All successful endeavors have had their setbacks. People who accomplished great feats in their life were met with obstacles that would likely cause most people to give up. Barriers to any project can sometimes be interpreted as signs that this or that was not meant to be. I’d imagine many things that add incredible value to humankind, from scientific discoveries to new inventions, would not be here if their creators simply gave up at the first signs of trouble.

Normally, The Tower Reversed can indicate resistance to change or inability to let things crumble when they need to. However, that’s not what I’m sensing from this reversed card in this reading. I’m sensing more of a fighting spirit here. After I took this picture, and was pondering on the reading, I realized I included in it a lemon tree that you can see in the background. Our former gardener brutally topped this tree’s sister that was planted next to it, and had advised us to cut down the other lemon trees, including this one. I hate the practice of tree topping (cutting of the top branches), so I was absolutely incensed at his unauthorized chopping off my tree. He got a taste of my Mercury in Aries and did not come back. Ha-ha. Not my proudest moment, but c’mon he chopped down my tree, for godssake. In any event, we persisted with the two remaining, theretofore fruitless lemon trees. They were mangled by the desert sun and frost but we believed in it. And now, for the first time since we got this house, the trees are fruiting. And not just one or two lemons… no, we have an abundance of sweet, sweet fruit.

The Tower in this deck shows a similarly gnarled tree. Rather than being felled, it is still standing. When upside-down, the card shows an image of regeneration, almost. It’s like the branches become roots that absorb the lightning as nutrition. And the raindrops now look like fruitful blessings rising up to greet us. The same water, the same divine gift, that is rising up here is the water that the God of Blooms (Ace of Cups) holds in their palms on the next card. It represents divine reward for resilience, for persistence, for not giving up the faith.

Next time things look like they are crumbling for you, or when an endeavor, dream or project finds an obstacle, it would very well mean that you are being asked to let it die and move on. However—and here spiritual discernment comes in handy—perhaps it could instead be an invitation to stand your ground, to persist, to keep at it. As you keep tending for that precariously standing tree of yours, you give a chance for your own learning, for your own strengthening, for your own transformation and for the overcoming of challenges along the way. You give a chance for Spirit to come in and hand you sweet fruit after the hard work. You co-create with the Cosmos in the bringing about of new life and new opportunities for yourself. Allow the gift of life to rise up from the gnarled branches within your heart. Yours is the choice insist, yours is the power to overcome, and yours is the blessing to receive.