"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 the tree and dangles from a branch upside down like a child. For a moment, he surrenders 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.
"It seems to him that his perspective of the world has completely changed, as if his inverted position has allowed him to dangle between the mundane world and the spiritual world, able to see both. It is a dazzling moment, dreamlike yet crystal clear.
"Timeless as this moment of clarity seems, he realizes that it will not last. Very soon, he must right himself, but 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." — Source
Meditation. Fasting. Denial of Self. Vulnerability. Surrender. Openness.
"The Hanged Man . . . is totally vulnerable to the world, and in his vulnerability he has found strength. The sacrifice he has made is his own freedom and power in the physical world; in exchange, he is granted real freedom and power on the spiritual plane. He gives up his old ways of looking at things and is blessed with new eyes.
"[T]he Hanged Man also urges you to look at things in a new and different way. If your mind is yelling at you to do something, then doing nothing could be the best thing to do. If something is important to you emotionally but it no longer serves a purpose, you might want to think about letting go of it. And don't try to force anything to happen while the Hanged Man is about. By trying to force changes, you ensure that they never happen. Relax and let things happen instead of trying to interfere. Instead of fighting against the current, let it take you wherever it is flowing.
"When the Hanged Man appears, know that greater wisdom and happiness is at hand, but only if you are prepared to sacrifice something for that wisdom. Sometimes it is something physical you must be deprived of, but in most cases it is a perspective or a viewpoint that must be left behind. For example, a fantasy that you can never fulfill, or a crush on someone who's out of your reach. Inevitably, sacrificing something you value will always lead you to something even more valuable. In the wake of an unattainable dream you will find something else within your reach. Forgetting about one love will allow your heart to open to someone else."
Source
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” — Emerson
My curse is acting against intuition. Intuition tells me to do or not to do something; I do the opposite. I struggle, knowing what I should do, but I always find a way to justify my intuition as being wrong, and why I must act against my better judgement. My desire is too strong.
"Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained"
— William Blake
The will to act and to satisfy my impulses are too great, like trying to tame a wild beast let loose in my soul. In a sense, it is like an addiction, although there is no substance at hand except A) emotion and B) perhaps various neurotransmitters. There is a reason we do things: because they make us feel a certain way as we seek to pacify desire and to ease our present conditions and ailments. In so doing, we (or I) create an entirely different condition (or ailment) by the act simple of doing (against better judgement). Substituting one condition for another, when the end result is not as hoped or as expected. An act that cannot be undone.
"Once done, so it IS."
My desire is too strong to restrain.
Although I have found enlightenment in the past, and have been content many times over, the temptations brought by love and desire have clouded my judgement and caused me to act—or not act—either which turns out to not be in my self interest. Or is that true? Remember, everything happens for a reason. We act, we don't act, and in the greater scheme, the larger plan, there is a reason. In the long run, then, everything falls in to place and everything works out in what was meant to be, so maybe all actions are, in essence, in our best interest simply because everything happens for a reason, regardless if we know the reason.
"What is meant to be, will happen in the right way, with the right person, at the right time."
—Unknown
The greater wisdom and happiness that I found, many years ago, that I still have deep within, must be rediscovered, uncovered, reclaimed, because it has become covered with dust, sitting in the attic of an ancient mansion covered in cobwebs. The great wholeness, the spiritual well of peace and Enlightenment that makes my soul burst with a beauty that is inexpressible and indefinable, can only be reclaimed by hanging upside down, inverted, looking within, and re-gaining a perspective that I have allowed to lie dormant and drowned by a rush of emotions like a burst dam racing through a narrow ravine.
What is buried must be uncovered.
What is sick must be cured.
I must reclaim...myself.
~Selah
