The Hanged Man.

i'm having to make decisions. i'm trying to move in the direction that feels 'right' in the moment. i'm working on surviving. the 'cards' are falling in place.

THE HANGED MAN

Divinatory meaning
Upright - Devotion to a worthwhile cause. Temporary suspension of progress. Flexibility of mind and a willingness to adapt to changes. Sacrifice in the present to reap benefit in the future. A waiting period. Rebirth. Sacrificing one thing to obtain another. Transformation. Circumstances literally turned on their head.

Basic Card Symbols

A man hanging by one foot from a Tau cross - sometimes from a bar or tree. His free leg is always bent to form a "4," his face is always peaceful, never suffering. Sometimes his hands are bound, sometimes they dangle. Sometimes coins fall out of his pockets or hands.

Basic Tarot Story

The Fool settles beneath a tree, intent on finding his spiritual self. There he stays for nine days, without eating, barely moving. People pass by him, animals, clouds, the wind, the rain, the stars, sun and moon. On the ninth day, with no conscious thought of why, he climbs a branch and dangles upside down like a child, giving up for a moment, all that he is, wants, knows or cares about. Coins fall from his pockets and as he gazes down on them - seeing them not as money but only as round bits of metal - everything suddenly changes perspective. It is as if he's hanging between the mundane world and the spiritual world, able to see both. It is a dazzling moment, dreamlike yet crystal clear. Connections he never understood before are made, mysteries are revealed.

But timeless as this moment of clarity seems, he realizes that it will not last. Very soon, he must right himself, and when he does, things will be different. He will have to act on what he's learned. For now, however, he just hangs, weightless as if underwater, observing, absorbing, seeing.

Basic Tarot Meaning

With Neptune (or Water) as its planet, the Hanged Man is perhaps the most fascinating card in the deck. It reflects the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Hanging from the world tree, wounded by a spear, given no bread or mead, he hung for nine days. On the last day, he saw on the ground runes that had fallen from the tree, understood their meaning, and, coming down, scooped them up for his own. All knowledge is to be found in these runes.

The Hanged Man, in similar fashion, is a card about suspension, not life or death. This is a time of trial or meditation, selflessness, sacrifice, prophecy. The Querent stops resisting; instead he makes himself vulnerable, sacrifices his position or opposition, and in doing so, gains illumination. Answers that eluded him become clear, solutions to problems are found. He sees the world differently, has almost mystical insights. This card can also imply a time when everything just stands still, a time of rest and reflection before moving on. Things will continue on in a moment, but for now, they float, timeless.

The World is upon me...

Death.. is upon me. As the heavens fall in-to place
themselves on me. The earth with molten rock glistens against its pale side, side by side the Planets play their games among us. Swing to the melody of Love as it bleeds from hearts sunken into the World's burning core from out of those Bodies who could no longer bear the weight of saliva, tear, and confusion. Stars and bodies magnified through doorways and peepholes, fall upon me. fall upon me. Weight is upon me. Light is upon me. Death is upon me. Fall on me. Bright. White. Light.



The field of science which we call The Cosmogony and which has been taken up by the alchemists, was actually an eclectic Cosmology based on Aristotle's concept about the Universe, which was somehow influenced by both Jewish-Christian and Gnostic religious ideas. The alchemists used to consider that the emanation of Light within the primal Chaos divided the four elements which finally were situated according to their weight: the soil (earth) in the centre then, the water, the air, and the fire.

the burning world, swans.


Swans
The River That Runs With Love Won't Run Dry :
Oh My Father He Was Born Beneath The Water
And My Mother She Was Born To No One's Daughter
And I, I Was Born Beneath The Dying Sun
Born From The Mouth Of A River That Would Not Run Dry
La La La La La La La La La Lie
La La La La La La La La La Lie
Oh The River That Runs With Love It Won't Run Dry
La La La La La La La La La Lie
Well I Awoke This Morning In The Blackest Night
And A Million Stars Were Aching In The Sullen Sky
And I Heard The Great Machines As They Bled And Cried
And I Saw The End Of The World, I Had No Question Why
La La La La La La La La La Lie
La La La La La La La La La Lie
Hold On To The One You Love And Kiss Her Before She Dies
Oh The River That Runs With Love It Won't Run Dry
Oh My Father Made The Water When He Cried
But The River That Runs With Love It Won't Run Dry
And The Sun Will Burn A Hole In The Purple Sky
But The River That Runs With Love It Won't Run Dry

Idioms

Netherlandish Proverbs, by Pieter Breugel

i can only take what is in front of me now and do my best with it.

what a word!

the sea ends, there, the mud, begins, i don't really know what ends or begins first, though i think the sea never ends, and you can get married in it. we trudge a little further, my shoes are stuck, i want to take them off, we are sinking, we fall, on each other, our shoes come off, while falling. it feels so good to feel you again, its been so long, i can almost remember all i have memorized, in the past, in our past, past our present, passed but not forgotten, into our times together, past this land, past this sea, this mud, the olive trees, the little stone homes, the stretch of water, reaching the town, this mud, this mud, this quagmire..................................

(thanks Laimah. i love your sense of language and sarcasm. if it weren't for ridicule, i'd be taking myself way too seriously.)

Leave-ing

what will the falling leaves bring this year? their crunching, floating, descent to nowhere? onto the dry earth, under our uneasy steps, bloating after the coming never-ending rains (if they even survive that long)?

i as well plummet from life.
i, also, change color and can hang on no more.
i, just as well, gently flutter onto the ground
where i feel alone, and unsure, yet have a certainty and visual image of myself turned to dust.

it is approaching. and i wonder what it will bring.

Albert Camus' ideas on the Absurd

In his essays Camus presented the reader with dualisms: happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc. His aim was to emphasize the fact that happiness is fleeting and that the human condition is one of mortality. He did this not to be morbid, but to reflect a greater appreciation for life and happiness. In Le Mythe, this dualism becomes a paradox: We value our lives and existence so greatly, but at the same time we know we will eventually die, and ultimately our endeavours are meaningless. While we can live with a dualism (I can accept periods of unhappiness, because I know I will also experience happiness to come), we cannot live with the paradox (I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless). In Le Mythe, Camus was interested in how we experience the Absurd and how we live with it. Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves?

Meursault, the Absurdist hero of L'Étranger, is a murderer who is executed for his crime. Caligula ends up admitting his Absurd logic was wrong and is killed by an assassination he has deliberately brought about. However, while Camus possibly suggests that Caligula's Absurd reasoning is wrong, the play's anti-hero does get the last word, as the author similarly exalts Meursault's final moments.

Camus' understanding of the Absurd promotes public debate; his various offerings entice us to think about the Absurd and offer our own contribution. Concepts such as cooperation, joint effort and solidarity are of key importance to Camus.

Camus made a significant contribution to a viewpoint of the Absurd, and always rejected nihilism as a valid response.

"If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning." Second Letter to a German Friend, December 1943.

What still had meaning for Camus is that despite humans being subjects in an indifferent and "absurd" universe, in which meaning is challenged by the fact that we all die, meaning can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by our own decisions and interpretations.

Deckage, not Wreckage

14th century



Bodet Tarot

what beautiful decks. i'm not super into Tarot-ing, but am becoming more and more curious of it on some levels. symbolism, art, historical, social, political meaning and backgrounds...

the Marseilles Tarot predates the Rider Waite deck by about 200 years.

The Fool

playing cards...

lyrics

Patti Smith

Pissing in a River

Pissing in a river, watching it rise
Tattoo fingers shy away from me
Voices voices mesmerize
Voices voices beckoning sea
Come come come come back come back
Come back come back come back

Spoke of a wheel, tip of a spoon
Mouth of a cave, I'm a slave I'm free.
When are you coming ? Hope you come soon
Fingers, fingers encircling thee
Come come come come come come
Come come come come come come for me oh

My bowels are empty, excreting your soul
What more can I give you ? Baby I don't know
What more can I give you to make this thing grow?
Don't turn your back now, I'm talking to you

Should I pursue a path so twisted ?
Should I crawl defeated and gifted ?
Should I go the length of a river
[The royal, the throne, the cry me a river]
Everything I've done, I've done for you
Oh I give my life for you.
Every move I made I move to you,
And I came like a magnet for you now.

What about it, you're gonna leave me,
What about it, you don't need me,
What about it, I can't live without you,
What about it, I never doubted you
What about it ? What about it ?
What about it ? What about it ?

Should I pursue a path so twisted ?
Should I crawl defeated and gifted ?
Should I go the length of a river,
[The royal, the throne, the cry me a river]
What about it, what about it, what about it ?
Oh, I'm pissing in a river.

"wreck"

i pulled so many awful weeds today. it was fun and it felt good. there is a tight network traveling underground, twisted and tangled and tied in knots. i told my new client to let me know if i take too long in an area because i like to work thoroughly. i like to dig and pull as deeply and as much as possible.
i know i have planted it. i know it is gigantic. and twisted and tangled and tight and knotted and deep and sore. infected possibly. but my longing for you is so huge in the desire to keep the wreckage from growing. green/symbol for growth, and possibly birth. red/the blood the pain the throbbing soreness the..words which you may only have.. , yet compliments, and gives life to, the green as it deepens with chlorophyll.

complimetary colors:

(word of the day week month..........)

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -

wreck

–noun

1.	any building, structure, or thing reduced to a state of ruin.

2.	wreckage, goods, etc., remaining above water after a shipwreck, esp. when cast ashore.

3.	the ruin or destruction of a vessel in the course of navigation; shipwreck.

4.	a vessel in a state of ruin from disaster at sea, on rocks, etc.

5.	the ruin or destruction of anything: the wreck of one's hopes.

6.	a person of ruined health; someone in bad shape physically or mentally: The strain of his work left him a wreck.

–verb (used with object)

7.	to cause the wreck of (a vessel); shipwreck.

8.	to involve in a wreck.

9.	to cause the ruin or destruction of: to wreck a car.

10.	to tear down; demolish: to wreck a building.

11.	to ruin or impair severely: Fast living wrecked their health.

–verb (used without object)

12.	to be involved in a wreck; become wrecked: The trains wrecked at the crossing.

13.	to act as a wrecker; engage in wrecking.

---

[Origin: 1200–50; (n.) ME wrec, wrech, wrek <>wrækæ wreck; (v.) late ME, deriv. of the n.]

—Synonyms 9. destroy, devastate, shatter.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Interpretations.

we will, i will, we shall, dive into the wreck of the world caused and crowded upon nothing but our own mistakes and misfortunes and reasons and interpretations. we will, i will, we shall, take it upon ourselves to hold these findings in our palms and rest them then upon our hearts.

this is all... i shall, will, say... willed and ready to dive

Adrienne Rich
Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. interpretations. make. or break. or matter. or not. read. re-read. do. un-do. the speaker, made androgynous in diving gear, goes underwater to hunt "the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth", and identifies with those drowned and silenced as much as the diver who finds them and can, must, report back to the world above. poetryarchive Added by: Connor Crazy piece about how men and women are both casualties of a confused sexuality. It's about viewing the corpse objectively, as neither a man nor a woman (the corpse, also is androgenous) and dispelling old myths. Cool stuff. Added by: kevin This poem is really about an individual finding themselves. The entire metaphor is the diver and the ship wreck. A person protects themselves before seeking their self-discovery with all of the diving gear because of the unknown. A person will always discover a "wreck" in their past but most look past that for the treasures that have been buried away. The last couple stanzas speak of how we are all together in this feat of self-discovery and we must always seek our past and ourselves in ORDER to create our future. Feminism 2003-04-18 Added by: SFitz Rich was a Civil Rights and anti-war activist in the 60s. She consistently intertwines politics and poetry. This poem was written in 1973, and is about the feminist struggle. She is alone in this journey to the depths of the earth, to a place pre-civilization, yet she has the comfort of knowing others before her have taken the same journey. It is a journey that must be taken alone, although in much of Rich's writing she refers to a group of people, or even society as a whole, as one. The wreck is the damage that has been done over hundreds, thousands of years that has led to the oppression or at least the inequality of women, and a patriarchal society. Her book of myths are the falsities instilled in the minds of those in Western society, including gender roles, which she disspells when she incorporates both man and woman into her body. The book of myths ("in which our names do not appear") may also be the Bible, seeing as how women are portrayed as the root of sin and men as our Lord and saviors. Main idea of the poem: "I came to explore the wreck... the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail...I am she: I am he." Basically, to achieve an ideal world, one would have to travel backward to a time before humans existed (since gender roles began in theory with Adam and Eve the creator of sin) and we would have to start EVERYTHING over from scratch- "And besides/ you breathe differently down here." We would have to create a society minus gender roles and become one people- "the one who find our way back to this scene." universal poem 2004-01-21 Added by: JDog I strongly disagree with SFitz's comments on Feminism. Though it was true that Adrienne was a strong fighter for women's rights, I believe she was aiming for a more universal idea. The line "we circle silently about the wreck" depicts that the character has not gone to change anything, but to solely observe "the evidence of the damage". The person can't change what has already been done, and may only "stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank". This dive is not to ridicule or change, but mainly to explore and gain knowledge. a thought on the necessity of writing in the first 2004-05-09 Added by: neil mulligan Rich has written this poem in the first person and as an extended metaphor for several reasons. Firstly, and act like a dive is a very personal and individual experience which can be very challenging and scary. This is why Rich’s quest into the patriarchal world of fifties and sixties America is represented so adequately by the metaphor. Also she is writing this poem as part of the feminist movement, and there are sure to be thousands of other women wishing to follow in her footsteps. For this reason I think it is important that she be writing in the first person as if to say that this is what I have done, and even though, as the metaphor suggests, it was not easy, so can you the reader. Right from the start of this poem, Rich talks about reading the book of myths which I think alludes to the patriarchal state of America, she has first read this book (or worried about the reality of the male orientated world) and then prepared to get her diving gear on and go and see if the wreck matches up the myth (or go into the real world as a feminist to see what difference she can make or treasure she can find). The conclusion of the poem therefore talks of finding a way back to the wreckage carrying that same book of myths, only this time ‘our names do not appear’. The significance of this line is that having engaged on this personal conquest, the myth of the male orientated world no longer applies to her, and all those who read with her and ‘dived’ with her. The myth has been quashed by the symbolic and brave actions of ‘rolling up of sleeves’ and getting in there and fighting for equality. First person in this poem is the most apt style to write such a propaganda-based poem. The most essential idea I believe that Adrienne Rich needed to get across was that I have done it and now so can you. This could only be achieved by writing in the first person. thanks you guys at plagiarist.com i have benefited from you greatly. 2004-10-25 Added by: Amanda The first line of the poem reveals a book of myths. I believe the book she carries contains the societal myths that separate men and women. She also carries a knife to maybe cut away the past and a camera to record the new one she hopes to discover. She dives into the wreck, the mess this battle of the sexes created, hoping to write new myths, of love and passion in order to heal humanity. Also, she dives to discover maybe the truth behind these myths. I think Adrienne is the speaker of this piece, and she is gearing up to redefine the roles of men and women and to look beyond gender. She’s alone in this piece, signifying that maybe sometimes she feels alone in her fight towards equality for women in a male dominated world. When she gets down there she finds a corpse that is also treasure. Line 83 I think refers to her and maybe all women. She sees a piece of herself in the corpse, herself as a dominated woman under the “curse” of a patriarchal world. I think what the speaker intends to say that she is surviving this wreck. Lines 34-36 and 50-51 give me the feeling that maybe she is in a daze or blacking out, but still holds some kind of control. I’ve been diving before and it is sort of a surreal world down there, even ways we would move or even communicate are different. The power her mask contains is symbolic, as it pumps her full of power while she is diving. 2005-05-22 Added by: Jaysto'

Tracing the Steps of Our Ancestors

the Human Journey
(the Genographic Project)

Omo River

Sunset with You Whom I Have Drowned

want to find a strand
thats shimmered in dew.
I want to lay us there
under pinks and yellows
and blues.


Hold out hand, Take hand in.
Grant me thy wine,
a plain and simple sin.

Kiss thy cheek, Hold thy neck,
Run my fingers
round and round our wreck.

"My longing for you- exceeds the pain I've planted."
(underground) the roots send shoots of green
with red complimented.

We wait we watch we drip our saliva raw,
from words we have spoken to those we have thought,
and soon as the sun shines onto our silhouettes again,
I give you this promise with witness Ocean.

"Rosemary (for Remembrance)..."

(memories of death and rebirth. love and madness. )
Ophelia distributes symbolic flowers to Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes. Columbines were associated with marital infidelity, daisies with faithfulness, fennel with flattery, rosemary with remembrance, and rue with repentance.

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--"

-Ophelia, Hamlet, Act IV Scene V

painting of Ophelia, by Sir John Everett Millais.
character of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet

Rosemary has been used as a symbol for remembrance since ancient times. it appeared at various ceremonies including weddings and funerals. at weddings it was worn by newlyweds as a sign of love, fidelity, and remembrance of vows exchanged. at funerals, as remembrance of love and friendship. it has also been used to ward off evil spirits and nightmares.
Recent studies have been conducted about the carnosic acid contained in rosemary which is believed to aid in memory. (Drugs from carnosic acid are being created for Alzheimer's Disease and other neurodegenerative brain disorders)

and so the fairytale goes.......

i was taught, all along, through tunnels of moisture and ivy and mold, that it is wrong. to love more than one person at a time. and love, as an act, a verb, an action. wrong, wrong to love my father and my mother, simultaneously. and so i love him more. who do you love more? i remember being asked this many times. how gross. my mother was.

"but is it love?" no, its an act-ion. he was there for you more, until his brain burst and took you in on his demons, flying the dark night with him- the way he'd sit with his black eyes under the fluorescent lighting late at night. unmoving. unchanging. yet i knew, and feared, the demon would again fly out of his eyes and come and attack me for being me.

and wasn't that so different than the grape soda and slurpies he'd buy me before taking me under his wing to work all day with him as a servant tending other people's beautiful landscapes? so so different, than when she'd mock him about "spoiling" me. and i became spoiled. rotted putridly as it now pours out of me in the ways that i love, un-love, fear, act dumb, shy away, cover my eyes, do hurtful things to myself and others.

its not ok. to feel love for you. its not ok, but only ok, to feel love for me. but what if i want to extend it? no, not allowed. NOW now i want it. now i am guilty for loving wrong. for lying right, for being a liar, for being a hurtful slob. now. after i gave up the option deep in my gut, that it was safe to love you alone.

but how can you get rid of a family member? you can't. they're always there. they will always be there. they will always be present. present un-present. loving un-loving. -ly.
i give up. on it all. whats the point in proving i've always cared and i am an ugly beast borne out of the belly of blood and mud and - thats even too good.
everything i do is wrong. everyway i do it is wrong. everything i feel is wrong. everyway i feel it is wrong. you'll never know. you'll never understand. till you look at yourself more closely. i am the same "why are you so good??" person.
that proves there's an imbalance i heard. someone telling you that.
and in the end,
the "too-good" person fucks up hugely and they are the evil one.
and everyone lives...... to die.....