Divi-Nation--The Hanged Man

The reason I call this Divi-Nation is because I think this nation would benefit from a little more of the Divine. Tarot reading is one of the many forms of divination, which just means seeing the Divine, i.e. God, in everyday things, whether they be cards, clouds, coffee grounds, or toenail clippings. (I have never personally met anyone who used toenail clippings as a divining art but there's always a first time.)

The point is that Spirit will take any opportunity to communicate, and the communication is phrased in a way that the intended recipient can understand and know that it's meant for him. It seems hard to believe that reality can be manipulated like that, or that anyone, dead or alive, would bother, but apparently there is not a lot to do on the Other Side ;-)). Just kidding. According to Sylvia Browne, there is even more to do there than here. It's like, over here, we're kids playing on the ground, getting messy and flinging our toys around and generally creating chaos, and they're trying to clean up after us AND go on with their own lives.

What I want to talk about today is the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man is not as gruesome as it sounds, he is actually suspended by one foot, with the other foot on the inside of his knee in a kind of yogic position. I often sleep in that position so I don't think it's strictly yoga, but it's very comforting actually.

The reason I bring that up is that it's really not that uncomfortable a position. The Hanged Man is not in agony. He didn't necessarily choose to be strung up by one foot, but he's down with it (literally).

In the spirit of acting like all cards are all good, I could say that this is a fantastic card, but I'd be lying. It is not a bad card. This card is about forced inactivity. It could be an injury, emotional or physical, it could be financial, but oftentimes it's just circumstance. Your hands are tied. You are locked into a certain set of circumstances and there is, for the moment, no way out.

I was asked once in a class what my greatest fear was and I thought about it and said, "Being trapped." I think that probably many people feel this way, otherwise prison wouldn't be a form of punishment. And The Hanged Man is definitely trapped. He is at the mercy of everything and everyone that he encounters or, more precisely, that encounters him.

He is not completely helpless, since his hands and one leg are free. He's not Braveheart, tied down with his guts being ripped out. He can defend himself to some extent, he just can't escape.

All he can do is wait for release, for Deus ex Machina to sever his bonds and let him go on his path, hungrier and maybe a little wiser, with a renewed sense of gratitude for life as a free person.

I'm sure each one of us can think of times when the Hanged Man has been a very strong energy in our lives. I recently had that card come up again and again, as I struggled with very long and difficult health issues. I felt like I was a prisoner of my body and my identity. I just wanted to disappear, teleport out, reincarnate as any old thing, and just completely forget about this particular existence. But I was trapped. And the crazy thing is, I had moments of lucidity where I was actually grateful for my imprisonment.

For the first time, I felt ok about not doing the things I didn't want to do but would have felt obliged to otherwise. We all have things we do out of a sense of obligation, and that's fine, unless those things outweigh the things we do because we want to do them. Life is not meant to be one long schlep. So for basically the first time in my life, I was able to practice taking care of myself, not because I wanted to, but because I had no other choice.

The Hanged Man manifests in so many ways. It's a Time-Out. It's being stuck in a crappy situation that gives you time to rest up for when you're free again, which you will be, sooner or later. It gives you time to think about how you got into that crappy situation. It gives you a chance to develop a very strong desire to never get yourself into that crappy situation again.

It is a fun energy? No. It's a total drag. But it's not painful, it's not lethal, and if you look at it from the right perspective (i.e., upside-down), it can be a chance to just literally hang out, take the weight off, realign those vertebrae, and think, or dream, or whatever you want to do. Because the Hanged Man has no responsibilities or social obligations. His only duty is to survive, and live to fight another day.