16 | The Tower
Ethan Allen Tower
"For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth."
-Zoe Skylar
The Tower is card number 16 in the Tarot’s Major Arcana. In numerology, the number 16 is associated with karmic debt and transformational change. The lessons surrounding 16 include letting go of the ego and learning from past experiences. The number 16 is also commonly reduced down to 1 + 6 = 7, and as the number 7, the number’s meaning is further explored in The Chariots card.
When The Tower appears, expect the unexpected, for things can no longer stay as you once knew them to be, and the rug is being ripped out from underneath you. The spectrum of Tower experiences varies drastically for those who pull this card, with its core centered around the theme of what rattles and shakes you. While there’s no escaping the change to come, know it’s not a punishment but rather a time to clear out the old to make way for the new. Bringing with it a lightning bolt of lucidity to blaze through the deception surrounding the situation, and delivering the truth to light. While the world as you know it may be crashing down around you, it’s happening due to a faulty foundation that can no longer sustain itself and must come to an end. You can choose to either embrace the chaos or avoid it, the latter making the processes much more strenuous than need be. Be wise in how you proceed, navigating this upheaval to help achieve the best outcome. Timber!
General Meaning- Chaos, upheaval, spiritual awakening, revelation, sudden change, liberation, & destruction.
When out of Alignment- Averting change, delaying the inevitable, avoiding loss & resisting.
Navigating The Tower’s archetypal energy-
The Tower is a card of true spiritual awakening, coming up to pull out the things swept under the rug and pushed to the back of the closet that have been chosen to ignore. Now to be taken out, looked at, and dealt with, no longer giving the option of forcing the discomfort down and pretending it doesn’t exist. Going back to earlier years when we’re first instilled with fear, told that something is wrong with us, our neighbors, and the world around us. The worst in people is brought to our attention to help keep us safe and alert, showing us the rough edges of society from a place of intended protection. That things are too scary, too loud, too sensitive, too sharp, too much. Ingraining in us a sense of something’s bad here… a problem, or a mistake, and training us to look for the worst in our environment, each other, and ourselves.
When working through the Tower’s chaotic and turbulent energy, do your best not to struggle and fight it. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of circumstance, try to shift your mentality from “why me” thoughts to instead how can I best navigate this chaos? Perhaps even using the mantra, “show me the good in this situation.” To sift out the wisdom and not stay stuck in the lesson for an extended period. There’s a beautiful Buddhist meditation practice called Tonglen, whose goal is to find the medicine in the poison. Awakening compassion and connection in the practitioner to an unlimited, spacious view of reality. Shifting perceived negative experiences to what can feel like no longer as big a deal, and not nearly as solid as they once appeared. To practice Tonglen, get yourself into a relaxed mental state and physical position, and breathe in and out gently. Taking in the pain or poison of what you’re feeling with the in breath, holding it for a moment, and then sending out spaciousness, relief, and peace with the out breath. Continue breathing in and out with this focused breath work until you feel the shift in energy surrounding the situation. From there, transition to a feeling of gratitude and release. This practice can be applied to personal situations, situations for loved ones, or even on a grand scale for situations you may read or hear about and feel deeply troubled.
In this card, we see The Tower positioned on a hilltop with flames, storm clouds, and a lightning bolt hitting the side of the structure. While the Tower appears to be a solid and sturdy structure, all that’s needed is a single lightning strike to change all of that, symbolic of how chaotic energy affects us, no matter how sound things appear to be. Lighting represents a breakthrough of divine energy, shifting the trajectory, and taking down what we thought we initially wanted. Once the storm has cleared, things can’t return to how they once were, with the path forward forever altered. What’s left after the storm has cleared and the dust settled is what’s truly meant to be. There are two ways to interpret this image: you can take in the fiery energy and meet it with fear of what it’s depicting. Or, you can see it for what it really is, an illusion of chaos, that’s not scary at all, the more you take in and digest the cards, imagery, showing things aren’t always as bad or fearsome as they first appear to be.
Next up, seeing the silver lining after the storm and finding hope with The Star. Stay tuned for the next card release in The Green Mountain Major Arcana’s journey next Friday, 8/15!
With love,
Megan Gonzalez
