Memories of Egypt Day 2 and The Tower Tarot Card

​The second day of my trip to Egypt was mostly spent trying to adjust to the time zone change and my general surroundings.  I was so amazed and impressed with how lovely everything was.  I believe that Egypt gets a bad rep sometimes.  It is not how I have seen it depicted in the movies.  (Although some parts are.)  The hotel was lovely, and the people were so kind. They fall all over themselves trying to make sure that you are happy and have everything you need.  I was relieved at how many people spoke English and that the fact that I don’t speak Arabic (yet) was not a huge issue. If you have any desire to go I would strongly encourage you.  I found that all of the things I believed about how dangerous it would be were mostly unfounded and over-exaggerated.  I am not naive enough to say that there is absolutely no foundation for this, because sadly in some parts this is true, but my experience was that they care deeply about tourism as their livelihood and were extremely careful and very protective of the people visiting there.  I didn’t really venture far from the hotel that day, but spent time recovering from the long flight, taking it all in and enjoyed getting to know the other people in my group.

​The Tarot card I am choosing to represent this day is The Tower card.  This card has many meanings, but I am choosing it because of the symbolism of the falling from your ivory tower.  I was seeing the beliefs that I had taken on about foreign countries and the people there were false.  The division of countries and my tendency to have a “my country is better than everywhere else” attitude because of that and the fact that I didn’t really know better from my own experience was apparent to me.  I felt a little ashamed and sheepish to see the reality of what Egypt was really like versus some of the false ideas that I had about it.  I think I expected to see the city and the people and transportation as something more from the movie The Jewel of the Nile.  No beat-up bus full of chickens and people in poverty pulled up to get me.  (I said I was embarrassed about my ignorance, right?)  The other reason I like the Tower card for this day is the symbolism in it about language.  It goes along with the Biblical story about the Tower of Babel.  Basically, the Babylonians were unable to understand each other’s languages and the Holy Ghost descended on them with storm and fire, tore down the tower they were building, and they were all then able to understand and speak their old mother tongue.  The fall of the tower broke through barriers and led to better understanding and communication between people.  As I personally began to get to know Egypt and it’s people, I had to recognize my own arrogance and understand that many of my own beliefs were simply illusions or false images planted in my mind by the media and other sources.  I was forming opinions without any actual knowledge from encountering the place myself.  False borders and language differences are just boundaries we create in our mind.  We are all the good same people from the same good Source.  Lesson learned.  Interestingly, in this particular Tarot deck, the Tower is represented as the Djed Pillar or the backbone of Osiris.  It is a powerful symbol that signifies the resurrection of this much loved and well-known Egyptian God of the Afterlife.  Things fall but they can be rebuilt.  The Djed Pillar can also denote the powerful and intense rising of life-force energy within a person.  If you have back or spine problems like myself, I find that meditating on this symbol can be very helpful for relaxing the muscles in this area and providing some pain relief.