A LETHAL COMBINATION

 

*naughty tarot trigger warning

Death ~ 10/swords ~ The Tower

This combination of tarot cards takes my breath away and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It means death -- terrible, sudden, totally unexpected, and often violent. It has very rarely come up in my readings. But when it has, I have never- never- told a querent just how ominous this set of cards can be, until one summer.

During the summer I did a reading for a dear friend. We sat at a small cozy table beneath a beautiful maple tree, with the afternoon sun casting sideways rays at our feet. We were laughing and chatting as I laid the cards, animated and happy on this beautiful day. 

I laid three groups of three cards each. Then I turned the first group of cards… Death, the ten of swords, and the Tower. 

Conversation abruptly ceased, and our eyes locked across the table. I felt heartsick. My friend also knows the cards, and I knew that she knew. We spoke a single name in unison. We knew who the cards were speaking of, who the cards were calling for. It wasn’t my friend these cards were beckoning, but a member of her family, a member of her family much too young to be called by Death. We both knew, and we felt the violence of it, even on this beautiful sunny day.

I hemmed and hawed, turned some of the other cards, but my heart wasn’t in the reading; and finally I said, “If there were any group of cards in this deck that would speak of death, it’s these cards. And I just don’t want to go there.”

I swept the pile of cards together, and we sat at the table a while longer, but all the joy had been taken out of the day. About five months later, there was a terrible accident, and my dear friend lost a young member of her family, the person who’s name we had spoken together.

LEARNING TAROT
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