Card 16-The Tower

The Tower is symbol of change, disruption, and essentially a tearing down of the old way of life. Just looking at the imagery of the Tower it is generally depicted as falling down, or on fire. The Tower is something that is widespread, the shaking of the foundation so to speak. It is like the tower of Babel struck down by the heavens with fire. It is like the god Horus, Ares, or Mars. It is like Odin who hangs on Yggdrasil to gain knowledge.

The Tower makes up the top part of the Astral triangle on the Tree of Life. It falls on the path between Hod (Splendour) and Netsach (Victory). The position between Hod and Netsach represents the tearing down of illusions. It represents the imperfect ego that needs to be tore down in order to pass through the veil to reach the Divine.

When the Tower is drawn by itself or in a spread it represents change at its most chaotic and destructive. In the positive it represents a change or an overthrow of the current life. It can also mean the uprooting of old paradigms and giving up those illusions that we have been carrying around like a security blanket. In the negative it may relate to our tower that we've built suddenly crashing around us. It is one of those cards that regardless of the position (positive or negative) indicates a sudden change and one that is turbulent. Either way the card is positioned we have choices. We can sit around and wallow in self-pity or we can be resilient and adapt to the changes.