"- Dear, didn't I tell you to check the gas burner before going to bed?
- Sooorry, I forgot agaaaainnnn...!!!!"
Just making light of this card people seem to fear so much
I must say I'm in love with this card and, after getting it in most of the readings done for myself (either by me or by others), I've come to regard it as "my" card. It started popping up in my earliest readings and I was quite shocked at first: kept looking around me to see where the disaster was coming from. Only last week it was bang in the center (the crossed card in the Celtic spread) of an otherwise very powerful and positive reading.
In time, I saw that it reflected my own attitude to change: when I finally see the need for it, I'd rather it was immediate, quick and complete, thereby freeing an amazing amount of energy that I had buried in some nonproductive situation (devilish, as most of you point out).
You might think that my life consisted of one catastrophe after another, but it was not so, although it did imply moving often from one country to another and breaking with home, friends, family and starting over from scratch. I was young, full of energy, easily bored and I learnt to welcome these abrupt changes every time they came.
I must confess I also see a side of my personality reflected in that card, as I have an explosive temperament, typical of the wands suit. I know from experience that fury has a very exhilarating side to it and sometimes I tend to cling to the feeling even though I know it is bad for me (and my liver), so maybe this is one of those Devil traits in me.
And the more literal side of it is that, now that my life is more staid, I work in a tower and have lived in one for the last 10 years (although I moved again last March: staid, yes; stagnant, no).
Watching the card, that is what I see: a torrent of pure, raw energy coming to me all at once. So many things I could use it for! The falling people in the rich robes represent to me my own ego and those beliefs I'm better rid of. The fall of a crown... the reigning mind as opposed to my more sincere intuition?
Scapini's shows a sort of force of nature character sending the ray that collapses the top of this tower made from all those different styles and cultures. Only the top, mind you, so that most of it is still useful (we only went wrong lately?).
The Ancestral Path's is beautiful, showing more specific building styles for temples through the different ages. It is illuminated while struck and still looks so solid and firm: impossible to forget. Makes reparations worth it (have I mentioned that interior design and refurbishing is one of my pet hobbies? This card is a bit like my passport photo :smt003 ).
I picked the Spiral card because it focuses on the falling figures, on the pain, sense of loss and insecurity (ground moving beneath us). But, as my own experience tells me, there is no need to live through it with anxiety if we welcome and embrace the change: I find it so cleansing...