The Tower Tarot Card: Fighting the Emptiness Phobia
What does the Tower card in tarot stand for? Among other things, it stands for cleaning house, getting rid of what is not needed and not useful. We tend to collect so much junk whose only purpose is to take up space. So many people are afraid of empty space, just as they are afraid of silence.
Emptiness becomes a phobia. They fight against this phobia by filling empty spaces with anything at all, whether these things serve a valid purpose or not. Their purpose or their value is not the point. The point is, they fill space. Silence is the same thing. Silence is an emptiness that can only filled with noise or words.
People tend to feel lost in silence. They are so accustomed to noise that their own inner voices and thoughts are foreign and frightening. Rather than face that fear, they rally against it with noise to scare it away. Now they feel safe and secure. But all these things they collect to fill this space to feel secure, and all this noise to make to fill the emptiness of the silence is not needed, and it will eventually cause too much weight that will topple. It will cause the tower to fall and only that which is rooted to the foundation will remain. The rest will fall and be scattered.
As the tower falls, a sense of anxiety is likely to be felt. That which you have held onto- the thoughts and beliefs that you allowed to define who are thought you were- are suddenly vanquished and you are left feeling unsure of what will fill that space. In these times, ride the anxiety out. It will pass. It is only the feeling of your unnecessary elements dissipating. When that is over, a sense of surety of who you are will settle in. –Jim Larsen