The Significator of the Body

[abstrktion]

This is my first rendering of the hanged man. The Hanged Man of today's society may feel defeated, a puppet to the powers that run the world, yet as this life is "sacrificed", he can find his spiritual grace. I think of this archetype as having two sides: the one before the realization that he is not really a creature of this world and the one after he realizes he is a transcendent being. On the one side, he is feeling defeated because he may not have the drive to power that would win him a top job, a Barbie wife, and the perfect 2.5 kids (and he may not actually want that anyways, but he feels like he should want it, leaving him with a good deal of internal dissonance). On the other side, he comes to understand that by releasing his ambitions, fears, outcome-driven behavior, he can still be IN the world, but not OF it. He might even work at the same job--but his outlook is different, and thereby, so is his entire life.

This card makes me think a great deal of the way people misunderstood the peace Jesus intended to bring. He wasn't there to free the Jews from Rome any more than the Confederation, the harvest, etc. are coming to take out the bad guys in power in our own time. The change is internal--and when there is enough internal change, external change will be the natural outgrowth, IMO.