Do you know what I love doing? I love looking at all the things that people tell me I should be afraid of and taking the time to reexamine it and whether or not that’s something I should actually find scary. This is part of the background philosophy that I’ve been developing for The Trailblazer Tarot. Especially over the last handful of years and the rise of tarot, there’s so many cards in the deck that people have labeled as being The Worst Things Ever when they come up and The Tower is probably the number one card that every one says you never want to see.

Except Me 💃

As someone who has lived an incredibly tumultuous life, The Tower for a very long time was probably the worst thing ever for me. I was someone who always craved stability and was desperate to feel like things could enter a sense of predictability so I can’t say that I wasn’t someone who for a very long time didn’t find themselves in an inevitable spiral the moment this card popped up in a reading. Then over the last few years I decided to take a different approach to tarot reading where I was taking the time to be a lot more passively observant as to what I was experiencing vs. what I believed I was seeing in a tarot reading. It turned out that more often than not, The Tower showing up in a reading would end up showing something that I desperately needed to be revealed that ultimately helped me with forging a path forward towards something that whether or not I realized it back then was something akin to a new beginning.

It got to the point where if the card showed up in a reading, I was actually getting psyched the fuck up over it’s presence. Especially having been trapped in a situation where I was unsure of what to make of it for a while, it’s presence usually felt like someone gently turning my head and asking me to just look and see reality. A call to be willing to see the truth for what it was – regardless of how painful it might be – and to embrace the fact that this truth was, regardless of it’s brutality, liberating.

The Tower is a card I don’t quite see as often now but I honestly can’t count how many times it showed up around 2021 and especially during 2022. Without it, I honestly don’t really know where I’d be. Truth be told, I’d probably still be stuck in a lot of the toxic and tragic mindsets that led me towards the situation that I was in to begin with. Through it all, it honestly ended up becoming one of my favorite tarot cards in the deck … if honestly not my favorite because of the level of complexity that it offers someone when it decides it’s worth being known in a reading.

This is a lot of where the inspiration for the imagery came from. I think especially in the world today, it’s easy to get attached to A Thing as a symbol. You need something to reflect and represent your status in the world. You need something that works as a symbol to let everyone know that you’re someone worth acknowledging. You need something to make it clear that you are an Authority that needs to be obeyed and believed without room for questioning.

But what if when The Tower lets itself be known, it’s a call to remind us of our own humanity? The humility that comes with recognizing that we do not know everything, that we are imperfect and that sometimes the things that we believe we need to see, think and hold true are the things that are blocking us from receiving what it is that we’ve been wanting?

Again, not sure if this is going to be the final description for the card but here’s what’s written so far:

Change. What is it but the opportunity to introduce new growth? A chance to remove the rubble of old that blocked the fertile earth below? While there is comfort in the familiar, there is also freedom in its removal as it forces us to face what it is we’ve blocked ourselves from seeing. The Tower doesn’t call for change but reflects it’s inevitability. While you may not be able to control what comes and what goes, it does grant you the opportunity to stand witness to this new chapter in your existence. Allow yourself the grace to release what no longer serves you so that it can make room for an orchard for you to feast.

Even though it’s not the first card I started with, I have a feeling that this will be the card that defines the look of everything because it does feel like this is a card that needs a bit of extra love to shine and with the general theme that this deck aims to have, it seems only fitting that it’s The Tower that defines how it’s perceived.

Until next time.

~ Dre