A Tarot Ritual for Closure

Closure is often described as the act of drawing a final boundary around an experience, allowing us to see it as a complete segment of our life rather than an ongoing event that continues to influence us in the present. It is a mental and emotional place where we can unpack an experience, understand it, and tuck it neatly away into our past. In today’s post, we are exploring how to use a simple tarot ritual for closure. However, first, let’s take a closer look at the significance of closure…

Understanding Closure

Closure is not just about ending something. It is about giving ourselves a chance to grieve what’s lost, celebrate what was gained, and derive meaning from our experiences. It embodies the practice of leaving behind emotional baggage that might otherwise hinder us from embracing present opportunities and happiness.

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”
— C.S. Lewis

Why We Need Closure

Without closure, it’s like leaving a book open on a turbulent chapter without ever turning the page. It can lead to feelings of unresolved emotions, confusion, and disempowerment. Closure, on the other hand:

• Heals: Allows space and time for healing. By acknowledging an experience is over, we permit ourselves to mend.
• Clarifies: Promotes understanding and learning from the past. It demystifies experiences and often answers the question of ‘why.’ But it’s important to know that we have permission to give ourselves closure even if we never understand the ‘why.’
• Empowers: Frees up emotional energy and redirects it toward building new and positive aspects of life.
• Balances: Restores a sense of personal balance and helps maintain emotional equilibrium.

How to Attain Closure

1. Reflect on the Past: Acknowledge and accept what has happened. Give yourself time to process your emotions and recognise that it’s okay to feel them fully.
2. Express Yourself: Write down your thoughts, talk to a friend, or engage in a creative outlet. Expression can be a cathartic practice in seeking closure.
3. Seek Understanding: Try to find lessons and insights from the experience. Every end has something to teach us. It’s more important that you understand your own emotional responses than why someone else did what they did.
4. Establish Boundaries: Clear and healthy boundaries can help you protect your emotional space and prevent old wounds from reopening.
5. Perform a Ritual: Any ritual, like the Tarot Ritual below, symbolises drawing a line under the past and sends a powerful message to your deep mind that you are ready to move on.
6. Set New Goals: Channel your focus into new aspirations and challenges. Goal-setting re-centers our purpose and can shift our perspective forward.
7. Forgiveness: If applicable, offer forgiveness to yourself or others. Forgiveness can be a powerful step towards achieving emotional closure.

Moving Forward After Closure

Achieving closure is not always a swift process, and it might involve several attempts to finally say goodbye to a past event. But once achieved, closure signals the start of something new. In this sense, creating closure for ourselves is one of the ultimate acts of self-care, clearing the paths we walk to be present, hopeful, and open to what life has to offer next.

“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life.”
— Akshay Dubey

Tarot Ritual for Closure and Release with the Death Card

This ritual is helpful if you find yourself waking up full of regret before the day has even got going. This means you have a lot of sticky energy in your aura. You may be attached to someone from your past or you are holding on to how things ‘should be’ as opposed to accepting things as they are. Thankfully, the transformative energy of the Death card can help us find closure from the past and embrace the future with a fresh perspective.

You can do this ritual at any time you feel you need it. However, traditionally, Saturday is the best day of the week for banishing and removing unwanted energy. If you work with Lunar energies, the Waning Moon is the best time. Hence, the optimal day for this ritual is on a Saturday when the Moon is waning.

Setting the Stage for Release

Create a quiet and respectful atmosphere where you can say goodbye to past chapters of your life without disturbance. Use the following steps to guide your ritual:

1. Ground yourself by taking several deep breaths, feeling the earth beneath you, and allowing yourself to become present in the moment.
2. Find the Death card in your deck and place it before you. Acknowledge its significance as a symbol of inevitable change and release.

Embracing the Ritual of Letting Go

1. Spend a few moments gazing at the Death card. Observe any emotions or thoughts that arise as you consider the aspects of your past you are ready to release.
2. Contemplate the card’s imagery, recognising the end of a cycle and the potential for rebirth and transformation. Observe if resistance arises.
3. Write down the specific things you wish to let go of on a piece of paper. These could be old habits, relationships, or thoughts that no longer serve your highest good.
4. Hold the paper in your hands, and take a moment to say farewell to these elements of your past. You may wish to say a few words or a prayer if it feels appropriate.
5. Safely burn the paper to symbolise the release of the past (please ensure you do this in a safe and controlled environment, such as over a sink or outside with water on hand).
6. As the paper turns to ash, envision the old aspects of your life dissolving, making space for new opportunities and experiences.
7. Meditate on the Death card once more. Observe what feelings arise.

Completing the Tarot Ritual for Closure

1. To conclude, draw two additional cards from the deck to uncover insights and guidance for your path forward.
2. The first card symbolises the lessons learned from the past that you can carry into the future positively.
3. The second card represents the new energies or opportunities that await now that you have made space for them.
4. Jot down any insights or intentions that come to you during this final part of the ritual, and use them to form an affirmation such as “I open myself to new beginnings.”
5. Close the ritual by expressing thanks for the guidance and reassuring yourself of your readiness to move forward.

Bonus Tip. You can easily adapt this ritual to use it with EFT Tapping.

Performing this tarot ritual for closure can provide a quiet moment of reflection to consciously release what no longer benefits your life’s journey. Through the symbolic power of the Death card, you can achieve closure and set the stage for the next phase of your growth and development.