The Hanged Man

The image of the Hanged Man may imply much from cultural lore, from Buddha and the Bo Tree, to Zhuangzi’s Bao Jiao, Jesus, Judas, Peter, or even Houdini. These are not central to the modern image, although Odin hanging from the world-tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days to discover the runes comes close. This is not a named figure. It’s possibly an act of expiation, someone atoning for a sin or a crime, whether driven to this by contrition or penitence, or involuntarily receiving a punishment. If this is redemption, it would imply a debt to be paid that soon will be. If this is correction, it appears to be welcome, or even a relief. Maybe there is hope that humiliation becomes humility, as dignity and pride are stripped away. It may be time for sober reflection, a time to admit, as is done in 12-step recovery, that ‘my best thinking brought me here,’ and begin the rehabilitation, now that the bottom has been reached, now that how low you can go may be known a bit better. But atonement is only one account of this image. More centrally, it’s the welcoming of a chance to change our ways, or quite literally, our point of view, as our world is turned upside down. This might also be a voluntary act of sacrifice, though most of our thinking regarding sacrifice is wrong-headed. Giving something up to get something better is not sacrifice at all. Sacrifice as a trading up in value is just buying something cheaply. The word means to make sacred, and it isn’t about getting at all. It’s about saying thank you instead of asking for more. The Hanged Man could be offering himself up for the benefit or use of the others, for some idea of a higher power, or for a higher purpose, something greater or something more long-lived than himself. This card could also refer to a needed time out, a temporary suspension of our goal- directed activity. This might be a bit extreme without having a higher purpose or end in mind, like Buddha’s vow under the Bo Tree, to not to move again until enlightened. But even simple delays, detours, and changes of plan can provide perfect times to broaden our perspectives. Turning ourselves around, resetting our priorities, reevaluat- ing our values, or checking out surprising new orientations, can be radical, life- changing events. Such tests of our patience and understanding can show us how free our minds can be, and how flexible our directions. We can move ourselves around as if we were water. Central to the attitude needed here is acceptance. Like water, we accept the place we find ourselves in and submit ourselves to its shape. We accept reality as it is, instead of what we wish it to be. This is not the same thing as approving of reality as it is, or wanting things to stay this way. This is merely starting our process of adapting from a place of more perfect realism, so that if we do decide to change things, our efforts are based on the facts of the matter instead of our fantasies and delusions. We may even find unexpected advantage in having our course redirected. This is also the card of our higher unitive or oceanic states, the mystic’s truth, the great embrace, attunement to cosmic rhythms, an infinite plenum as our source and destination, and together with this, the prerequisite dissolution of our ego, and perhaps even human exceptionalism. The self must stop its endless fussing over itself. The fake mysticism of the new age cannot get over its narcissism. We must lose our self- importance, humble ourselves down to an appropriate size to really get the perspective. There still remains the question of how much reason or logic we’re allowed to pack for the trip. Certainly for the duration we must let go of our baggage and luggage, our burdens and our parcels, our prior beliefs and disbeliefs, in order to get where we’re going. There are goals that require a self, and selflessness costs us these, at least for a time. It doesn’t matter if annihilation of the self is in the beloved divine or in the tortured calculations of astrophysics. At least we get a break from our smallness and may find something great where we might be of some service. The more serious among us can take a shamanic route and break our heads open with elucidogens. Mescalito, Teonanacatl, Mother Aya, Alice D. and the Bwiti all have lessons for us if we have the courage to simply lay back and welcome the learning. We don’t want to try this without some good guidance and reasons to trust the process, but to really know the water we need to melt ourselves down. The Yijing counterpart used here is Bagua 0, Kun, Accepting or The Receptive. Not all of our surrendering needs be so grandly transpersonal. Sometimes this just means waiting a little longer than you’re prepared to wait. Maybe it’s minor revisions in thinking that cease to be scary. Just a little loss of self, or a little gain in unselfish- ness, can help change a mind going bad, or off in the wrong direction. The search for deeper meanings seems like such a scary thing to those who can only be upright and full of themselves. Sometimes it just helps to turn over and dump this stuff out. Changing our minds, breaking our habits, upending old patterns, reversing our attitudes, flip-flopping our opinions, rethinking all that we are, thinking outside the box, reprogramming our own minds, will no doubt get others to point and wag their fingers and tongues, like they do at that poor guy hung upside down in the plaza. And yet this can get us unstuck. The only real humiliation and shame is when we prefer old errors and faulty perspectives to a little social discomfort.