Letting Go: The Tarot’s The Hanged Man Card

(Based on the representations found on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.)

I have been a diligent journal-keeper in many aspects of my life: general “dear diary” entries, astrological transits, and even carefully documented dreams for subsequent analysis. Yet, I have been most undisciplined in my practice of Tarot journaling. Despite the best intentions, I have never managed a documented or consistent card-of-the-day pull, or anything more detailed than a monthly analysis of the energies ahead. Perhaps it’s the impetus of the moment: after all, I typically consult the oracle when I have a burning question — a problem that’s unfolding, a lack of clarity, a dissatisfaction with the status quo — but rarely do I stop to record these encounters. I make observations in the moment — even contemplate the meanings of the cards as the situation unfolds over days or weeks — but I never reliably write down the outcomes of a Celtic Cross or Zodiac reading. It’s almost as though whatever emotional insights the oracle offers would lose their significance if I tried to commit my reflections to posterity.

For me, I wonder whether part of the struggle has to do with my growing appreciation of a Tarot practice as something more intuitive than cerebral: something deeply personal and meditative. So much of learning the Tarot for me has been about trying to put down the textbooks. I’ve abandoned note-taking and rote learning; in doing so, I committed to contemplating the cards more fully within the larger canon of personal experience and…