The Major Arcana speak of strong currents and powerful archetypes, of things set in motion beyond our understanding and this card is one of the most dramatic of those. The Tower itself represents our ego consciousness, the sum total of the structures we build for ourselves in order to keep us "safe" from the dangerous forces that lurk beyond our understanding. It is all the social, moral, legal and personal values that we cement around the core of our beings..our armour if you will. We crown our egos King and Queen and let them preside over all they survey from the safety of their ivory tower. It is the smugness of the egomaniac, the certainty of the scientist, the legal fortress of the lawyer and the presumption of mankind. It is our own Tower of Babel, defying all around to prove us wrong while we sit safely (so we believe) behind the walls of our own flawed understanding.
The lighting strikes the tower dissolving this egoic structure in one devastating blow, liberating those within from the confines of their own prisons. The bolt is seen to be smiting the crown from the top of the tower, symbolising the fall of the ego as ruler. The lightning flash is a symbol of the liberating forces of the universe delivering the blow. It is the blow that slays the dragon of our own pompous illusions, the sundering of the gates to freedom.
The fire and flaming yods (the red orange tear shapes) symbolise all the liberated energy that was being used to maintain the false structure. It takes an immense amount of energy to maintain the tower of our own beliefs and with its destruction comes the release of that energy and the feeling of liberation. There are 22 yods in all, indicative of the 22 paths of the Kabbalah. This means a complete release of energy. The tower is literally burnt to its foundations.
When this card is drawn it shows that a ego structure is about to be brought low. Concentrating on the terror of this is why so many people fear this card. they desperately cling to their own egos in order to feel safe. Think of the explosion in Fight Club in which the protagonist's apartment is destroyed along with all the possessions which previously defined him and the subsequent moment of relief when he recognises his own liberation. Without this single moment of divine destruction his journey would not have begun, he would have remained trapped in a prison of his own construction.
The lightning bolt doesn't have to be a literal bolt that blows your house to pieces. It could be a flash of inspiration which destroys all previous theories, a ray of sunlight which dispels the darkness of your own fears. These are all Tower moments, without which we would continue to live under the iron rule of our own egos.
The card is also connected to the neck and the voice. Some cards show the tower being destroyed by a vocalised shout. This is akin to a liberating scream, or the words of rebellion that shatter the bonds of confinement.
The two figures falling from the tower are those that have set themselves as false Gods. These two figures are a representation of the mother and father archetypes that so many of us still live under. We project the faces of our fathers and mothers on the the faces of the gods and yet we are the ones that enthrone them as the rulers, even though we desperately believe we are no longer ruled by them. These false rulers are passed on and on, never being questioned and so we make the same mistakes our parents did because we have inherited their own tower of beliefs. We may hang different tapestries on the walls and pretend that we really decide what we think, but we look out from the same windows and see the same things as they did before us.
So when this liberation comes, this thunderbolt from the heavens it is to be embraced as it lays waste to all that keeps us trapped.
The card also has a strong link to Kundalini energy, as it passes through the body like a thunderbolt burning away the dross and stagnation that has built up within us. The Kriyas can be seen as a the blocks of our towers falling away as the lightning strikes away the dense parts of our consciousness.
This card comes at an opportune time for Zoe and I. She is working towards liberating herself from some confining and suffocating instances in her life that have kept her trapped. She rose with the early morning to write and release her feelings and she spoke to me afterwards of how she felt something shift in her heart and a feeling of lightness.
For me, this card has been a constant companion and I have watched many parts of my life tumble away after being shattered, stripping me the core. Some losses are harder to bear than others and this is not an easy card to have come up, but one I am grateful for because it brings a great sense of liberation once the work is done. I am reminded of the difficulties that can emerged when letting go of things that have defined us and this can even lead to physical purgings. I have seen people after making a profound realisation spend hours being sick or releasing toxins of one sort or another. This is particularly common when something that has been deeply ingrained is proven to be false, we can feel as if the world is literally coming to pieces or collapsing all around us. One can take heart that what is being released is ready to leave and that something much purer can replace it.
It brought a realisation about my own life and thoughts just an hour after drawing the card. One which I believe will have profound impact on my life once it can be fully implemented. I have been considering the idea of abundance and how ones intentions and energy goes to define the reality we experience. I talked about this a little in the previous card (6 of Pentacles) when I realised I had been valuing my work at zero and therefore programming myself to feel I was not putting anything out there materially.
What I realised as I lay in bed last night before sleep is that I put an awful lot of energy into thinking how to prevent myself from having so little. All it does is re-enforce that I have little. I spend time working out how to make an income, which is really just spending time in the energy of "not having enough". I spend so little time actually feeling what it will be like having what I want and relishing that feeling. All I do is create more of the same. I was able to catch my thoughts as the moved around and look at me figuring out how to not miss out on something, or to not have too little. These mindsets just bring me to the feeling of not having it. It is like visualising a scenario of looking at an empty account and me struggling to fill it. It is the difference between getting caught in a problem and pondering how to get out and being in the feeling of success and letting yourself be led there.
Rather I should spend my time enjoying the feeling of what it will be like when I get it. I don't do this in other areas of my life, in those areas I just know things will be fine and they continue to be. I once knew a girl who had a fear of swallowing her own tongue and choking, she would spend her time concerned with ways to stop this happening. Each day would be a success if she made it there without swallowing her tongue. It is much the same idea, we all take the idea that we aren't going to choke on our tongues for granted and so we don't spend any time working out to stop this occurring. Whereas for her, there was a very real need to spend time figuring out strategies to avoid this outcome (at least in her mind). She spent much time and energy on what for most of us would seem a total waste of time and in fact was. She had conditioned herself to believe that without that mental effort being continuously exerted she would choke and would in fact start choking the moment she spent too much time thinking about it! If she could spend her time viscerally imagining breathing freely and how great that feels, the paranoia would disappear.
I hadn't realised that I spent so much time working out strategies which involved lack as a basic constituent. Not that any of them ever help! In fact spending time in a space which promotes the feeling of lack can only hinder the actual flow of abundance, even if it is masquerading as a constructive use of time. For example looking for work on craigslist always left me feeling icky, whereas spending time generating creative value..be it art or writing or making new contacts always felt good and is always the source of new opportunities.
This inspirational realisation will revolutionise my own consciousness, because each time I see such a thought squirming around I can let it go and replace it with how it will feel to be travelling, or enjoying a new purchase or just feeling happy. I will be able to start to turn the tide within my own psyche.
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