February 26-28, 2014: XVI. The Tower
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XVI
THE TOWER
(Mars)“Strike! O, take me now, in an instant. Strike! with the passionate strength of thy love to overwhelm this silly thought I have of Thee, this struggling artifice. Flood the channels of my nerves with the lightning current of Thyself.”
MEDITATION COLOR: Red
HEBREW LETTER: Peh, mouth, especially as an organ of speech. From Peh-Yod-Hé, “breathing”; thus, mouth as the place where breath flows. Also, any opening, entrance, ingress/egress route, as in “mouth of a cave.” Sound p suggests projectile, power, penetration. Greek Phi suggests by shape the union of Phallus and Kteis. Greek Pi is the value that relates any radius to its circumference.
CARD NAME: The older name, “House of God,” connects it to Beyth and The Magus. A “tower” is distinguished by its height in comparison to its width (having various testosterone-related themes, from the obvious phallic idea to “towering over,” etc.). Nearly always, the word implies a human construct. Normally equated with strength, firmness, etc.
ESOTERIC MEANING: The Exciting Consciousness. Through it is created the Life-Breath of every creature under the Supreme Orb, as well as the motion of them all.
TREE of LIFE: Hod to Netzach. (Links ‘Glory’ and ‘Victory’; or Intellect with Desire. Force meets Form, especially the influx of unbounded Vital Force into mental structures, either to invigorate or shatter them.)
ESOTERIC TITLE: The Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty
TANTRIC & ALCHEMICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Male orgasm.
DIVINATION: Sudden and eruptive change of circumstances. Overwhelming of existing structures by a sudden and tremendous energy. Revelation, disclosure, exposure. Danger, unforeseen catastrophes. Strength, energy, fighting (quarrel, combat, war), courage; or destruction, danger, ambition, fall, ruin. Destabilization or destruction as a preparation for new creation.
http://ageoflucidity.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/crowley-thoth-tarot-scans-atu-xvi-the-tower.jpg
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Currently, I am moving. So my mediations have been on the run. What I have done, is taken the time to ditch a lot of clutter. The rule that I have been going by is this; if I haven’t used it in the last six months, it is trash. The exceptions are my books and tools. My thoughts on Atu-16 the Tower over the last three days has been, if i want bring in the new? I have to get rid of the old! Also, on a practical level, if i want my house to be clean, i need to own less shit!
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Day One
As I sit in the red sphere I feel a hunger for discipline & structure. I feel like an eager solider ready to act on the instructions and orders I've been given by my higher ranking officer. The martial energy is HIGH.
I'm immediately drawn to the eye in the card, which on close inspection looks like a Red Sun - a red solar glyph - I'm not pondering the lightning flash - it seems to suggest an "aha" moment when something that's been puzzling us is resolved and we're no longer confused or constrained by the confusion of the darkness.
But this lightning flash happens internally - it happens in the dark, inside of us, where no one can see it but us, unless we share, which require us stepping out of the our own towers that we've constructed.
The lightning brings peace with it and with peace comes a level of force that can only come when one is aligned with that indestructable aspect of their Self.
But to get to that level, to discover it, something must be destroyed - something foreign to our nature, something inauthentic - something we constructed to keep ourselves "safe". This realization - a consequence of the lightning flash - renders the tower useless. So we torch it, blast it, destroy it and abandon it.
Who's to say the people in the card aren't intentionally abandoning the tower - abandoning their false sense of security - which ultimately proved to be not so safe after all.
They had the balls to jump into the fire.
Day two
There is fear, apprehension and anticipation of an attack inside of the red sphere tonight.The blast taking out the tower captures my attention - I am pondering "All this work for nothing...swallowed up into nothing"
The Dove appears immediately after the last of the tower crumbles. It carries a twig - signifying what we will need to happen next - patiently, gracefully and lovingly rebuild the tower, one twig, one stone, one brick at a time.
The people in the tower didn't even see it coming - they were in the dark and caught the brunt of it and got torched.
Pain, anger, revenge, aggression, force
Day Three
Who's eye is that? I wonder - sight penetrating through the darkness - Fury, raw power unchecked and let loose.The lightning smites the tower with the Wrath of God. One minute it's there, the next it's not - swift destruction - instantaneous - sabotage and subterfuge.
Plans ruined -OR - plans fulfilled exceedingly with the force and precision of a military strike.
Harsh words being spoken, straight talk cutting through the bullshit - OR - the drastic consequences due to the bullshit
Passionate speaking, passionate enough to incite a riot
War-time camaraderie, violence - my mind is flooded with images of War.
Action, fighting, motion and movement
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- The color excites me; it’s dynamic, very powerful
- The eye, the dove, the snake…. I don’t see a sequence looking at this card, the images below seems somehow fragmented, no obvious connection to the images above… the eye seems to be the focal point of the whole card; it appears as Transcendence among fragmented reality of mental and material planes. But what about the mouth? Is this mouth, spewing out fire, whose sharp tongues are burning up the existing fortified structures (of the mind), is it actually that same Eye, manifested at a different plane?
- Mouth: one important channel for the Food (for the body & also the soul), at the same time giving and receiving, energy flows in both directions through this “cave”… By its motions, we create voices, modify sounds.
- Sexually, this card is fellatio, and anal sex (the relation of mouth and anus).
- The sound P associations: burst, explosion, abrupt and sudden release of energy; adrenalin.
- Destruction of false structures ( false = those not based on True Will); how painful this is for the figures abiding in these structures!, but how Beautiful – Delightful – wonderful it indeed is! It is Love, it is Initiation (the dove & the snake).
- The mouth – apparatus for kissing, eating, speaking, in humans…
- NB: the male body has two such main caves, the female has three (mouth, anus, vagina)! Interesting Qabalistic analogy here.
- Adoration from Liber L, “Unity uttermost showed!...”
- Mouth: the gate of transmutation of matter
- Words/thought filled (fueled) with desire have power to create & to destroy…
- Purification – key word for this Path, from the Aspirant’s perspective; every thought and every desire has to be purified , and recognized as serving for the K&C of the HGA, or otherwise be destroyed, so that the energy locked into them can freely flow.
- Passion, fierceness, striving, sharpness… True Will which shines through the expressions of thoughts and desires, burning the “wrong” ones (not in accordance with one’s TW), utterly energizing the “right” ones.
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Meditation 1
Extremely dynamic in nature, great amount of energy released.
The eye of Shiva scorching everything in its wake, the destroyer; the iris is in the liking of a Solar disc indicating masculine fiery force
Thunder tears the sky; flash and fire are the dominant principles clearing the way, bringing down without mercy those things which are no longer useful
Abstraction is an ideal form of artistic expression to depict wreckage and destruction. The image also appears as if it’s a reflection in a broken glass
The bird carrying a branch flying away from the eye indicates that the destruction is a part of divine intervention and it’s a necessary component eventually leading to new start, balance and inner peace
The tower can represent the Ego that traps the practitioner and hence must be annihilated. On windows there are traces of iron bars which further might indicate the prison-like nature of the fortress.Meditation 2
The fragmented characters jumping out of the tower might be representative of the fragmented parts of one’s psyche that are being annihilated in this process of spiritual purging
On the lower right there is something that looks like a mouth (also supported by the Hebrew letter Peh that corresponds to the card) that spits fire which affects the tower. It is by the combined impact of the eye and the mouth that the collapsing is taking place. Just as the eye is the Eye of Shiva – the divine eye, so is the mouth divine and the flames may represent the power of the vibration/word of God – AUM. Each letter represents the one of the three modes of existence – creation, sustenance and destruction corresponding to Brahma – Vishnu – Shiva (A-U-M)
Planetary attribution to Mars is logical, Mars corresponding to fire, war, destruction.
Collapsing of one’s concepts that hold one’s worldview together; emancipation from that which is obsolete, from one’s harmful, unresourceful beliefs, letting go of parts of self that are not serving the highest good; the most intense, painful part of the process of liberation.Meditation 3
Lion-Serpent with Solar aureole – Wisdom and strength conjoined to form spiritual mastery – it is in the background indicating one must “pass through fire” to get refined spiritually - alchemical relevance.
The burning image is contained inside the flash – which could be interpreted as almost a comforting concept – that the refinement process - no matter how intense and painful - is but a flash of moment in the context of eternity (eternity which is permeated with bliss and freedom upon one's Enlightenment), which is an encouraging concept to ponder on and it can certainly give us strength and motivation to push through the challenging parts of inner growth. -
This card always reminds me that people (including myself) don’t change. They can’t without some type of crisis.
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"Day Three
Who's eye is that? I wonder - sight penetrating through the darkness - Fury, raw power unchecked and let loose.
"I suspect this is the eye of the Magician/Magus. When comparing PFC's Magician to RWS Magician, we can see that there was a blind in the RWS. In the RWS, the magician's gaze is not directed where he is pointing. This tells me that there is a hidden occult significance that was attempted to be hidden and is likely important.