That’s where the methodology of comparing it to Kübler-Ross falls short for me. The stages of grief are a psychological framework meant to help us process loss, but the Death card is an alchemical trigger. It’s less about "processing" and more about surrendering to the fact that you can’t control the shedding. When you try to teach a kid that it’s just a fancy version of a psychology textbook, you strip away the visceral, almost feral energy that makes the card work. You turn a mirror into a manual. I’ve seen too many people in the "love and light" circles try to sanitize that energy into something safe and digestible, and it always backfires. Grief and transformation aren’t safe. They’re messy, loud, and they don’t follow a syllabus. Even in my grad school seminars, we talk about how frameworks can sometimes cage the very experiences they’re trying to explain.

If you’re trying to frame this for your kid without leaning into culty dogma, skip the academic comparison altogether. Just talk about seasons. I do this with my younger cousins when I’m back home. We talk about how the forest has to burn down sometimes so the soil can breathe, or how you have to stop wearing a coat when the weather finally turns warm. You don’t need to explain the mechanics of cellular decay or psychological stages. You just let them sit with the image of the skeleton on the horse and ask what feels heavy in their chest right now. The card does the heavy lifting. It externalizes the internal rot so they don’t have to carry it alone. Trust the imagery to do the work, not the psychology. It’s way more honest that way, and honestly, it’s the only way I’ve ever found to keep the practice from turning into just another self-help crutch.