The Tower and The Star

October 28th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Here are a couple of more drafts from my cut and paste Tabloid Tarot.

It’s the Tower and the Star … after the shock, a fairy godmother arrives with cake …

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Tarot Views the News – Steve Jobs

October 10th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Steve Jobs, 2010, photo by Matthew Yohe

In today’s Tarot Views the News, I’ve pulled a card for Steve Jobs, who passed away last Wednesday.

This is not meant to be a predictive or mediumistic reading, but just a one-card look at Jobs’ legacy.

#16 The Tower from the Rider Waite Smith Tarot

The card I pulled was #16, The Tower. It’s one of the most shocking cards in the deck, typically describing just that, a shocking event, something unexpected, and often dramatic.

When the Tower’s around, you can’t look at the world the way you used to.

And doesn’t that describe the legacy of Steve Jobs?

Because we knew of his illness, it wasn’t so surprising that he passed, but his passing still sent shock-waves through the world of technology and way beyond.

As the lightening topples the Tower’s crown, the king was struck down.

But his time with us was at least as shocking. It was with Tower-like energy that Jobs hit the scene with the first Macintosh. You might say he electrified the computer industry.

Macintosh 128K

Looking at the windows of the Tower in the card’s image, don’t they kind of remind you the front of this first computer?

The Mac was completely different from all the others. It changed everything, making it possible for people who knew nothing about computers to jump in and discover a brand new world.

They were fun, powerful, and most important, easy to use for average people. They still are. I’m working on one right now, and have been since 1997.

And then of course there’s the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. I can hardly imagine organizing my pictures without iPhoto. And iTunes has revolutionized music.

Even Apple’s packaging, ad campaigns, and stores changed how technology is viewed by the general population. It became both accessible and highly desirable.

As everyone does, Jobs faced his own personal Tower situations. He was publicly fired from the company he founded, and was forced to start fresh.

In true Tower style, he built up Pixar, another ground-breaking company, before returning to Apple to shake things up there some more.

When teaching people about the Tower card, it can sometimes be challenging to come up with positive examples of this energy. I think Steve Jobs is one of those examples.

He was a Tower we’ll all miss. He made us think different, and I thank him for it.

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Jazz and Tarot Towers

November 24th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

#16, The Tower in the Tarot deck, is one of the more disconcerting of the cards. It means change – sudden, irrevocable and unexpected. And most of us don’t like that much.

When the Tower appears in a reading, it typically suggests that something significant and surprising is going on. Whether this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on the question and what other cards are present. As with all the Major Arcana, in and of itself, the Tower isn’t positive or negative.

What it is though, is a new way of looking at things, a breaking down of old structures that no longer support us. A prison, generally of our own design, is coming down. In it’s grandest sense, the Tower is liberation through revelation. And when the lightening bolt hits, there’s no turning back.

I like this slideshow. A live recording of the Cascade Jazz Ensemble and countless images of Tarot Towers. By the end of it, the card’s not so scary anymore. There might be chaos in awakening, but it’s a lot better than staying stuck in the dark.

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