The fool has passed the centre point of his walk through the tarot. He’s taken courage from the strength card, ideas for progress from the hermit and walked through the veil behind justice. Now the path gets tricky.
His only consolation is the man looks peaceful. His legs are almost balletic in their pose while he wears a golden halo of light. The card doesn’t look painful or uncomfortable, just very strange.
The card suggests a reversal of our usual upright stance. The suspension has the appearance of someone defying natural gravity. Seeing the world in a different way.
The structure from which he’s suspended is alive with buds and leaves. Despite his upside down appearance, a turn of the natural order, the hanged man’s feet are attached to a living tree.
He remains rooted in life. This is no death sentence or punshment; it’s a temporary pause.
But why a tree?
The tree has long been a symbol of life – hence the tree of life found in multiple belief systems.
Christianity has one in the Garden of Eden. In Islam there’s the Tree of Immortality. Buddhism has the Bodhi tree and in Hinduism it’s a Banyan tree. The 10 Sefirot, or powers in the divine realm, are interconnected paths on the Jewish Kabbalah’s tree of life.
Why is the man hanging upside down?
While connections between trees and spirituality go back a long way, the hanged man also has multiple origins. Many tarot enthusiasts believe card 12 links to the world tree Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, where Odin hung upside down for 9 days and nights to obtain wisdom.
Historically, inverted hanging was used for criminals. In some packs, such as the Italian Genovean tarot, the card was called the traitor, while the number 12 has associations with the biblical story of Judas. To be hung upside down was a popular method of execution, in particular in medieval Europe where the images first emerged in the mid 14th century.
Since then, the hanged man design has scarcely changed.
Being upside down, by hanging or balancing on your head, is part of eastern yoga traditions where it’s alleged to have health benefits. Practitioners of the occult believe the position helps release the drivers of desire, which can then be transformed into spiritual energy.
The fool has met a few difficult cards.
He’s now on the other side of the veil behind justice, but despite the card appearing bizarre and unexpected, there’s a simplicity which appeals to him. The wheel of fortune emphasised the ups and downs of life and the fool feels he’s found someone who understands how to deal with the unpredictable. The man appears calm, unbothered.
Somewhere beyond the trials and tribulations of life, he has found an inner peace.
Why the man is suspended and for whatever purpose, the fool likes this sense of tranquility. He looks, watches, and realises this might be the time to learn surrender.
Where can he start?
Card 12 should be interpreted symbolically rather than literally.
The current path through line 2, the unconscious, has been encouraging the fool to look inwards for answers but the hanged man still requires action. The fool has to let go of what he can’t change.
To focus instead on how he responds.
Few people want to witness the darker aspects of life such as war, destruction and cruelty, but too often there’s a lack of practical steps we can take to stop it happening.
We also can’t change the psychological effects of our past, but it’s always possible to explore the damage and find tools to help our recovery.
The hanged man represents acceptance of spiritual awakening. Every card the fool has met on his walk through the tarot has been leading him to this moment. He’s learned to deconstruct the world he lives in and begun the long inner process of finding himself.
It’s not been easy and the hanged man calls for the fool to stop a while.
It’s not asking him to understand every single detail on the previous cards, but it does signify acceptance.
This might well mean being different to the crowd and turning away from social and cutural expectations. The fool needs to discover ways to be himself while retaining the love of those who care for him, but don’t follow his new path.
He’s learning to find himself and the hanged man represents the experience of instinctively knowing how the right choices feel.
The card is strength made manifest. The hermit has shown the fool he needs to withdraw in order to seek knowledge which can only be found on the inside. Either through solo meditation and mindfulness, or finding a group of like minded people whose texts and beliefs feel right for him.
The hanged man is the outcome of the hermit‘s teaching. It shows the fool a genuine experience of being the still point in the turning wheel of fortune.
While others may feel pushed and pulled by external events, the fool has stepped through the veil behind justice and found the potential for balance.
The hanged man offers the opportunity he needs to pause and reflect on all he’s learned so far.
As well as changing how he sees the world, the fool also needs to accept others will have world views that feel right for them, even if he doesn’t agree with their outlooks or behaviours.
When his walk through the tarot has ended, he might well return to people he once knew. He’ll be excited and want others to discover the journey for themselves, especially if he can see they’re having problems coping with their own lives.
Everyone has their own path. So long as it harms no one, the fool must let them continue, rather than persuade them to follow his own footsteps and become a proselytizer.
What works for him is unique and personal.
The hanged man is showing it’s possible to be content with being different. The more the fool experiences the hanged man’s inner peace, the more it will give him the additional strength to face the cards to come.
There are two more cards on this line of the unconscious self, then it’s time to face the third row, where he’ll need to dig deep into his subconscious.
Some of these cards will be harder than anything he’s experienced so far, but step by step, his knowledge and resilience is growing.
The next card the fool will meet is death.
Join us on the next step of this walk through the tarot.
images my own, copyright free from wikipedia commons or from https://pixabay.com/
