Break Free from the Tower of Consensus Reaility

One of my favorite cards from the Linol Tarot is Der TURM, or The Tower. It has such a marvelous 3-D dream state quality. The man (a knight?) floats away from the crumbling tower, resigned to his fate yet seemingly at peace.

The destruction of the Tower can represent a letting go of the restrictive conventions that have been built up (either by yourself or by society).  In the background, a castle with four watchtowers represents the established society or structure from which he came, and from which he is now breaking free.

There comes a time to release yourself from that consensus reality, so that you can see the world from a fresh pespective.

Linol Tarot

The Linol Tarot is an obscure and hard to find deck that I recently obtained.  It was created by German artist Gerhard Haack in 1988, in a limited edition of 150 decks. The artwork was produced as linoleum block prints, hence the deck title “Linol Tarot”.

Per the Encyclopedia of Tarot, volume IV (by Stuart Kaplan and Jean Huets): “About the tarot, the artist says: ‘Tarot lives in its images, and that is its fascination. One can let the thoughts go free, and get new insights on life situations.’ ”

The artwork is simple, somewhat surreal, and a bit playful. Images of all the cards can be found at this link.  Here are some of my favorites cards (click to view larger images):

Major Arcana:  Tower / Star

Court cards:  Knight of Swords / King of Cups

Minor Arcana:  Ace of Disks / 4 of Swords

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