Death and The Fool - more tarot fun!

There are a couple of cards that really sound as though they should be bad news when they turn up in a reading. As I lay the cards down in front of a client and either Death or The Fool comes up, I see most of them wince.

No! Don't look! Don't try to read the cards for me. Even if you do read yourself, every reader works sodifferently that you can't possibly know what my cards are telling me about your situation and trying to second-guess them will only block out the fresh perspective that you were looking for by coming to an outsider.

Most readers will agree with me that the Death card hardly ever means an actual physical death. There are very rare occasions when it might be a warning - but in general, the maxim holds that when your number's up, your number's up and my cards aren't going to tell me about something that will only distress you and which you can't do anything about anyhow.

In general, Death indicates a complete change in some area of your life  and the resulting sense of loss. Yes, it's true that you will rarely get out of a situation that's being symbolised by the Death card without a period of readjustment and readjustment is often painful. But then, of course, situations - jobs, relationships, belief systems - all die for a reason and that reason is generally that they have outlived their usefulness. When the situation has 'died', you are free to invest the energy you were wasting there into a brand new situation. It can be hard to do, I know, but really, the smartest reaction when you see the Death card in your reading is excitement; it means that there's still some life and adventure left in you yet.

Then there's The Fool.

I guess it's hard to imagine, when you come to a reader with the hope of gaining insight into whether the next big risk you're planning to take in your life is a smart one, how seeing The Fool turn up could possibly turn out to be a good omen.

But to me it almost invariably is. Of course, each card has many different interpretations depending on its context within the reading as a whole and very occasionally, when The Fool turns up, it is saying to you, 'STOP! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! WRONG WAY! GO BACK!'

But most of the time, The Fool is telling you to take that next leap, that risk. The only way any of us progress is by taking risks that others will see as foolishness. The only way humanity in general has ever progressed is by doing things that seemed crazy the first few times someone did them.

Now we all eat fungus to save us from germs (penicillin). We routinely get into vehicles far heavier than we are in order to travel miles above the ground when any fool knows that we ourselves are too heavy to fly. We communicate with each other across vast distances in ways that would have been called supernatural three hundred years ago.

There is no progress in life without someone taking the risk of failing and therefore looking foolish.

Both The Fool and the Death card herald new and exciting times in your life. Yes, in order to get to the new, you have to leave some of the old behind - but you may as well embrace that change; it will never stop happening for as long as you are alive.



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