Life has become easier for me when I recognize that it’s both colorful and horrific. Try it. It’s nice to realize you can enjoy things when they’re going good, and when they’re not, throw up your hands with “oh well to hell” because you seriously can’t control everything. Light and shadow are always together, BFF’s = Yin/Yang.
I’ve been trying to embody this idea this week. Some brutal stuff has been coming up; blocks, holdups, and backward steps. But there is nothing I can do but hang on and surrender to the Circus Of Life.
This week, I pulled a tarot card about life’s setbacks. It was no surprise to see the Hanged One card.
I don’t think I fully understood this card when I first started reading tarot back in the day. When it appeared, my first thought was, “Okay, things are not moving, and I need to get them moving.”
But that’s not always true. Sometimes not-moving is the way forward. We perceive the earth as still, yet it is turning and moving through space. We can learn from this. Sometimes change is imperceptible. If you draw this card, ask if you’re trying to force things to happen instead of surrendering to the flow.
Tarot practitioners like Mary Greer and Rachel Pollack see this card as spiritual ascension. The hanging body is like a yogi balancing on their head. In this pose, they surrender their base (root chakra) and material desires to access divine oneness. Seeing this card can be a call to lay aside your earthly concerns and take a spiritual approach.
Other ideas explore the Hanged One as the sacrificial figure. In Holistic Tarot by Benebel Wen, she talks about the origin of the Hanged Man image being that of a thief. They are caught stealing and hung up in the town square for all to be seen. She also talks about this card representing the wrongly accused.
And I have, on occasion, found this interpretation to be accurate. Sometimes I see this card come up when there’s dishonesty surrounding the Seeker or when matters of integrity are in question.
The sacrificial meaning of this card also finds kinship with the mythos of the dying God or Deity. Both Odin and Jesus hung from a tree to reach enlightenment, for self-illumination, and for humankind’s betterment. Through his sacrifice, Odin was gifted the runes, and the divine thus offered a language for his people.
The Hanged Man is a complex card that can indicate stagnation, but more often, it’s trusting in the flow. Sometimes the greater good, for yourself and those around, requires you to suspend action and give yourself over to the discomfort that comes with sacrifice.
What is it that you need to surrender to right now?