The Tower

What the card means

Upright

What was held together by nothing but goodwill comes down, and comes down fast. An unpleasant, honest card: it takes out not a life but a structure that was already hollow. What is left afterwards is the foundation - and it usually turns out to be enough.

Reversed

The collapse is being put off, which only makes it heavier. The cracks are visible and are being filled in. Sometimes a disaster that was avoided, which also reads here.

Love and relationships

Upright

A sudden truth: said, found, admitted. A relationship that would not survive being tested does not survive it. For a solid one, a crisis after which things are more honest.

Reversed

An argument deferred for months. Or a break-up drawn out until it is worse for both than one conversation would have been.

Work and business

Upright

Dismissal, a project cancelled, an audit that opened what was hidden. Plans come down - and they were the wrong plans.

Reversed

Propping up something falling apart. Or waiting for the inevitable, and getting nothing done meanwhile.

Money

Upright

A sudden cost, a loss, terms reopened. A bad time for anything resting on one shaky assumption.

Reversed

A debt growing while it goes unacknowledged. The later it is, the dearer.

The card's advice

Do not prop it. Work out what exactly was being held up by goodwill, and take it apart yourself before it comes apart on its own. And remember that what is left after the Tower is people, not walls.

As the card of the day

A day on which something comes out abruptly. Good for being the first to tell the truth. Poor for keeping up appearances.

What is depicted

Lightning strikes the top of a tower, the crown flies off, two figures fall head-first. The tower stands on bare rock. Only the top is burning: the foundation is untouched, and it is the one thing in the picture that is not destroyed.

Zodiac sign and correspondences

Mars - what strikes at once and does not explain.

With other cards

• The Tower + The Devil — what was holding it comes down; painful, and freeing.
• The Tower + The Fool — a step with no way back from it; sometimes that is a choice and sometimes the absence of one.
• The Tower + The Star — quiet arrives after the collapse; the worst of it is behind.