The Tower

Why the most agonizing seasons of our lives often bring awakening, liberation and a deeper return to truth

We are currently in the midst of a move. I am referring to it a “sacred transition”, anything to avoid the actual energy around what comes with a move.

For those of you who have been following along for a bit, a little life update- the mold we discovered in our current home has really impacted my health, so we are leaving and making our move back up the coast. Back to a place and a home my soul quietly showed us on the first new moon of this year… but more on that in the coming weeks :)

So, I recently had a reading with my longtime astrologist, someone I have trusted for over 20+ years, around this transition for me and my family. During the reading, the Tower card was pulled… dun dun duuun…

Lately I have found myself contemplating the energy of the Tower card and why it brings up so much fear in people. I think for many of us, the Tower represents the parts of life that we try so hard to avoid… collapse, uncertainty, ego death, massive change, the unraveling of what once felt safe or stable. It is the energy of having the ground beneath you suddenly shift, often before you feel ready. And yet, the deeper I sit with this card and everything unfolding in my own life right now, the more I am beginning to wonder if the Tower is less about punishment and more about revelation??

Even my husband, who is a very well versed in the Tarot, had that exact reaction while listening to the reading- The moment the Tower was mentioned, there was immediate fear around what it could mean, what was coming, or what might fall apart. The deeper I sit with this card though, and the season we are currently moving through, the more I feel that the Tower is not just a card, but a cycle in life. To me, it almost feels like the representation of the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a season I am quite familiar with. Though painful and deeply unsettling while you are moving through it, it is also very transformative. It asks us to strip away illusion and rebuild upon a foundation of raw, authentic truth, reconnecting us to the truest parts of ourselves… the person we actually came here to be.

The Tower card to me is like the fire (lightening) of birth and the baby being ejected from the body (tower). One one hand, birth itself can be so terrifying and uncertain, definitely untimely, powers beyond our control, but the one thing we learn is surrender- in its rawest form… And from birth, which to me is the most transformative experience I have ever been through, we experience the deepest connection to love and to source, really..

In many ways this entire experience down in southern CA has felt like a Tower moment. A complete unraveling of what we thought life here was going to look like.. The illusion of home, our dream school, and the life we envisioned for ourselves and our girls. And how a silent toxin, hidden beneath the surface of our walls is literally ejecting us out.. but I cannot even express how much healing, transforming and growth has been birthed through this wild window in time…

Maybe this is what the Tower really asks of us, I mean obviously we cannot avoid collapse, but when we are willing to listen to our soul, and our body, life begins revealing structures that no longer feel aligned or sustainable. Sometimes the structures are physical homes, or even our bodies (like in birth), or versions of ourselves we’ve outgrown but continue trying to survive inside of because they feel familiar.. We cling to them because maybe they represent safety, even when something deeper within us knows the foundation is no longer solid.

Lately I feel as though I am being completely rewired from the inside out. In the midst of moving, and alongside the physical transition, has come this intense need to purge. To let go of what no longer feels significant. To release the excess, and to stop carrying things simply because we always have. In some ways it feels emotional and in others, spiritual. I feel as if my nervous system no longer has the capacity to hold what is misaligned. I find myself looking at objects differently, questioning what truly matters, or what feels heavy, what belongs to an old version of myself that I can no longer sustain. There is a stripping away happening that feels far deeper than decluttering.

I keep revisiting the idea that chaos is often necessary in order to create something more honest, more aligned, more beautiful. This feels incredibly relevant not only in my own life right now, but collectively, with so much shifting and unraveling across the planet. So many systems, structures, beliefs, and ways of living no longer seem sustainable. I get really inspired by mythologist and storyteller, Michael Meade, who speaks about the hidden relationship between chaos and creation. He’s so spot on with all that is occurring in the world these days. He shares that rather than viewing disorder as something destructive, he describes it as a necessary threshold for transformation, resilience and renewal, both within the individual soul and within the world itself. That perspective lands so deeply for me, because it feels so connected to the essence of life and the Tower!

There are moments in life when truth arrives like lightning because the structures we built can no longer support who we are becoming. As painful or destabilizing as those moments can feel, there is something important in learning how to listen rather than immediately resist. The Tower rarely arrives subtly, it shakes us awake and reveals what has been ignored, hidden, avoided, or built upon unstable ground. Maybe it is an invitation to loosen our grip and SURRENDER.

I think we often imagine awakening as something luminous and serene, but many times it begins in the discomfort, and the grief, and endings, and in realizing the life you envisioned is no longer the life your body, spirit, or nervous system can survive within. Sometimes awakening looks like walking away from what once felt beautiful because your deeper knowing has become louder than your attachment.

That is why the Tower card is actually sacred to me now, because beneath the fear it carries, beneath the imagery of collapse and fire, there is so much truth and the possibility of rebuilding something far more greater than what our limited minds could believe..

Anyway- thanks for reading this far. I had to process a bit as I wrote it out.. Please share if and how this might be showing up in your own life right now? So many of us are moving through massive transformation collectively right now and sometimes sharing those experiences reminds us we are not alone in it. Thanks for being here :)