THE TOWER

As tempting as it might be to look at traditional renderings of The Tower and compare them the fate of the World Trade Center, I feel like that sort of surface-level association is a bit too convenient -- especially since that particular calamity didn't signal the end of a nightmare, but the dawn of a new one.

Instead, I decided to build a card around an old nightmare that is currently building toward crescendo, in hopes that if (or more likely, when) catastrophe occurs, the tragic fallout may prove constructive... but it's too soon to say, because this tower is still under construction. You're probably already aware of the Burj Tower, which will eventually stretch over a half a mile above the city of Dubai, that boomtown in the United Arab Emirates that's become a playground for the world's super-wealthy. Even in its incomplete state, images of the tower boggle the mind.

Dubai has thrust itself into the global spotlight -- however, that same light has exposed the city's penchant for the same sorts of grievous human rights violations that most major metropolises overcame long ago -- slavery, human trafficking, child prostitution; in Dubai, homosexuality is punished with death. This shining gem of a city is built on on a foundation of human suffering, and its record-breaking towers are the most potent symbol of that ongoing conflict. The higher they're built, the more inevitable it seems that the whole mess will fall down cathartically around everyone's ears.

The Tower immediately follows the The Devil, and portrays the moment when all of that card's infernally intoxicating illusions are shown for what they really are. Depending on how much you've invested in those illusions, that devastating lightning-strike can make make you wish you were never born. It makes Death look like the easy way out, because that's a universal experience, while this is starkly personal: you versus your own desires and shortcomings. The Thoth version of the card expresses this so beautifully, showcasing the inner-eye of awareness as it sheds light on this attractive prison, dissolving it into ruin. Though you can't help but identify with the terrified people plummeting from the top of the building, really it's that eye that you should focus on -- the part of you that knew this moment was inevitable, the part that is ready to face the truth and move on. After the shock and grief have faded, you'll be left with a genuine appraisal of yourself as you really are, minus all of the entrapments of ego and status and worth... and that's how The Star is born.

The Burj Tower doesn't have to fall in order for the ruling class of Dubai to get their comeuppance; as an icon of the region's imbalance of power and disdain for humanity, it serves as a different kind of lightning rod. Here's hoping that the attention it draws proves to be the undoing of that repressive culture, as the rest of the world refuses to humor Dubai in its taste for the blood of innocents. [Via]