Tarot is an excellent tool for meditation to enhance spiritual growth. With Tarot, in our readings, we each have subtly different meanings for the different cards, meanings which work well for ourselves - better than anyone else's meanings. In Spiritual Tarot it works the same way. We each have our own path and we each see subtly different things in the Major Arcana to help us along that path.

With this series, I'm sharing my journey, in hopes that it might help to shine a little light on yours. I'm using the Rider/Waite/Smith Tarot on this spiritual journey.

A tall stone tower at the top of a mountain peak is being hit by lightning, on a dark cloudy night, knocking off the top, which is a large golden crown. Flames come from the top of The Tower and the three visible windows. Two figures, a man and a woman fall from The Tower, looking rather frightened. The woman wears a golden crown. It is certainly a picture of overthrow and fear.

So, what can the spiritual message be, here? Well, The Tower, itself, represents the fabrication of reality we build for ourselves as we deal with the physical world in which we live. The lightening is a flash of understanding when we, all of a sudden, realize that this physical world is definitely not all there is; there is much, much more. The Devil showed us that the chains with which we are bound to physical reality are loose and can, if we so choose, be easily removed. The Tower represents the moment in which we actually realize it!

This flash of understanding can be quite upsetting when it happens. That is why so many people try so hard to only believe in what they can see or hold in their hands. After all, at that moment, we are forced to realize that all the things we took to be everything are, in reality a very small and rather unimportant part of the Universe. The world of Spirit is so much larger and fuller than what we have devoted our lives to. At first, this takes a lot of adjustment, but the adjustments we make are so very worth the time it takes, and even the shock when it finally dawns upon us.

This is repeated throughout these articles but it bears repeating. We are an integral part of the One Great Mind that IS the Universe. That being the case, we have the powers of this Universal Mind to make changes in our own, personal reality. All we have to do is, first, realize it and, secondly, learn how to use It. The Tower symbolizes the first step, the realization. Throughout a regular regime of meditation and much reading of materials by people who may be further on the path than we are, we begin to learn that "how".

When I meditate on The Tower, it reminds me that I have, indeed, had that flash of understanding and that, if I remember that and stay on the path, my future will become brighter and brighter.

That's what The Tower means to me.