Death
Waite gives the following meanings for Death: End, mortality, destruction, corruption also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects. Reversed – inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.
I find the Death card to far less dramatic than its title. It’s simply the ending of something, and the start of something else. In all, everything comes to an end at some point. Let us look at the card a little more closely.
A bishop stands in front of Death and the king lies under Death’s horse. Death is respector of no one, and no one can escape it. The king has succumbed, as too, will the bishop. Again, it just means that everything ends. Death is different to The Tower, in that Death is something that you bring on, and The Tower is something that happens to you.