The Year of the Tower is taking its toll

It seems like 2026 has been quite the year of…endings, at least so far. And with there still being two months left in the year and an already seemingly full graveyard of high-profile relationships, the collapse of institutions and the cultural eras that came to an end, whether it was a long time coming or unbelievably sudden, it’s anyone’s guess what else will come tumbling down between now and the end of the year. It's for this reason that I, and quite a few others, have dubbed this the Year of the Tower.

The Tower card is the sixteenth card in a tarot deck. It’s one of the more powerful cards, for sure, but also very misunderstood. It’s thought to represent sudden upheaval, destruction, revelation and the collapse of structures that were never built on a solid foundation in the first place.

The card itself features a tall building being struck by lightning, and a crown at the top of the tower appears to be falling down to the ground, with people inside the tower also tumbling. All of this imagery is symbolic of the removal of security and stability – whether it’s a relationship, a belief system, a career, identity or way of living. The imagery of the Tower card is in stark contrast to the high hopes and optimism so many of us had coming into 2026. In February, the year of the Fire Horse began, prompting people to write entire think pieces on what this year would mean for them and for everyone else.

In Chinese astrology, a Fire Horse year represents passion, visibility, intensity, creativity, destruction and rebirth. And the year of the Fire Horse carries the energy of breaking free, burning through limitations and refusing to stay somewhere you’ve outgrown. But people, as we often do, weren’t looking at the full picture of a Fire Horse year. They focused on the passion, visibility, intensity and creativity without really considering that destruction and rebirth were also characteristics of this year.

The last Fire Horse year occurred in 1966 and famously saw Japan’s birth rate plummet by about 25%, or half a million less births compared to prior years, over concerns that women born in the Year of the Fire Horse would be hot-tempered, headstrong and bring bad luck to their husbands, perhaps even resulting in mariticide. Decades later, the Year of the Fire Horse has arrived again and not without its drama and endings.

Just this past week, I wrote about the latest development in the split of influencers Kristy and Desmond, a couple that rose to fame after several of their videos went viral, laying the foundation for them to build a content creation business. The essence of the article was about how, just months after their official divorce, Kristy was now rumoured to be dating none other than Bryson Tiller, who is Desmond’s favourite artist. Perhaps, though, we should refer to Bryson as his former favourite artist, as it was confirmed he unfollowed the rapper after footage of Bryson and Kristy playing tonsil hockey while at an event surfaced.

And shortly after that video went viral, gagging all of Beyonce’s internet, news of a split between former Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause and her partner, G Flip, started making headlines after the two confirmed their separation in separate posts. For anyone who has followed Chrishell’s journey, you might recall that she has really had some bad luck on the love front. And with the word on the street being that G Flip simply ‘fell out of love’ with her and was discouraged by their long-distance relationship after about four years together and then blindsided her with a break up, you, like me, might be wondering if she’s got a hex on her.

As the author of the piece I linked to wrote, this was big news in the queer community. And it wasn’t the only hit they took. In April, WNBA legend Sue Bird and U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe announced that after 10 years, they would be separating. Chrishell, G, Megan and Sue joined the ranks of Meg Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson, Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater, Bill Hader and Ali Wong, Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid, Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski, and Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff in separating. And who could forget the sh-t show of a separation that was Summer House’s Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke, which I wrote about here.

People often have the same reaction to celebrity deaths and celebrity break ups. It very much gives, “Oh no! Not them. I can’t believe it!” But we’re all aware of just how fickle both love and life can be. And in the case of death, it is something truly inevitable, yet we’re still bewildered over news of the passings of people like Dolly Parton and Patrick Stewart. Why?

Everything comes back to those parasocial relationships we build with celebrities. Even if it’s masked as sentimentality, nostalgia, or whatever other niceties you want to package it in. At its core, its feeling like the loss of a life or a relationship is something that impacts us personally.

So with this year’s break ups, I think it’s the context in which they’re unfolding. It’s that they’re happening during the Fire Horse year, or the Year of the Tower, as I mentioned I’ve dubbed it. It’s the deeper contextual meaning to what these separations mean for the people leaving – or being left. And I’m no astrologer, but I do think that people who went through a really tough separation this year (read: me) are going to have a year of abundance in 2027. And while I’m not an astrologer, there are many astrologers who agree. And so much of that stems from the hardships we face this year, because this was the whole point of the year of the Fire Horse.

So often, people want the results without what causes results. We want the bodies we see on Instagram without having to sacrifice burgers and French fries, we want the Pinterest home décor without wanting to splurge on furniture, and one last timely example that hits home for me is wanting the Heidi Klum level Halloween costume without the budget, ingenuity and dedication to the bit.

A Fire Horse year, much like all of that imagery we see with the Tower card, is meant to shake the foundations that exist in your life. It’s so that you can see what – and who - is not standing strong. Whatever falls to the ground lets you know what doesn’t need to come with you into the next year. And more importantly, it clears up space for all the things – and all of the people - you’ll come to find instead.