When the Tower comes down
Otherworldly Tower card from Tarot of Mystical Moments
Many people dread getting The Tower. When I first started reading for myself, it was not a card I enjoyed seeing. When I started reading for others, the expression on their face as they took in the card’s image is one I will never forget. This was then followed by muttering, “That doesn’t look good,” under their breath. To this day, it is a hard card for me and arguably, for most people.
The image of The Tower depicted in the Rider Waite Smith deck is a pretty haunting one, with a lightning bolt striking a tall building, engulfed in flames, while people dive head first into the abyss. It is a tough one to take in.
The Tower from the traditional Smith-Waite Tarot Deck
The Tower card brings me back to my childhood in New York City, where I spent the first 12 years of my life living on the 19th floor of a highrise with views of Manhattan. Let’s just say that when I tried to make a dramatic, “I’m running away from home!” exit, pushing the elevator button frantically while waiting for it to appear, it did not have the same effect when compared with what I saw in movies. Kids, who stormed out of the house and hopped onto their bikes, peddling furiously down the street, unreachable. And while this gave my mother all the time in the world to get me to come back inside, due to my slow escape route, I often wondered what would happen if we were ever faced with a true emergency, like a fire in the building that appeared all of a sudden, and we needed to get out quickly.
I thought, if there was a fire, how would I escape? Would I be able to exit safely? Would I be burned alive? Would I manage to take my favorite books and stuffed animals? Rescue my family? Would I know it was coming well ahead of time, by smelling the smoke? Would I choose the correct staircase (as there were two on my floor)? Would I have to stay put and wait for help to arrive?
I schemed a master plan of jumping down to the balconies below our window one at a time, dangling like an adolescent Spider Man, until I reached the ground safely, having my family follow my lead.
That’s the thing with the Tower, very much like the fire of my childhood fears, when it appears in our reading, it feels abrupt and sudden. Like the rug has been ripped out from under us. And while this is how the feeling goes, if I am being brutally honest with myself, (and while I don’t enjoy admitting it), I will say that I am rarely blindsided by it. In truth, I already knew about the possibility of it coming to fruition, and looked the other way in the hopes that it would resolve itself. Or my “favorite” one being, telling myself that my intuition was wrong. Which in my experience, it never has been. I would tell myself it wasn’t true because I didn’t want it to be true.
I wanted to live in my fantasy for a little while longer, as I wasn’t yet ready to deal with the hurt that the Tower brings.
And when I was ready, I would face the shock of it all, of what I already deeply understood. That how I was existing was not sustainable.
As Pema Chödrön writes in When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
I love this book because it truly encapsulates the feeling of finding ourselves in a Tower moment. Oftentimes, The Tower is here for a little while, as we peel back the layers and come closer to the truth. It is a season in which we take steps towards our center, meet ourselves more deeply and intimately as we have no choice but to turn and face the fire.
That’s what the Tower is. A mirror. One that shows us that we have built an unsound structure. We have created a system, a relationship, a belief that is grounded in truths that don’t align with our own. Perhaps the foundation was once solid, but cracks have appeared over time, and no one has taken the steps to tend to them. While this scenario isn’t a lie, I have learned that, when the Tower appears, it often indicates that my original building blocks were never truly sound to begin with.
I once had a manager who like to use the term “Quick and dirty” as in, ”Just get it done, it doesn’t need to be perfect” And while I knew what she meant (as I was a perfectionist and agonized over getting things “right”), I think there is importance in creating from a place of care, knowing that you have given your best effort to what you have constructed.
I think of her saying this when I see the Tower. I may have ignored the fact that I wasn’t building with integrity, and turned away from the truth of me, deciding to forge ahead anyway and continue building. “Why would one do this?” you may be wondering. So many reasons, there is an exhaustive list, but here are a few of my own which I have discovered over time. Urgency, uncertainty, feeling stuck, a sense of obligation, people pleasing, being dishonest with myself (which can fall into people pleasing) or genuinely not knowing any better or what else to do when I first began. These are all things that I have found to be true when I find myself dangling suspended in a Tower moment. I don’t say this to blame myself, but rather to give myself compassion, love and tenderness as I walk through this difficult experience.
Am I coughing up smoke, covered in black soot, with dirt caked into my hair and fingernails after a Tower experience? Most likely yes, but once the Tower has fallen, there is nothing left for me to hold up with all of my might. Nothing left to force any longer. I have let go.
As Young Pueblo says, "If the pain was deep, you will have to let it go many times.” And such is the nature of the Tower. It is not an experience that is completed in a day or a week or even a month. We may find ourselves facing its destruction over several months, a year or longer. As long as it takes. And even so, we may find ourselves coming back to the burn sight. The place of the explosion. Revisiting.
But you know what I have always found on the other side of it, once the pain, the anger and the heartache have dulled to a low roar? I find the first subtle breaths of freedom. Quiet. Stillness. I have felt a deeper connection to who I am becoming. There may even be acknowledgement and deep love for the part of me that chose to walk through that burning building and come out on the other side of it. Usually, this part of me will not emerge right away, but rather shows up eventually, once I have picked myself up off the floor and out of the fetal position, with hands covering my head to protect it from falling debris of what I call the “Tower aftershock”.
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
A beautiful and liberating interpretation of the Tower card from Hip Chick Tarot
The Tower tests us. It wants to know how we will handle this moment. It may come to us at first as a warning, to alert us that we are about to step into a challenging chapter, and now is our moment to plan and dismantle. To see what, if anything, may be salvaged. Was there anything here in this experience worth saving? Or did it all have to go? Has it all been damaged, or is there a glimmer of something that can be used to create something truer when the time presents itself?
I had a conversation with a wise friend the other evening. We discussed why it was so difficult for me to let go of control. Why was I resistant to allowing the universe to create and destroy as it has done for millennia? Why did I think I knew better and why did I believe it was my job to micro-managing it?
I have come across many spiritual teachers who say, “ Put your trust in the universe,” and yet I could never fully digest this advice. While I may coast on this feel-good wave for a day or two, I would find myself coming back to my role as the overseer. What my friend shared gave me a moment’s pause, as I had never heard anyone say this before and, perhaps, revealed why I had such a hard time releasing my grip. He said, “I don’t know if I fully trust the universe. I believe the universe may be a bit of a trickster.” I sat with that and recalled the long line of tricksters in famous folklores and myths. From Anansi and Loki, to Coyote, Hermes and Lugh, these were all wise beings, whose aim was to fool, distract and disrupt. Why would they do this? The trickster archetype is here to challenge conventions, for you to take a hard look at yourself and ask if you are living in integrity. They are here to teach us growth through (often painful) change.
So perhaps when these spiritual teachers suggest we, “Trust the universe,” they are not implying that the universe is always kind, but rather that the universe is a school for chaos, and once we accept it as such, we are able to trust it, as the rose colored glasses have been removed and we can see it for what it is.
That is what the Tower represents. One must be powerful to step into the truth, despite how unsavory, fearful and gut-wretching it may be. To do this takes a colossal force, to tear down all that you know takes courage. And as the saying goes, sometimes we must face things even if we are afraid. We do them anyway. And if this is true, then I think it is fair to say we are always being tested, always being asked to evaluate if what we have built for ourselves, is still working for us. Our relationships, our careers, our living situation, our commitments, our beliefs and values.
What is it that we need from ourselves in order to knock down what is no longer for us? What makes us feel brave? What grace is present for us as we experience this challenging moment of upheaval and destruction?
And when it all comes crashing down, what is it that we want to create in its place? When we have given ourselves time to heal, how do we want to move forward?
And how long do we need to sit in the ashes before we are ready to pick ourselves up and dust off the debris? For this last question, it is important to acknowledge that we are all made of different stuff, and there is no time limit for how long we need. You will know when you are ready. It comes to us like the dawning of a new day. It may be abrupt and bright, illuminating us with full force, all of a sudden. More likely it will resemble the slow returning of the light, as is experienced in the Far North, one that emerges ever so gently above the horizon, and hovers there to show us the first glimpses of warmer, brighter days ahead. How the dawn will present for each of us is hard to tell, yet I do know that it shows itself to all of us eventually.
We may find ourselves exploring these above questions as we move through a Tower period in our lives, and each question above is a welcome journal prompt, or a reflection question you may pose using Tarot, Oracle or another tool for self-care. This spread can also be used anytime you are moving or transitioning through a big change in your life. If you would like to explore these questions using Tarot, I suggest the following:
Find the Tower in your deck and place it in the center of your reading cloth or table. Now working in a clockwise direction, starting at 9 pm, lay out the cards going around in a circle as you ask the following questions:
Thought Prompts
What do I need in order to knock down that which is no longer working for me?
How am I brave?
What grace is present for me as I move through The Tower?
How will I know when I am ready to step forward from the rubble?
How can I be in integrity with myself?
When the dust settles, what do I want to build in its place?
May you find your center on the other side ❤️