When the Tower Card Comes Calling
More dreaded than the Death card, when the Tower card shows up in a Tarot reading, it freaks people the fuck out. When it shows up in my personal readings, usually I’m like, “What the what?” And then try to blow it off, like, “Yeah, I’ll be tested, but I’ll pass and everything will be fine…” Until it isn’t. And recently, for me, it wasn’t.
In traditional Tarot, the picture on the Rider-Waite deck is of a Tower being struck by lightning and breaking apart, with people flying out of windows and a general feeling of destruction. It’s usually interpreted to mean that something you believe in will be shaken to reveal the solidness or fragility of it. However, this doesn’t always mean doomsday. In fact, in learning Tarot, I was taught that this is actually a good thing. We don’t want to live in castles built on sand, do we? Better to know now, right?
Fortunately, it can manifest as something smaller than a carpet bombing your life. We deal with the small destruction of things all the time; from getting a C on a test we thought we’d aced, to finding out a friend betrayed our confidence. This is how I usually see it manifest for myself and my clients. Not too terrible. But still unwanted to be sure.
What about when it is bigger than that? Recently I’ve been going through some big emotional stuff – as evidenced in my recent blog rant the other day. It was so totally out of character for my usual optimistic self that some readers wondered if I had really written it. Yep, I was a mad woman possessed at the time, but it was me. My deep, intense Scorpio Moon popped out to say hello!
Anywho…. When I did a tarot spread for myself I got the inevitable Tower card and this time, it meant so much more to me. Given the recent shit I’ve been going through, I intuited the meaning of this card - actually, the cards, in general - in a different, more profound way. Like, how they bounce off of, not only my frequencies, but the frequencies in the air.
The way that the planets align while in transit gives off certain energies that affect us all – just think Full Moon or Mercury Retrograde shenanigans. We are all vibrating at certain energy frequencies because, well, science. We know this. So why would I believe that the cards only intake my personal energy? Why wouldn’t they mix with the general energy in the air?
When I concentrated on what this card meant for me, I understood that my very foundations were being shaken to see which ones were built on solid ground and which ones were more fragile than I thought. For instance, I constantly check myself to see that I am not taking on a God-complex in my work with clients – it’s an occupational hazard with therapists and life coaches, to be sure.
After much introspection, I affirmed that I hadn’t been (shew!), but I did realize something else. I hadn’t been taking care of myself; of my psyche. I hadn’t processed the stories of trauma and OPP (other people’s problems) and left it all at the office, like I thought… I had popped them in my secret files and pushed them back to the dusty recesses of my psyche. SO not only was I carrying around my own psychic debris, but some of my clients as well! WTF??
Seeing that Tower card didn’t mean something external in my life was going to be challenged. It meant that I, myself, and what I believed about myself, and who I am as a person in charge of my emotional health, is currently being challenged. That’s a whole fucking lot different!
Had I not known that the planets were aligned so that the Sun was making a big ass T-square with Pluto and Uranus, maybe I wouldn’t have paid that much attention to the Tower card. And if I hadn’t known about Astrology and Tarot, I would have thought that my life sucks and I’m a huge loser because I can’t make it all work the way I want it to.
Thank Goddess, I have resources that I can draw upon and use to help me figure out this thing called adulting. I realize that this is a huge growing pain for me and that I am becoming so much more well-rounded and in tune with my journey as an emotional healer.
Moral of the story:
As strong as we think we are, sometimes we are not quite as prepared as we believed, when challenges come calling.
If you don’t know how to get started with all of this, let’s talk and we can see what your needs are and what tools we can use that you are ready for. Just send me an email HERE.
Leave me comment below about how you dealt with Tower Card situations in your life.