Lightning’s Gift

This passage marks a turning point, moving from ego-driven despair toward the possibility of transformation. Invoking the image of being struck by lightning, he reinterprets the trauma not as annihilation, but as a divine selection—destructive, yes, but also fecund. In this moment, the tower becomes a tarot symbol: not just a site of collapse, but of release, awakening, and rebirth. What follows is a call to recognize that ruin may be the prelude to reintegration—and that dream, once dismissed as fantasy, might be the soul’s true language of renewal.

THE CHYMICAL WEDDING

He must have seen that the taunted me further he would lose me, for he sighed and said, ‘Of course, you’re feeling dazed. Why should you not be? You’ve been struck by lightning after all. It takes time to recognize that it’s a privilege to be singled out by the gods that way.’ He raised a finger to forestall a sarcastic retort. ‘Think about lightning,’ he said quietly. ‘It doesn’t only destroy – it fructifies. It energizes the ground for new growth. And those little figures on the card – were they falling or flying? Perhaps when the shock has passed, they will begin to savour life outside the tower. They might have felt safe in there, but it was a prison as much as a stronghold. Now that it’s down . . . well, they might recognize that they have become conductors of new energy back into the world of men. Tell me, have you been dreaming lately?’

Further dazed under this provocative assault of images, I said, ‘It feels as if I do nothing else.’

A nod of acceptance. ‘But do you remember your dreams?’