Tower / Death

[elysia]

yesterday i was thinking about the differences in the two cards. they both signalise change and i think the tower has an abrupt change in it, the death card a more slow one.

i also think, both changes are for the better, even if you dont see it at the moment. and after every change there is the chance for sth new to grow.

have you some deeper insights on this?

greets

 

[Disa]

I'm wondering if the tower may be an earth shattering change, one you totally did not expect and had no way of preparing for in advance. As the lightening strikes out of thin air without any forewarning.

With death, it may be a change you are aware of, conditions you already know aren't going well, the process of transformation that's necessary.

Both propel you forward, but yes perhaps at different rates of speed and differing degrees of shock.

 

[Skysteel]

Hi, elysia.
-

yesterday i was thinking about the differences in the two cards. they both signalise change and i think the tower has an abrupt change in it, the death card a more slow one.

i also think, both changes are for the better, even if you dont see it at the moment. and after every change there is the chance for sth new to grow.

have you some deeper insights on this?

Death is recognizing the ego is false; the Tower is actually letting go of the ego.

 

[Sophie]

Gruetzi Elysia!

I see Death as an ending: it might be slow in coming, or it might come at you fast, but either way, something ends - a job, a relationship, a way of life, living in a certain house, a season, a holiday, studies, a happy time, a bad time, an illness: when the Death card appears, it ends. Something else will grow in its place, for out of the seeds of Death comes new life. The process from Death back to life can take time - or can be simultaneous (like when you get married: at the same time your life as a single person dies, and your life as a married person begins).

The Tower, on the other hand, breaks something up, or shakes it sufficiently to shock it. It is often unexpected. It can signal a sudden realisation, a sudden illumination, or a sudden event - happy or unhappy - that will strike through a situation or person that was locked and generally stuck. That is the reason it comes directly after the Devil, which shows imprisonment. The Tower effects the liberation, and how it affects you will depend on how attached you are to your prison, how much you fear or embrace freedom, and how stuck the situation was. It can be a shock physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. It can wake you up - and its best, it shocks you back into the flow of life. Generally, it is a bit of all that. Sometimes - often - it also means there is a Death, an ending: so Death is "embedded" in the Tower. But the Tower goes further, and the focus is more on liberation than on endings.

When time comes to build up again, you have a pile of bricks, some of which you will be able to reuse. If you've learnt the lesson of the Tower well, you won't build another prison for yourself with it, but instead, a bridge.

 

[ariela]

I love your thoughts on the tower Fudugazi! This card has come up repeatedly for me in the last few months, usually relating to the unexpected and soul shattering experiences that I have had recently. While the tower has been devastating it also has woke me up to the realities of the situation.

"The Tower, on the other hand, breaks something up, or shakes it sufficiently to shock it. It is often unexpected. It can signal a sudden realization, a sudden illumination, or a sudden event - happy or unhappy - that will strike through a situation or person that was locked and generally stuck. That is the reason it comes directly after the Devil, which shows imprisonment. The Tower effects the liberation, and how it affects you will depend on how attached you are to your prison, how much you fear or embrace freedom, and how stuck the situation was. It can be a shock physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. It can wake you up - and its best, it shocks you back into the flow of life. Generally, it is a bit of all that. Sometimes - often - it also means there is a Death, an ending: so Death is "embedded" in the Tower. But the Tower goes further, and the focus is more on liberation than on endings."

 

[Thirteen]

The Tower...comes directly after the Devil, which shows imprisonment. The Tower effects the liberation, and how it affects you will depend on how attached you are to your prison, how much you fear or embrace freedom, and how stuck the situation was..

That's a very astute observation! I like it.

 

[Thirteen]

i also think, both changes are for the better, even if you dont see it at the moment.

I don't think this is necessarily true as much as it *could* be true. Some people never get over a death or a loss--in fact there are people who have been so grieved and shattered by loss that they've killed themselves or just faded away; likewise, some people never get over that moment when all they thought was true and had faith in was shaken up and revealed to be a lie. Both cards *can* be for the better, but that depends on whether the person who they happen to decides to see them as such and learn from them. Some people don't, and so, ultimately, the loss or revelation really wasn't for the better.

And I agree that Death is a slower change, so to speak, in that the card almost always speaks of a mourning time. So while the actual loss may be sudden and unexpected, the card indicates that the person must take time to deal with it. That's part of the Death card--taking time to understand that loss and what it means. The card also indicates that there will be rebirth if the person is willing to take that time. The Death card is an amazing card in that way. It has a threefold meaning: loss, mourning, rebirth. I think that's why, when this card turns up, a reader has to take care, as the querent might be in any one of those three places. The "loss" part may have already happened.

The Tower, by contrast, is almost always about something sudden, unexpected, and a revelation. What happens afterwards, whether the person needs time to get over it, or wakes-up and walks away as from a dream, or loses their faith forever, or even feels released/liberated/elated at finally seeing some deeper truth isn't part of the card. All the card is about is that unique and sudden moment. That moment of realizing that what you thought was true, wasn't. And that THIS is the real truth.

What a person does with that revelation, how they deal with it and what they take away from it, even how they change...well, that's for other cards in the spread to say

 

[Sophie]

The Tower, by contrast, is almost always about something sudden, unexpected, and a revelation. What happens afterwards, whether the person needs time to get over it, or wakes-up and walks away as from a dream, or loses their faith forever, or even feels released/liberated/elated at finally seeing some deeper truth isn't part of the card.

I disagree with that, both at the symbolic level of the card and in my experience (as reader or querent and my past professional experience working with prisoners). The card itself shows people ejected (or jumping) from a tower-like prison. We see liberation/release quite clearly in the classic trump. But release and liberation - while it can be joyous (and the Marseille Tower shows that joy, for instance), can also, as you say, be traumatic (that's the RWS version) or violently transformative (as in the Thoth, which hints at air bombings). Even a happy shock is still a shock, let alone an unhappy one. It's a well-known among long-term prisoners that once freed, they might very quickly feel completely disorientated and lost, if not shaken to the bone. Likewise, a woman whose long-term abuser up sticks with someone else will feel simultaneously release and panic (this happened to a querent of mine, whose abusive partner left her and who tried to explain this multiple feeling of shock, liberation and panic in the days that followed as we discussed The Tower that appeared in her reading).

Sadly, there are people who prefer the pain and repression of their prison to the risk of freedom, and who, once the lightning has struck the tower, rebuild themselves a prison - the same or another: they fall ill again after a swift recovery, they return to the abusive partner or hitch up with another, they find another deadening job after a sudden job loss, etc. Is that what you are referring to, Thirteen? That the lesson and reality of liberation - and all it implies in terms of personal responsibility - is not always appreciated and embraced?

 

[star-lover]

Death is more of a total ending and change, irrevocable, tower is getting rid of some elements that need to go out of your life so you can breathe again, it rids whatever is holding you in a rut

 

[Elnor]

Likewise, a woman whose long-term abuser up sticks with someone else will feel simultaneously release and panic (this happened to a querent of mine, whose abusive partner left her and who tried to explain this multiple feeling of shock, liberation and panic in the days that followed as we discussed The Tower that appeared in her reading).

I think this one of the reasons for the two cards following the Tower: there is the hope of the Star immediately after- along with the naked maiden symbolising the vulnerability felt during the aftershock; and then the "Now what do I do??" of the Moon.

While with the Death card, there is Temperance showing the need for the restoration of one's equilibrium... that "the card indicates that the person must take time to deal with it." as Thirteen said in her post.

They both show that healing is necessary after each, just in slightly different ways.

elnor