La Torre: The Tower
Verse
“You can say you never saw this coming,
but the storm clouds towered over you from the start.
No matter how well you built the foundation,
in due time everything falls apart.
You pray for divine intervention
from the deities you turned your back on.
They’re still out there in the heavens
unphased by your destruction.
Even in the midst of your annihilation
the universe still remains
Hold onto this revelation
and start again.”
Keywords
Upright: Upheaval. Chaos. Disruption. Violent change. Sudden revelations. Dissolution of a partnership.
Reversed: Narrow avoidance of disaster. Living dangerously. Existential crisis. Resistance to accepting the truth or change.
Correspondences
Planet: Mars
Aroma: Tobacco and Ginger
Description
Though it may seem sudden like a strike of lightning on a sunny day, this inevitable destruction has been foreshadowed (in the visual form of the volcano) ever since the Lovers met in key 6. Two figures are blasted off the mountain they were climbing by a volcanic eruption and the resulting lightening. The 10 bolts represent the 10 seraphs on the tree of life—a reminder of the permanence of the universe. The 12 stars represent the 12 signs of the zodiac—a reminder of divine intervention. The clouds suggest that they are falling from a great height—lofty ambitions built on false premises. In the Hermetic Tarot, this card is known as the Blasted Tower and the “Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty.”
In a reading, this card indicates a time of powerful, disruptive, sometimes violent change. Where Death was a gentle reminder of letting go and rebirth, The Tower is total upheaval and chaos. All change is inevitable, but the changes represented here tend to take us off guard completely. It could be betrayal, sudden death, or the crumbling of reality as you know it. It may also indicate the dissolution of a partnership, as this card relates back to The Lovers. It illuminates any hard-to-swallow truths you haven’t been seeing and any false premises you’ve built your life upon. It is similar to the energy of the III of Swords in which a sudden realization will make you question everything you know. It may be a painful experience, but hopefully a valuable one. However, some shocking revelations are not as painful as others and you may just have a sudden flash of inspiration that opens your mind to something new.
The reversed may indicate that you will narrowly avoid a disaster. The impact of an impending change is severely lowered if you are aware of and prepared for it. You may want to take some time to consider why you’re living so close to the edge. It may also indicate that you are being resistant to the difficult changes you need to face in order to transform your life for the better. If you feel you are undergoing an existential crisis, confront your internal chaos, and reevaluate what you believe in and how you want to live.
Design
In a lot of ways, this card is the end of a story I was visually trying to tell throughout the first 16 major arcana cards. The lovers have reached the apex of the volcano, led by temptation, stripped of their power of choice, and met their demise. From the lovers to the devil to the tower, the figures get smaller and smaller to represent their insignificance in the face of divinity. In this new edition, I decided to make them look a little glitched out as if their souls are being rendered from their bodies. I used the same colors reversed from The Lovers here to really drive the point home that this is the same volcano and the same people from before. Both cards have a sense of divine intervention. The gods giveth and taketh away. Every beginning has an end. It’s not always so dramatic, but everything is temporary.
I thought it was really cool how lightning forms around volcanoes, so I used that to visually represent the 10 sephirot and create a sort of net in the sky to hold the stars. The stars are present to represent divine intervention, but also to foreshadow the renewed sense of hope that is about to come after the calamity.
Key Symbols
Volcano - the mountain to be climbed to reach your highest self. Its erupting state represents explosive passion, loss of control, and ruin.
Lightning: The ten seraphs, Permanence
Stars: The 12 signs of the zodiac, divine intervention
Color Theory
Red: Severity, Strength, Grounding, Focus, Support
Purple - Spirituality
Orange - Pleasure and Desire
