The Lightning-Struck Tower
Wanted to share something I found very interesting. The depths of JK Rowling's research is, in fact, amazing. Maybe you all are more aware than I am but I was amazed when I read the parallels here.
Chapter 27 of HBP is called "The Lightning-Struck Tower" and as we all know by now this is the chapter where everything goes to hell. There is a card in the standard 78 Tarot deck called "The Tower" which shows a tower on a cliff, with a bolt of lightning striking and knocking the crown off the king, and two figures falling from the tower... So just by looking at the card we can already draw up literal comparisons to the events that took place in that chapter.
Read what this card means (excerpts from aeclectic.net):
...With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower, as Wang points out, stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." When the Querent gets this card, they can expect to be shaken up, to be blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.
If this is by any means a clue to what is about to happen, I'm a little afraid for the next book. What does this reveal about Snape? If Harry is the Fool, does that mean that Snape is "the truth that one refuses to see"-- do his actions in this chapter represent his true intentions?
I prefer to see it as he was the catalyst for revealing the truth-- that the truth Harry refused to see was that Dumbledore was not the almighty man that was going to save the day (king's crown knocked off, falling from the tower)-- that Harry must learn to build up his own abilities before he can ever hope to defeat Voldemort.
It goes on to explain (excerpts from aeclectic.net):
No card scares a Tarot reader like the Tower... It is however one of the clearest cards when it comes to meaning. False structures, false institutions, false beliefs are going to come tumbling down, suddenly, violently and all at once. What's important to remember as a tarot reader is that the one you're reading for likely does not know that something is false. Not yet...
I must stress that I did not match the Tower card and the HBP chapter until I read about someone making these correlations through my research of Tarot. LOL, I wish I could be so brilliant!
I feel the need to post this because in the short time that I've been researching Tarot some pretty amazing insights have been revealed to me. Some people see the word Tarot and they think carnival, hocus-pocus and wicca. I don't see Tarot like that, though those are all perfectly acceptable interpretations. To me, it's not a way to tell the future. My personal belief is that it helps with introspection and self-examination which can help you make better choices that may affect your future. While I'm not a devout disciple by any means, I do believe that there's a God and I try my best to do right by my religion. I am, however, extremely open-minded and don't always agree with the Letter of Tradition. (You guys know that, most of you have read my fic!) Anyway, I kind of think that God puts things in my path-- good or bad.
This whole summer I've felt pretty low. Not as bad as my bout in Jan-Feb, but enough to seriously affect me. You may have noticed my lack of Harry Potter writing. And artwork. Pretty much I've been compelled to do nothing which is not like me. I'm never sure what causes (I don't know my trigger) this but my best guess is that the impending loss of employment affected me more than I thought (mixed with my usual predisposition to depression). I decided a few weeks ago that I needed something to help me get back on track. I don't know what put the idea of Tarot in my head but I gravitated towards it.
Did online research, skimmed through a few books and bought a deck last weekend. I wasn't sure if I had made the right choice, but I decided to give it a whirl. I held off on buying a book with the cards just to make sure I wasn't traveling down the wrong path.
Well, on Tuesday I had an appointment with my LICSW and we talked a lot about what I'm doing and where I am. She said to me, "You're stuck. You need to work on getting unstuck." She then told me that she was reading about ancient Runes, that this was a tradition of guidance that was used for centuries by the vikings, that she was surprised by how insightful they actually were.
She showed me her book and her bag of Runes and was in the process of showing me how to lay them out when I recognized the spread of the Runes looked exactly like a Celtic Cross Tarot spread. This got my attention immediately. Had I not been rummaging through Tarot books just this past weekend I never would have recognized this spread and most likely would have forgotten all about the Runes. This totally cemented the notion that I was on the right track with these Tarot cards. It was too big of a coincidence.
So last night I bought a book and I decided to try my hand at the Tarot cards. I tried a 3 card spread which mostly told me that needed to shuffle better-- BUT I did take some stock in them because out of 78 I pulled the Star Reversed, The Tower and The Devil. I wasn't too pleased with this because they were all not good! I decided to shuffle more thoroughly and tried a 7 card spread-- now, I can't remember all my cards now but I got the Tower again. So I know that I've got something upsetting coming ahead, I'm thinking it's probably my ending job, and that I've got to look at it as an opportunity to build a better foundation.
Maybe I'm looking for things that aren't really there, but at the moment I'm hopeful that Tarot will help me examine my life and make better choices for my future. We'll see!
Chapter 27 of HBP is called "The Lightning-Struck Tower" and as we all know by now this is the chapter where everything goes to hell. There is a card in the standard 78 Tarot deck called "The Tower" which shows a tower on a cliff, with a bolt of lightning striking and knocking the crown off the king, and two figures falling from the tower... So just by looking at the card we can already draw up literal comparisons to the events that took place in that chapter.
Read what this card means (excerpts from aeclectic.net):
...With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower, as Wang points out, stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." When the Querent gets this card, they can expect to be shaken up, to be blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.
If this is by any means a clue to what is about to happen, I'm a little afraid for the next book. What does this reveal about Snape? If Harry is the Fool, does that mean that Snape is "the truth that one refuses to see"-- do his actions in this chapter represent his true intentions?
I prefer to see it as he was the catalyst for revealing the truth-- that the truth Harry refused to see was that Dumbledore was not the almighty man that was going to save the day (king's crown knocked off, falling from the tower)-- that Harry must learn to build up his own abilities before he can ever hope to defeat Voldemort.
It goes on to explain (excerpts from aeclectic.net):
No card scares a Tarot reader like the Tower... It is however one of the clearest cards when it comes to meaning. False structures, false institutions, false beliefs are going to come tumbling down, suddenly, violently and all at once. What's important to remember as a tarot reader is that the one you're reading for likely does not know that something is false. Not yet...
I must stress that I did not match the Tower card and the HBP chapter until I read about someone making these correlations through my research of Tarot. LOL, I wish I could be so brilliant!
I feel the need to post this because in the short time that I've been researching Tarot some pretty amazing insights have been revealed to me. Some people see the word Tarot and they think carnival, hocus-pocus and wicca. I don't see Tarot like that, though those are all perfectly acceptable interpretations. To me, it's not a way to tell the future. My personal belief is that it helps with introspection and self-examination which can help you make better choices that may affect your future. While I'm not a devout disciple by any means, I do believe that there's a God and I try my best to do right by my religion. I am, however, extremely open-minded and don't always agree with the Letter of Tradition. (You guys know that, most of you have read my fic!) Anyway, I kind of think that God puts things in my path-- good or bad.
This whole summer I've felt pretty low. Not as bad as my bout in Jan-Feb, but enough to seriously affect me. You may have noticed my lack of Harry Potter writing. And artwork. Pretty much I've been compelled to do nothing which is not like me. I'm never sure what causes (I don't know my trigger) this but my best guess is that the impending loss of employment affected me more than I thought (mixed with my usual predisposition to depression). I decided a few weeks ago that I needed something to help me get back on track. I don't know what put the idea of Tarot in my head but I gravitated towards it.
Did online research, skimmed through a few books and bought a deck last weekend. I wasn't sure if I had made the right choice, but I decided to give it a whirl. I held off on buying a book with the cards just to make sure I wasn't traveling down the wrong path.
Well, on Tuesday I had an appointment with my LICSW and we talked a lot about what I'm doing and where I am. She said to me, "You're stuck. You need to work on getting unstuck." She then told me that she was reading about ancient Runes, that this was a tradition of guidance that was used for centuries by the vikings, that she was surprised by how insightful they actually were.
She showed me her book and her bag of Runes and was in the process of showing me how to lay them out when I recognized the spread of the Runes looked exactly like a Celtic Cross Tarot spread. This got my attention immediately. Had I not been rummaging through Tarot books just this past weekend I never would have recognized this spread and most likely would have forgotten all about the Runes. This totally cemented the notion that I was on the right track with these Tarot cards. It was too big of a coincidence.
So last night I bought a book and I decided to try my hand at the Tarot cards. I tried a 3 card spread which mostly told me that needed to shuffle better-- BUT I did take some stock in them because out of 78 I pulled the Star Reversed, The Tower and The Devil. I wasn't too pleased with this because they were all not good! I decided to shuffle more thoroughly and tried a 7 card spread-- now, I can't remember all my cards now but I got the Tower again. So I know that I've got something upsetting coming ahead, I'm thinking it's probably my ending job, and that I've got to look at it as an opportunity to build a better foundation.
Maybe I'm looking for things that aren't really there, but at the moment I'm hopeful that Tarot will help me examine my life and make better choices for my future. We'll see!