Cult of Tarot Forum

Nemia wrote: ↑12 Apr 2021, 15:16 Many people fear the "bad" cards because they bring bad news, or seem to. In my personal opinion, one of the great things about the tarot is that it doesn't sugarcoat things. We all know the oracles with 100% positive cards. Whatever card you pull, it's all uplifting, empowering, illuminating.... but life isn't. There are bad surprises, upheavals, there is jealousy, heartbreak, disappointment - none of us goes through life without it. The important thing is to deal with it properly, deal with it somehow, continue to live with hope, learn from the difficult stuff.

The Tower is a sudden, unpleasant event. I shakes your foundations, your confidence, and it's very uncomfortable. Tower energy is Mars energy. It's quick, it's aggressive, it can be destructive. Mars has also a positive side, you'll find it in the Emperor where it's under strong discipline and guidance. But in the Tower, this energy is unbridled.

The Tower can work with inside and outside energies. Energies from inside are anger and suppressed negative feelings - the kind of anger that makes you take your favourite vase and smash it on the floor, or break off a good friendship. You live to regret it but the dams broke and you know yourself better afterwards.

Energies from outside are others whose destructive powers burst upon you, or impersonal events. Your boss fires you, your romantic love interest hurts you, stuff breaks, the earth beneath your feet shakes.

This is my take on the Tower. It's tough, otherwise it's not the Tower. But the tough is short-term. Sometimes, the Tower event breaks an illusion that had to break. You have a fall-out with a friend who flattered you or lied to you. You lose a job that would never have fulfilled you. You destroy an old memento which kept you in sentimental bonds. Long-term, you look back and say: Mars, you're the most unpleasant guy I ever met, but thank you for bursting my bubble.

This is my opinion only, you'll find others who see different sides to the Tower.

But the Tower as a card in a reading is always tempered by the spread position, by other cards, by circumstances.

I don't know which question you asked. I don't know whether you used spread positions or how you read three cards. So I'm going out on a limb here, is that how you see it?

The Six of Pentacles is like all Sixes a good card, Tif'eret energy in Asiya, which means beauty in action. It's a card of a healthy give and take, like a dialogue where each listens and each talks. It's a very good card in an emotional setting because it shows mutual respect and caring.

The Ace of Wands brings the passion and fire that combine with the Six of Pentacles to a wonderful combination. I imagine the Ace of Wands as fire stoved under the pragmatic and kind Six of Pentacles.

But then comes the Tower. Something unpleasant comes into the mix, something happens or is revealed, and you have to deal with it.

Now the first two cards are so good that the Tower certainly can't spoil it with one fell stroke. If you have a relationship built on a foundation of respect and caring, warmed by passion and dynamic energy, that's good. If you imagine that your problems in life will be solved by it, you live in illusion. That's not good.

Prepare to take the bad with the good. Prepare yourself emotionally for a loved person whom you can love caringly and passionately, and whose less pleasant sides you'll have to deal with.

That's what I would see here, a chance to expect a wide scope of experiences.