CARD OF THE DAY: November 22, 2021

 

The Hanged Man

from The Mary-el Tarot

by Marie White

 

November 22, 2021: For all of these Cards of the Day (or Weekend), I've been stepping aside and allowing Spirit to decide which deck we'll be working with. This practice sometimes reconnects me to decks I might not have reached for in a very long while.

Today's deck is artist Marie White's stunning Mary-el Tarot. I definitely welcome this chance to dive into the intense realm--the abyss--of Mary-el. We might spend a few more days here.

Here's why I'm not surprised that Mary-el's The Hanged Man was today's draw:

A few days ago, I watched part of an online conference in which members of DreamSeed Collective spoke about their work-in-progress: the photographic DreamSeed Oracle, which will feature a range of racial and gender diversity. They showed a few examples of their photographs, and my attention was strongly drawn to their renaming of Tarot's traditional Hanged Man as Suspension--a change meant to avoid the negative ancestral connotation of hanging for Black Americans.

Posting in the session's YouTube chat, I thanked the collective--Blaise Sparda, Malanya Graham, and Maliika Nia-Imani--for this innovative change and promised to use the name Suspension in my own practice going forward. And, sure enough, as I shuffled the Mary-el for today's card, The Hanged Man--I mean, Suspension--turned up!

The ancestors are always saying, one way or another, "We're watching. We hear you."

Here are a few more Mary-el cards for you to enjoy:

 

 

Today, Suspension asks you to pause to sacrifice--to suspend--your way of perception, thought, knowing, and decision-making based on habit, popular belief, and just plain "this is the way it has always been" or "this is what everyone else is saying/thinking; I'd better get on board." 

Suspension turns you upside down for the moment, making your intellect quietly secondary to your body and/or your body quietly secondary to the disembodied. You journey out of the known into the unknown, away from familiar paths and onto the road less traveled. And when you come back, you return with new and profound perspectives, knowledge, and ideas.

If you have felt stuck in your thinking or progress, or if you are clinging to notions simply because everyone else feels they are the One True Answer, ask yourself if it might be time to strike out for a deeper dive or a higher vantage point with a less-constricted view.

Suspension offers that necessary time out of time.

This is a good moment for me to inform you that my relationship with Spirit and Tarot leads me to understandings that, at many times, might be different from what a deck's creator had in mind. Generally speaking, I sidestep a lot of systems. And that's okay. I have taught and coached Tarot and oracle reading in that way--that you build your own relationship with the images, learning how they will work with you, rather than accepting the deck author's concepts unless, as it might happen, these concepts, systems, and techniques also work for you.

A turnabout/walkabout with Suspension in any deck is certainly one courageous way in which you can begin to build a knowing and fruitful relationship that will be unlike any other.