Okay, let’s talk about The Tower card in tarot. Man, this card used to freak me out. Seriously. Every time it popped up in a reading, whether for me or someone else, there was this heavy feeling, like doom was just around the corner. You look at the picture, right? Lightning hitting a tower, people falling out… it doesn’t exactly scream ‘good times ahead’.
So, naturally, the first thing I did, way back when, was look it up. Read all the books, checked online stuff. And yeah, they all said pretty much the same thing: sudden disaster, upheaval, destruction, chaos. Big, scary words. And sure, sometimes it really did feel like that when it showed up. Things would fall apart, seemingly out of nowhere.
But just knowing the keywords felt kinda… flat. It didn’t really explain the why or the what next. It just felt like a warning sign. So, I decided I needed to figure this card out on my own terms, through actually using the cards and paying attention.
Getting Hands-On With The Tower
I started keeping a tarot journal, nothing fancy, just a notebook. Whenever The Tower appeared, I’d write down what was going on. Not just the big events, but the smaller stuff too. What was the question asked? What other cards were around it? What was happening in my life, or the life of the person I was reading for?
I also spent time just looking at the card. Like, really looking. Staring at the details.
- That lightning bolt – where does it come from? Feels like it’s from outside, sudden, unavoidable.
- The tower itself – it looks solid, but maybe it wasn’t built on a great foundation? Maybe it represented something I thought was stable but really wasn’t.
- The people falling – yeah, scary, but are they falling to something? Or away from the collapsing structure? Maybe it’s a release, even if it’s a rough one.
Connecting the Dots to Real Life
Slowly, by tracking its appearances and thinking about the imagery, my understanding started shifting. I saw it show up not just for big disasters, but also for moments of sudden, shocking realization. Like finding out something you believed for ages was totally wrong. That’s a Tower moment, right? Your whole internal structure on that topic just crumbles.
I saw it come up before breakups where one person suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. The relationship looked fine on the outside (like the tower), but internally, stuff was weak, and boom – lightning strike, truth comes out, and it all falls apart.
I even had it happen to me with a job situation once. Everything seemed okay, then suddenly, massive changes from the top, project cancelled, team dismantled. Total shock. Felt awful at the time. But looking back? That whole setup was built on shaky ground, and the collapse, painful as it was, forced me onto a path that ended up being way better. The Tower cleared the decks.
My Takeaway Now
So, after all that, what do I think The Tower means? Well, yeah, it still means sudden, disruptive change. It’s often uncomfortable, sometimes downright painful. It represents structures, beliefs, situations, or even parts of our ego crashing down because they were false, unstable, or just not serving us anymore.
But here’s the thing: it’s often necessary. It’s like a cosmic demolition crew. It clears away the crap so you can eventually build something stronger, truer. The lightning bolt isn’t just destruction; it’s also sudden insight, a flash of truth that you can’t ignore anymore. The falling figures? Maybe they represent being liberated from a prison, even if the escape is chaotic.
I don’t exactly jump for joy when I see The Tower now, but I don’t freak out like I used to. I respect it. I know it means things are about to get real, that some illusions are about to shatter. It’s a tough card, no doubt, but it’s not just about destruction. It’s about the revelation of truth, however harsh, and the potential for rebuilding something authentic on the cleared ground. It took me going through some of my own Tower moments to really get that, beyond just reading it in a book.
