Death — It Ain’t What You Think

My best friend lost her father this week.  I stopped in to give her a hug, and over coffee, she shared her story.  One of the things she was struck by was  how fast he went, shortly after entering the hospital.  She said it was like he had made the decision to leave and had surrendered to that path.   “Surrender” is a good word for death in all its forms.

It put me in mind of this Tarot card:

Whenever the Death card comes up in a reading, I make it a point to tell the client that its not as scary as it looks.  Death is riding a horse, with people bowing down in front of him.  They are allowing him to ride over them, pushing them back into the earth where they will become part of a new cycle.

The dude in the yellow, however, is trying to stop Death in its tracks.  Guess what? Not gonna happen, and the more he fights it, the harder the process will be.   Don’t be a little bitch, Yellow Guy.  Get with the program.

Anyway, the white rose on the flag represents the purity of the new state they will enter into. The river running nearby symbolizes the endless and enduring stream of Life.  The sun is rising in the background, signifying a new beginning.

I take this card to represent the need to let something “die” in order to move on ( I will also read it as someone who may have died recently, but I don’t take it as a harbinger that someone is about to kick the bucket.  I don’t believe that’s for us to see — just my opinion.)

When someone is hanging on to something that has run its course — a relationship, a job, a habit, an ideology – things get “stuck.”  You feel like you’re covering the same stale ground and getting nowhere, and guess what?  You ain’t.  So maybe you need to surrender to that fact.

When you acknowledge that something is done, finished, kaput, you clear a space for new energy.  It’s like a big cosmic garage sale.

I’m not saying that letting go  is easy.  But get the ball rolling by recognizing that something is played out and is serving no purpose other than to make you frustrated, bored and unhappy.

By  focusing on the idea of letting go to make room for the new, you’ll facilitate the process.  It may happen in stages, it may happen all at once.  That may create some anxiety (after all, its familiar), but breathe through each moment.  Always remember that you’re not “losing” something so much as gaining a new opportunity to move forward in your life.  To me, this is the big lesson of the Death card.

Surrender.