Major Arcana · XIII

The Death Year

Water

A Death year ends what you've outgrown so something else can begin. It's the year you leave the job, the relationship, the version of yourself you kept wearing because it was familiar. The grief finally moves once you stop pretending the thing wasn't already over. Endings here are thresholds, not punishments. When you let the dead thing be dead, you stop pouring energy into keeping it upright, and you get that energy back for whatever is trying to start. Expect to make room. The year is clearing ground on purpose.

What to do with a Death yearName what's actually over this year, out loud, and let the grief move instead of managing it. Where you can choose the ending, choose it, and support your body through the change rather than pushing past it.

Your twelve months

Each month steps one place forward through the cycle. The same twelve, in the same order, for any Death year.

January
TemperanceFebruary
The DevilMarch
The TowerApril
The StarMay
The MoonJune
The SunJuly
JudgementAugust
The WorldSeptember
The FoolOctober
The MagicianNovember
The High PriestessDecember
The Empress

Element weather

How the twelve months balance across the elements.

4Fire months3Air months3Earth months2Water months

The rest of the cycle

The nine Majors a Death year doesn’t touch.

The EmperorThe HierophantThe LoversThe ChariotStrengthThe HermitWheel of FortuneJusticeThe Hanged One
The full year-ahead reading

The whole Death year, woven

This page is the theme. The full reading walks all twelve months in the Almanac’s voice, reads the element weather, brings in how your Bearing meets the year, and closes with the skills and reflection questions a Death year calls for.

See a sample reading →

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More on this card: Death, the full meaning · Death as a Bearing · all seventy-eight cards