Today’s drawing brings us The Tower.

I think that this is one of the scariest cards to see in a reading.  The Tower represents sudden changes, usually these kind of changes are associated with shock and trauma.  The fire burns brightly – it’s a raging fire, so everything is destroyed quickly.  Not a great card to see, at all.  Just by looking at the card, you can see how it looks so ominous.  I use the Waite deck, so I see a bolt of lightning striking a tower.  There are two people falling out of the burning building, head first.  There are some gray clouds in the background.  In cards, clouds usually represent messages or those “ah-ha!” moments.  I see these clouds as symbols of bad news.  There is a crown falling from the top of the building.

I am also interpreting this as somebody that has worked their way to the top (of the tower), probably in bad ways (think of a corrupt politician).  Something has happened, maybe somebody has figured it out and decided to go to the press.  All of the bad press has made that foundation crumble.

There are also three windows on the building.  Three can represent the Holy trinity or something like the past, present, and future.  For the past, present, and future, whatever this person had – built on lies, living a lie, and then plans to keep it quiet – has ended.

I also see this card as giving two very tough choices.  Stay in the building and burn to death, perhaps this could be interpreted as NOT doing anything to fix the situation.  The other decision being, jumping out of the burning building and risking death.  Either way, it’s a tough decision to make, and the ending result will probably not be happy.

But another way to look at this card, with all changes, something good always comes out of it.  If you were living a lie, you can come out and live a clean life.

Reversed: With The Tower reversed, I don’t see a lot of changes in the meaning.  Perhaps instead of the shock of sudden changes, there were indications of bad things to come.  Maybe there were signs, and the querent chose to ignore them.