Liminal/New Liminal Tarot - Hanged One

[Bodhiseed]

 

12 – Hanged One

 

With his/her feet tied to a tree branch, a person hangs upside down. They are surrounded by a golden cocoon of light and hold an ouroboros in the shape of the number eight.

 

The Fool has learned about himself, about relationships and society. These interactions with his environment have helped shape his self-identity (also known as the ego*).  He has developed a concept of me/you, us/them, and formed beliefs that shape his choices. He has strategies for reaching goals and the self-confidence to deal with day-to-day life. Nothing seems too big for him to manage or control - until life intervenes to prove him wrong. He suddenly finds himself in a situation over which he is powerless, yet still he struggles to bargain or bulldoze his way out of his misery. He’s determined he can outsmart and outmaneuver reality. Exhausted, he finally surrenders to the underlying natural order of the Universe, but then a strange thing happens: he finds peace. He illustrates the Master in the Tao Te Ching who shines with radiance (Chapter 21) because her mind has ceased to push against the river’s current. “How can her mind be at one with it? Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.”  His ego’s thimbleful of explanations has given way to an oceanic spaciousness (the symbol of infinity and boundlessness); he has surrendered to a more profound wisdom. He now sees from a different, much wider perspective than his original self-centered one.

[*The English word ‘ego’ is Latin for ‘I.’]

 

“Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving

till the right action arises by itself?”

~Tao Te Ching, chapter 15

 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Bodhiseed