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The Tower (Major Arcana card 16)

Having recently bought a pack of tarot cards, I have been spending time familiarizing myself with the deck, primarily through the book that came with it Beginner’s Guide to Tarot, and an online Tarot course (also check out: Tarotpedia, Symbol Meanings of the Tarot, Major Arcana (Wikipedia), The Tarot (Sacred Texts), Toni Allen, Aeclectic Tarot).

To aid the learning process, I’ve began a daily reading journal, where I randomly pick a card from the deck and put into words my impressions. The journal’s online, although because it’s likely to get a bit personal, I’ve set it to private. I’ll possibly set it to public in the future if I’m so emboldened :D.

I’ve decided to post the less personal and more mythological interpretations here on my on my blog. What impresses me about the Tarot (and why I think it’s working for me) is the sheer number of mythic elements contained within each card (each open to multiple interpretations involving combinations with other cards and so on).

A Mythology is like a series of sign posts, that direct us through this cosmic mystery, which is also the mystery of our own existence. Mythology is a product of the sub-conscious, which in turn, is the product of the underlying cause of all things

A New Mythology

Mythic images contain information relating to spiritual truth and our relationship with the universe, both sharing the same ultimate ground of being. The major Arcana begins with the fool (microcosm) and ends with the world (macrocosm), which, I think, signifies a life cycle in the fool’s journey (also compare the hero’s journey), having achieved a magical union or balance with the universe. Each mythic image creates an opportunity to both look both within and without on many different levels, from many perspectives, which is what a good mythical, spiritual, knowledge, etc, system should do.

The Tower (Reading from 4th April 2008)

The tower reminds me (and I’m sure most who are familiar with the myth) of the Tower of Babel, although that tower wasn’t destroyed (possibly it remained uncompleted), rather God scattered the unified primordial nation into many nations, each with their own language (This can also be read cosmogonically. As an act of chaos has an outward radiating affect (the one becoming many), so does creation, linking both creation and destruction into a single cosmic act). There is also an African myth of an old woman who attempted to build a tower to reach up to the dwelling of the most high God by stacking pestles one on top of another. The tower remained one pestle short of completion, and so the bottom pestle was removed to be placed on top and the tower collapsed. This myth corresponds to the cosmic circle (and the tree) of death and life.

How can life exist after death? The answer is through the cosmic circle of death and re-creation, joining the end of life to the beginning, unifying death and life into a single cosmic mechanism through which death is transformed into life (sometimes to the point of cosmic transcendence or a unification with the all-seeing ’solar’ eye of the universe, that looks beyond our mundane perception of reality, bound by what Hindu philosophy names ‘maya,’ the “magic trick of illusion” ) and the principle of life gives way to death.

This life giving principle bound up and concealed within the mystery of death (which is also the mystery of the primordial one that becomes two) is the spiritual force that holds the universe together and is the ultimate ground of all existence that infuses/animates the cosmos with a soul, which becomes/is also many souls; a universe of endless multiplicity. The tower only shows the death/chaos aspect of the tower/axis mundi. It is a time when “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”, when order finally succumbs to disorder.

It is a time when the weight of an unhealthy imbalanced worn down cosmos, society, situation, relationship, etc, or even our own physical selves inevitably collapses. with each death comes a new birth: Or even many re-birthings: “Unless a seed dies, it remains only one seed; but when a seed dies, it bears many seeds.”

Daily Tarot Reading Journal

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