(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
What I See in the Card:
The Tower is a frightening card. It’s a dark and stormy night. Your protection is shattered and your life is at risk and there’s no indication that the storm is at its end.
Typically, the card depicts a solid tower being struck by lightning and set ablaze, its human occupants leaping or falling from the windows. The image is of destruction and terror, a sudden and unexpected loss of safety. You are totally unprotected now.
In many decks, the falling humans are destined to land on rocks or stormy seas. In my card, they land on soft green grass. And they didn’t fall too far, so they might be okay. In other decks, their fate is not so clear.
The Tower card represents chaos and destruction, sudden upheaval and change, but also revelation and awareness. This tower must be removed before you can move on as you ought to — but it’s your comfort zone, and you don’t want it removed. Its destruction comes as a horrible shock, and it will be some time before you can think of it as a necessary step in your journey.
Most decks show a crown on top of the tower, symbolizing ambition and worldly success. It’s this worldly success that is smashed in the scenario. The Tower you thought was protecting you was actually putting you at risk. It was the tallest thing in the landscape — of course lightning would strike it. But it seemed so strong! The house of bricks is supposed to be the one that can’t be blown down.
One interpretation of this card is “clearing the way to rebuild with more solid foundations.” But this Tower was solid. Could you build another as strong? You may have to rethink the sort of structure you need, the sort of material you ought to build with. This was a small grim tower, after all, a confining space in the great big world. You don’t really want to hang out there all your life, do you?
Maybe what you lose isn’t as important as you think. Maybe you should take your freedom and go somewhere instead of rebuilding another safe little tower to lock yourself in.
When you draw this card, it tells you that things need to change, that they will change in extremely difficult ways for which you are totally unprepared. One general interpretation is: catastrophe. No one looks forward to a catastrophe. It’s not a happy card.
Life is powerful, you don’t control it, change is hard, and truth is shattering. It might set you free but “free” is unmoored and homeless. You will be going on in the dark, exposed and grieving.
Read will take you to my notes on how to tell a fortune with the Tower — traditional interpretations; what the card might mean in different positions; keywords to help memorize meanings; and questions to ponder or ask the querent.
Write will take you to a few prompts for launching from the Tower into a story. A first line, a setting, and an object prompt — three possible ways to turn the Tower into fiction.
Tarot will take you to a central Tarot-Prompts page.
Go ahead, shatter us with your story.
Images on this page are by the following artists:
Banner (and top box), left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti; Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington.
Mid-page boxes: Tarot Balbi; the Biddy Tarot.
Catherine Austen 