THE TOWER & THE CHARIOT

Imagery — Things to Look at and Contemplate:

• Postures — falling / standing (melodrama, upset, crisis vs. poise, balance, control)
• Colors — foreground: grey / green (stark and frightening vs. cheerful and confident)
  • background: black (dark blue) / yellow
  • details: red & blue, orange & yellow / light blue & gold, black & white
• Clothing — loose robes and wild hair / armor and crown (personal and unready vs. formal and prepared)
• Symbols — tower, crown and cloud (or smoke), lightning & flames / chariot, sphinxes, river and city (vertical, up-in-the-air, unstable – danger and drama in progress vs. horizontal, grounded, safe – danger and drama left behind)
• Landscapes — simple / complex (intense and immediate vs. patient and long-term)

Astrology:

• Mars (Tower) — brilliant, flashing, in-the-moment; violent emotions and activity; male sexual potency; pride, war; full speed ahead
• Cancer (Chariot) — self-sufficiency & protection; nurture & care; coolness & courage; focus & determination; initiates activity but steps sideways

Predilection:

• Hot in everything vs. Cool in everything (direct in everything vs. indirect in everything)
• Instinctual action vs. Considered action (protect by confrontation vs. protect by getting out of the way)

The Tower and The Chariot share the issues of balance, control, energy, solidity and war. They contrast in their ways of handling every issue. The violent overthrow of rigid and ambitious structure contrasts with the invisible battle for balance and self-control. External contrasts with internal energy. The vulnerability of fortification contrasts with the durability of character.

The Tower is the tumultuous power at the center of everything. It is the constant potential for an occasional experience of the unexpected, the violent and sudden disruption of normal conditions; the power of complete surprise and the feeling of head-over-heels. The job of The Tower is to uproot dug-in positions and vested interests, to be the event horizon beyond which lies the unpredictable and unaccountable. The Tower is the end of complacency.

The Chariot is the steady flow of ceaseless intention that is the warrior in everything. Its job is to harness all competing impulses and energies, to overcome all obstacles and resistances, and against all odds, carry everything to its destiny. On this journey, everything becomes what it must become and nothing is lacking.

Unintegrated and imperfectly realized, The Tower can be capricious, frightening and disastrous. It can rob effort of its proper reward, and destroy faith in both justice and mercy. It can be melodramatic, or it can be pointless, random and gratuitously painful.

The Chariot can vacillate and side-step, or turn tail and run. It can be vainglorious and posturing, or overly sensitive and ineffectual. It can lose heart in the middle of a task, and mope.

Together, they are afraid of nothing, can stand successfully against any opponent, either internal or external, and when the time comes, they will rise to the ultimate challenge and be equal to it.