This month rejuvenation and revival arrive in the form of the Death card. It looks to be a month of release, very welcome after the push and pull of identity exploration in recent months. You have tested, retested, and refined. You are letting go of ideas, modes, tendencies, and other manifestations of identity that no longer serve you. Allow yourself to transform, making room for things, activities, people, etc. that feel truer to who you are now. You may feel raw and exposed as you try to find ways to express this revived identity, and it might even make those around you confused at first. Don’t let that discourage you. Other people are as wrapped up in your old way of being as you were, and your boldness challenges them to consider how they, too, might be trapped by outdated modes of existence.

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The theme image contains Death cards from a few different decks to explore some of the variety of Death’s depictions in the tarot. They are, from left to right: I Fiori Divinatori, De Laurence Red, Vandenborre Bacchus Tarot, Pagan Otherworlds, Motherpeace Tarot, Le Tarot Magique, Ferdinando Crippa Tarot, Dark Exact Tarot, Nomad Tarot, and Grand Etteilla.

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This month I've used the Personal Oracle for the weekly cards. You can read more about it here. I'll update this page with thoughts for each card as the month progresses.

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WEEK 1: The Bell

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This month‘s theme card, Death, encourages transformation, letting go of outdated ways of being and becoming a more refined version of yourself. But how will you know what that means, what ways and things are correct for you? This week’s card, The Bell, suggests a deep and instant knowing, a recognition that occurs when personal truth is encountered. Symbols speak to you without a guide. You feel awake and clear-minded. An object, idea, place, person feels familiar, like an external manifestation of the self. Pay attention to what resonates with you in this way for the next few days. Incorporate these discoveries into your life.

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WEEK 2: The Poppy

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With this month’s reinvention of the self, coming to us in the form of the Death card, you may be wondering how to manifest emerging personal discoveries. This week The Poppy appears in the spread with advice for this. The Poppy, to me, means beauty, flexibility, and range. I think about fields of poppies spreading across the countryside, I think of the hundreds of seeds contained in a single pod, and I think of the seemingly unending varieties and colors this plant has to offer, from the simple to the showy. Perhaps this poppy is suggesting we try out different ways to show our internal changes on the outside as well. If you want to bolster your transformation into a bolder, more confident person, take your inspiration in the petals of a bright red Papaver orientale. Want to explore a more casual but unique self? Look for the single buttery Eschscholzia californica in the patch of orange for inspiration. To explore a more creative and dramatic self, let P. laciniatum encourage feathers and frills. Ornament your emerging self as a way to explore and test it further. One caution here – if you get too wrapped up in the demonstration of self, such markers of identity can become shallow and misleading. Poppy blooms fade pretty quickly, but once those petals drop off, seed making begins, and that’s where deep information is stored, protected, and ultimately perpetuated.

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WEEK 3: The Hourglass

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This week in our Death card month we explore the Hourglass. In a general sense, this is time, either a sense of there being plenty (which might lead to damaging delays) or a sense that it’s running out (which hopefully leads to action). In this context, if you are just coming to a new realization about the self and are embracing current opportunities for transformation or reinvention, it might be less jarring to ease into it. Find a solid sense of who you are now and let that develop further organically. On the other hand, this card might encourage you to act if change has already been delayed. Don’t be discouraged if it took a while to get here. The sooner you allow transformation to happen, the more time you’ll have left to live in greater personal truth.

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WEEK 4: The Tree

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For the final week in this month’s exploration of the Death card I’ve drawn the Tree from the Personal Oracle. My first thought about this card is that it’s very timely for the shift in seasons we are experiencing right now at the Equinox. It won’t be long before all the deciduous trees around where I live look just like this, dark and bare in their needed dormancy. It’s a perfect restatement of the transformation theme in Death. It also highlights the fact that allowing the true self to manifest can feel very vulnerable, like you’ve taken everything off, removed the barriers between the real self and the world that distracted from or hid the truth. The Tree is a reminder that a time of greater confidence in this new way of being will come. When it does, a new crop of leaves will emerge. In the meantime, it’s a comfort to know that the roots of the self are strong and protected beneath the ground. All the leaves you shed gather around the base and break down to fertilize your roots. Next month’s card, the Wheel of Fortune, continues these thoughts about cycles, and how each thing we do prepares the way for what happens next.