After The Tower Falls

I think launching a business is like having a baby. Having done both, you can only be so prepared before you take the plunge and commit. With Tarot Basecamp, I strapped in and hit the launch button, knowing I needed to do it and take the first step. Any step, or I might never do it.

I spent hours developing the business: what I wanted to provide, why I wanted to provide it, legally registering my business, choosing colours, building a website, signing up for an expo, and so on. It wasn’t an unresearched, unthoughtful decision. What I didn’t know when I launched Tarot Basecamp was that I was only in the eye of the storm. I experienced major life disruption mid-year and optimistically believed things would improve. They had to: it was already enough for one year, right? But last year had other plans for me and it wasn’t finished until it obliterated my world. That hope I had would be a false hope. I hit that big, red launch button and it was like some hidden, coded, and bugged protocol initiated immediately after. My neurodiversity unhinged me, I lost my mother, and I got hit with walking pneumonia. Any plans I had were washed away in the storm’s tide. Any structural Tower support I was leaning on crumbled against my weight. I then tried to look forward to powering down and entering recovery mode over the December holidays with two weeks off, but oh no, life still wasn’t done with me. We got sick on Christmas Eve Day and I still haven’t recovered. Every corner of my life is failing in some way, to some degree.

I failed. I am failing.

The cards of a tarot deck illustrate the human condition. Like the spark of The Fool’s question “what if?”, and the knowledge and skill building of the suit of Pentacles/Earth. From the opportunity of new starts in the Aces to the wisdom of the Kings, the 78 cards of a tarot deck cover our lives as humans. The deck also includes The Tower; a card of catastrophe, upheaval, and utter destruction. It’s the failure of everything you’ve built. We want to avoid its inevitable appearance, even when we know it’s part of life because it might signal the catastrophic end of something. And yet, we don’t cease to exist after devastation strikes. I did not cease to exist when I no longer had a Tower to hide in.

Unlike Tower, we all get excited when Star turns up. It’s an auspicious appearance. We make wishes on stars. Stars inspire poetry, music, and stories. Our little human brains link them together like a great connect-the-dots to make pictures out of them. We relied on stars for navigation. We plan our lives around zodiac signs developed 3000 years ago based on the positions of constellations relative to the earth. Our entire existence literally revolves around a giant star. You can depend on The Star card.

Or can you?

Stars are not fixed in place, they move. Stars die spectacular deaths. They also sometimes hang out around black holes. So how can you depend on The Star for guidance when its location isn’t fixed or safety when it has some pretty unhealthy behaviours? I didn’t land on a star, literally or metaphorically, and I had no hope that one would even appear, let alone auspiciously.

I wanted to lie on the destroyed ground and close my eyes to everything. And I did for a while. But as I lay there, I thought “Ugh, this ground is hard.” This ground. I’m on something. I landed.

See, in decades past, I think I had pretended like I’d not even fallen. I pretended like I wasn’t at rock bottom. And more alarming - I sometimes didn’t even know I was at the bottom. I didn’t see it, I didn’t feel it. Compartmentalize, disassociate and deny. My whole world could blow apart, but instead of landing, I’d just float; untethered, hoping I’d find somewhere solid to arrive. And right there is the empty promise of hope that the unreliable Star can deliver. This year, though, I knew I had fallen. I accepted I had hit the bottom and hard. I could see it all around me. I knew I had failed and rather than trying to hide or deny it, like I’d been conditioned to do, I accepted my failure. I accepted myself.

Some of you are saying “You didn’t fail, bad things out of your control happened.” You are not incorrect, but that’s not how so many of us are conditioned to respond. Failure is okay for others but it’s not okay for me. I am kind and empathetic to others, but in the past, I couldn’t give that to myself. This time, this year, I did it without thinking. I gave empathy to myself. And that, Travellers, is a personal success.

Instead of expecting The Star to guide me or stay bright and alive for me, which we know isn’t the nature of actual stars, I’ve found something better than The Star’s hope. I found trust. I trust that a ground exists for me. I trust that there is a bottom for me to land on, however fast and hard I fall. I trust that I won’t just float off into uncertainty. I trust that my failures, no matter how large, are naturally part of life. I trust that I will also succeed again, even if it’s in the midst of my failing at something else.

So here we are, Travellers. I launched the business two short months ago, and I’m already renovating. It’s okay to not get it right the first time. That’s called failure, and we all do it.

Even stars.