Into the Upside-Down
Surrender/Win
An engineer by training, I tend to become too comfortable with my routines, and the careful algorithms I’ve designed to make life run smoothly. On occasion I feel compelled to throw an irrational grenade into my sterile programming.
Monday morning, seeking fresh direction, I pulled a random tarot card: “The Hanged Man,” from the modern Mary-El deck. The image seemed inevitable, as though fished up from the archaic depths of my dreams.
His body is suspended like a helpless cocoon, surrendered within a necessary pause. The card pulls me into the realm of a gothic folk ballad, its resolution still unknown.
I imagine myself held there too, in a land turned upside-down. Old perspectives need to be scrambled. To break out of a rut, I'll often turn to Surrealist paintings.
The oldest version of the Hanged Man card is found in the 15th-century Italian deck created for the wealthy Visconti-Sforza family. The figure depicted in the Visconti card is curiously serene, his gaze open, awakened to an altered perspective of the world.
He’s accepted that, for the moment, he has no control over the situation. (I’m not sure that I’ve ever managed this acceptance.) All he can do is remain calm and take the opportunity to pay attention to the flipped horizon, and the cool breeze in his hair.
Bound & helpless, the Hanged Man reminds me that my careful habits provide only the illusion of control: actually I’m terrified in the face of a chaotic universe.
If the Hanged Man is patient, something new, something he’d never have noticed from his regular standing posture, will snap into focus.
The Hanged Man image echoes the tale of the Norse god Odin, who swung from the World Tree for nine days, enduring hunger and thirst, awaiting revelation: the magickal gift of the runes. Perhaps if I’m willing to pause, and let go, then wisdom can arise.
When I pick up the pen, I always want to rush my latest essay and finish it on-schedule to a weekly deadline.
But the Hanged Man tells me no. I just have to wait…
wait with alertness…
wait with awareness…
dangling (maybe for nine days)...
until the grammar of the runes flashes bright, and meaning becomes clear.
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I love that you’re an engineer who picks up a tarot card from time to time. This is fascinating read and a wonderful curation of various cards I had no idea existed. Thank you.