to observe or witness but they are part of a life cycle. Anytime we go through day into Twilight, into evening, into pitch black night and to Dawn into the next day and the moon cycles, all of that is an ending followed by a beginning It is cyclical. It is a dance of shadow and light, death and rebirth.
And so we are surrounded by it. And I feel that that can support us and better understanding it and not being afraid. I've often thought if nature can find the courage to go through her change cycles, and to have this glorious bloom in summertime, where she creates the beautiful greenery and the flowers and whatever else is growing and the part of the world that you live in, and how does she find the courage to let go?
Every time the autumn starts to come, and it's time to shed or something is only short lived. It's fleeting, maybe a plant or flower blooms, and it's only for a little bit of time, and then it's gone. Where does the courage from that come? And how does nature learn to keep embracing cycles, it's just how Mother Nature is that is exemplified in the world around us. But I often find compassionate courage from that process.
And I think, Alright, if Mother Earth can learn to do this, and weather transformation, if the moon can learn to keep changing phases, and learn to be comfortable in all shades of self, then maybe I too, can use that as inspiration and find something in me that allows me to let go.
So one of the things that I think is really something that the death card, the archetype of deck teaches us is that understanding death helps us understand life, it helps us embrace life. And it's such a riddle, like, it's such a mystery, because something that can feel so scary for people are so hard, is also something that potentially allows us to live with so much more authenticity, and so much more vitality. I think that when we understand the nature of impermanence, that this is a transient planet that we're on, nothing lasts forever.
And the for that it's it continues to evolve, and it continues to change. It's something that potentially helps us make the most out of the present moment. It helps us to feel reinvigorated to think about, well, am I making the most out of my life right now? And if not, or I'm not moving in the direction that I want to go? What can I do to embrace a more authentic, vital, energized version of myself.
So understanding that can potentially allow us when we get to the other side of that coin, the other side of the equation that balances it out? Is this embracing of life. And I've talked quite a bit about how part of what inspired me to move out of Alaska back in 2017, after losing Brenton 2016 was really asking myself the question, Am I doing what I feel I'm called to do with my life? Am I following what's in my heart? Is this the most authentic version of myself that I know to bring out into the world at this time? And the answer to that was No, it's not.
And even though I didn't know exactly what that would look like, I could intuitively feel that my next move was to do something big. So long story short, I ended up over here on kawaii and have been in such a profound process of transformation ever since. But I did find that on the other side of navigating the grief was all this beautiful life waiting for me and all this fresh inspiration.
[13:53] Coping with loss and transformation.
And I think that in order to find that, we have to become comfortable with the void space. When we go through a loss in our life, even though we can remember there's new life on the other side. I do think that this is where we have to draw on a little bit of faith. or If faith is hard to come by, than just observe nature, observe other people's stories of what happened when they went through loss and let go and how it eventually helped them transform. We can draw on inspiration from something outside of ourselves if we're struggling to find it inside of ourselves.
But in order to get to that place of transformation, we have to be comfortable just staying with what is and being with the discomfort and the void of loss. And that is what is really scary for people. I think it's what's really hard for people is how do we just sit with discomfort? How do we just observe whatever feels empty inside of ourselves? How do we stay mindful when we are going through heartbreak or feeling this emptiness? And how do we We allow ourselves to work with that constructively, instead of automatically seeking to fill it right away. And when do we know, when it's healthy to try and fill it or healthy to do something in order to help us move forward? So we don't feel so stuck? And when do we know that it's not healthy to do it?
And we're just trying to avoid? Those are excellent questions. And they are very nuanced. Those are gray area questions. They are not ones that I think there is an easy answer to I think it comes down to the individual and us being able to reflect and say, am I moving forward in a constructive way by trying to elicit all this new movement in my life? Or am I just afraid to sit with what feels empty inside of me?
And to sit in the discomfort? And again, I don't think that's a black and white thing of a yes or no, are we are, aren't we I think it's more about seeking balance and trying to seek a balance place of knowing that even as life moves on around us, if we are going through some sort of a major release, letting go and nigga something, and we don't have our next intuitive step, we don't feel guided to automatically do something, an action step that helps give us forward momentum, nothing showing up, we feel like maybe something's coming, but we don't know what it is, then oftentimes are being invited just to sit in the void and to become comfortable with that space. And to recognize that the Void is where creation starts, the void, that black box, that place of not knowing.
And that Nebula is oftentimes exactly what we have to travel through in order for things to open up, and to learn to be a good friend to ourselves, and to hold our own hand. And that's an excellent time to do some journaling. It's an excellent time to read books, or listen to podcast, or find stories from other people who have been through the void. And they say I traveled through.
And here's what I discovered the archetype of death, followed by rebirth, it's all around us. And there's so many ways now that we can access stories from other people that can inspire us and help remind us not only are we not alone on the human journey, but we're not the only one who's know in the suffering of loss. Maybe we know it in a way that is deeply personal to us. Because whatever we're letting go of holds personal meaning.
But I find it vastly reassuring to know that I'm not the only human, I will not be the last human, who's experienced this. Many, many, many others have found their way through before me, many others are going to after me. And so maybe I can find the courage to be in the flow and trust the process and know that I don't have to figure all of it out. I just have to trust the principle that I see embodied all around me in nature. And that is there is always the beginning.
Whenever we have an ending, we can't grow if we don't let go. And that is the crux of the death card. That there is no room for anything new to come into our life if we keep our life filled with things exactly as they are. And and sometimes there's a season for things to be in stasis and to stay exactly as they are. But life has a way of moving us along, we will be invited to let go sooner or later. And there's never any room for new growth there.
[18:47] Letting go of grief and embracing new life.
I remember years ago, I lost my beloved old dog Pepe. And that was really a big loss for me at the time I talked about it. I've written about it. And he was my ever president is what I call them had been this companion to me, not only in my first marriage, but through my early years of my career as a psychologist and through the divorce. And he was my like furry sidekick that basically went everywhere with me and I had an automatic start in my car.
So even in the winter time in Alaska, he might be waiting in the car. If I was inside a coffee shop somewhere having coffee with somebody. I was very vigilant always always about making sure that if I auto started it that he was out there warm and safe. But I took him everywhere. And when he passed there was such a void space. And I am not going to go into that story because new life was waiting on the other side and in beautiful, beautiful ways. But what I remember is a few months after his passing, I'd had these little steps that went up to the bed because he couldn't jump. And so there was these little steps that had that helped him get up on the bed and not have to jump up there. And they were stored in this little area and one of my rooms that I looked at all the time.
And I remember thinking, you should really put those out at the garbage this week and let it go, you know, you should really, like clear out this space, and it was really hard. It's interesting how objects will personify and hold the energy of it experience for us. But I remember ultimately being like, I choose a new space, I cannot hold on to this and hold on to this memory that's no longer here.
He's not here with me in this form. And I have other things to remember him by including the love in my heart, it was this big thing. And I was a little afraid of what if I get rid of this, and I'm like, No, I want the old dirty steps back because somehow they hold this energy of him to me. And I remember kind of prying myself away from this urge to hang on to it. And instead saying, like, you can be brave, you can let this go. What is most important is that you're carry the love in your heart.
So this object isn't him. I choose new space. I even wrote a blog post about it at the time. And I ended it with saying, I choose new space. And that really became my mantra in life. And during that time, was the choice to let go. And the choice to fully see the completion of his life cycle through from saying goodbye to him to all the beautiful gifts that came when I realized that the love I had was still very much alive inside of me it was even stronger because I was now carrying it energetic form.
And then slowly beginning the process of letting go of some of the routines and things that showed me he'd been a part of my life and trusting that that energy inside of me would be enough. That was the death rebirth cycle. And on the other side of that were many, many beautiful gifts for today, what I want to come full circle with is the idea that we have to move forward and make a choice and loss despite our fears. And I think sometimes there is this false conception that moving forward means we're healed, or we no longer feel any pain, or we're really courageous.
And we're just fearless in the face of letting go or in the face of grief or death or loss. And perhaps there are times that we might have that experience. But more often than not, we might feel like we are prying our fingers and sort of prying our mental attachment to something and kind of just prying that grip and forcing ourselves to let go. And we're doing it with pain and our hearts.
And yet if we know that we have to that it is time that the right thing to do is keep moving forward. If we embrace these principles, then no if we don't let go, there's no room for life to grow, then sometimes we choose to move forward anyways, despite our fears, we choose to move forward with heartbreak in our hearts knowing that there is new life coming. And we can't erase the heartbreak right away.
[23:34] Closing thoughts and coming up next week.
We can surrender to it. We can work with it. And we can trust in that process of shedding and knowing that as we let go, growth will come in when we allow ourselves to release the leaves of what's been the beautiful green that we grew during a season of life that went into transformation when we went through some sort of audible season that caused us to shed those leafs we can trust that in the heart of the winter that something new is happening and that spring will come again. And that we will have a sense of reawakening.
And so that is the cycle. And even if we don't always feel ready to let go, we can still move in the direction of taking small steps to better embrace the lifecycles that present themselves to us and know that for any ending there's always the beginning there's always new light and new life on the other side. With that we are out of time for today.
So I'm going to wrap up thank you so much for joining me for the your heart magic podcast. Next week is a mental health toolbox episode. So we will be talking about something having to do with mental health and practical tools for supporting our mental well being Again, supporting our wellness so you can stay tuned for that. In the meantime, have a beautiful week.
Be well. Be Love, be you and be magic.
You've been listening to your heart magic with Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your life.