Initiation and Shifting Perspectives

Exploration of the Hanged One

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Dear ones,

If you are a new subscriber, a special WELCOME! We are returning to the exploration of the major arcana of the tarot. Today’s post is about the Archetype of the Hanged One.

So off we go… And Love to all!

The Hanged One

In our current day and age, now more than ever, how important it is to consider the lens in which we are looking through. Is it free from the filters and distortions of calcified beliefs, conditioning and disinformation that imprison the soul? If not, then what is needed?

Life may just be knocking on the door of your heart, the Universe tapping on your shoulder. Offering to clear away this grit. Are you listening, will you heed this call? Or just chalk it up to some sort of heartburn.

In the traditional Hanged Man (middle card) we see a man who has responded to the summons. He is hanging upside down, in an old-style punishment, yet here there is a peaceful expression. Suggesting he has chosen this position as a form of self-sacrifice. His crossed leg signifying the trinity of the body, mind and spirit. Suspended in deep mediation, a halo is around his head indicating new insight and awareness.

Most tarot cards have a picture of someone who is inverted. Yet there are other visual interpretations. From the Oneness Tarot, hot air balloons signify a need to change one’s point of view to get a fuller perspective. In the Witch’s Sister tarot, it is about initiation. To meet the white stag a sacrifice is called for.

In our face-paced world, we are bombarded with advertising, propaganda, and constant stimulus. Influenced by our traumas and molding from our past. The brain counters by developing a filter system that picks up the familiar and comfortable. Yet these offsets can become the deep trenches we travel in. Where our outlook becomes polarized. Fixed in our opinions and behaviors. Sometimes advantageously, many times detrimentally.

Shifting Perspectives

Photo by Vincent VanZalin, Unsplash

To climb out of the trenches a wakeup call is needed. So, when beckoned how will you answer? Will you go voluntarily or involuntarily into the grey scale of the liminal? Surrendering to the wisdom of life or waiting for a cataclysmic event to do the job? Whether by choice or not, it’s about pausing, entering a time of inactivity, being patient. Devotionally uncovering the deeper truths within the labyrinth of paradox and contradiction. Opening to new panoramas, expanding into greater empathy and compassion as the needed breakthrough.

There are various ways to change one’s point of view. Try something new, switch up your environment, go somewhere you have never been before, ground and meditate. Here are two more suggestions, ones that really work well for me.

CREATE

Making art whether by taking a photo, writing a poem or painting a canvas requires the artist/viewer to see the landscape, person, animal, object or topic with a sensitive eye. Developing perceptual skills takes commitment, to see both the big picture and the details. Seeing how the light is reflecting, how the resulting shadows are cast. Taking note of the textures, colors, angles and shapes. What mood is being felt. New horizons can unfold this way.

CONTEMPLATE, ASK YOURSELF

What would it be like…

• to be a cloud, a raindrop or a redwood tree?

• to see the world through the eyes of a hawk? A bird of prey with the best visual acuity out of the whole animal kingdom!

• to perceive your life from another’s point of view? What would they see?

• to shapeshift into a earthworm? An essential creature that tills the dirt, aerates the ground and creates nutrient rich soil.

• to change lives with someone, for just one day? Who would you choose and what do you feel you would learn?

Surrender

Photo by Klara Kulikova, Unsplash

For myself I see the hanged one as an invitation to let go of the blinders that keep me compliant and complacent. This myopic view that keeps me plowing through life, unquestioning. Here, I am being asked to look behind the curtain to see the wizard’s tricks and manipulations. By entering a suspended state, I become more available, seeing into the deeper realities of life. Truth may not always be accommodating, yet I would rather see it than be blind. I may go in kicking and fighting, but I come out transformed from communing with the sacred.

Some aspect of my being
is always crumbling away.
An ongoing evolution
of falling apart 
in order to fall open.
Dying as deep surrender,
the labor pains of transformation.

Extracted dross
becomes compost fodder.   
Fertilizing new seeds of
longing…
Callings that must be 
attended to and followed.
A dying away to make space
for birthing.

Initiation

Shifting perspectives requires sacrifice, the ability to look at difficult issues, to see what hides in the corners of our being. A forgoing of control; this will that pushes or resists.

Ceremonies, rites of passage and rituals can be a huge support. What is life changing are shamanic initiations, like the last card from the Pythonic Tarot, where we see Innana hanging from a meat hook. Innana’s journey into the underworld is an epic tale from four millenniums ago. Translations from the Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna. Innana is both queen and goddess, well-loved and honored by her people. Here is a very brief recounting…

“From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below.”

Innana begins to hear whispers, summoning her to take a journey into the underworld. To see, understand and experience this place of darkness and death that is ruled by her sister Ereshkigal. Eventually following this entreaty, she must first pass through seven gates, symbolic as the seven chakras. At each gate she is asked to relinquish an adornment, like her crown, breastplate and cloak. With each submission Innana is stripped of her powers and status. Every surrender her power drained. Till she can barely crawl through the seventh gate, both naked and vulnerable. Met by Ereshkigal’s eye of death, Innana dies. Her sister then places Innana on a meat hook, left there to rot.

There is much more to this tale. In the end after meeting her shadow, Innana does die, but isn’t there always some form of passing away to be reborn. Eventually Innana is rescued, resurrected and returns to the “Great Above” forever transformed by her experience. Like myths and archetypes, this story can be applied to our own lives as well.

Questions for you:

• What are you prepared to give up to uncover the innermost truths within?

• What are you willing to undertake to follow your deepest callings?

• What are ways in which you shift your perspective?

Would love to know your thoughts and feelings. Let’s have a conversation…

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