Ideas: Compromise, normality, resumption
Traits: Active, calm, impatient, peaceful, protective, tolerant
Emotions: Contentment, gladness, relief, satisfaction
Ideas: Perspective, reversals, sacrifice, suspension
Traits: Contradictory, farsighted, flexible, humble, passive, patient, uncomplaining
Emotions: Eagerness, frustration, hope, optimism, uneasiness
Ideas: Blame, martyr, rescue
Traits: Conformist, fixed, obedient, sadistic, submissive, vulnerable, unappreciative
Emotions: Guilt, neglect, pity, shame, suffering, sympathy
Personal Growth
One sign of maturity is your ability to deal effectively with the unexpected. Rather than be decimated, look for the lesson. If you’re true to your own values, no disaster will get the best of you.
Relationship
What doesn’t move forward isn’t growing. If you’re hanging by a thread, it might be time to grab the scissors. If you can learn from what’s not working, do so, but don’t equate learning with having to stay.
Career
Occasionally, no amount of effort will move a project to completion; progress simply isn’t the cards, despite your best efforts. Learn from setbacks; turn disappointment into opportunity.
Spirituality
Sometimes the best action is no action at all. Suspend your need to have a hand in things. Consider, too, the value of small sacrifices. What you give away will come back to you greatly multiplied.
The Inverted Traitor
Renaissance audiences would immediately recognize a hanged man as a traitor because hanging traitors by one foot was a common practice. Are you bound to any old habits that, in this situation, betray you?
The Serpent
One occultist taught that the image of the Hanged Man was “originally” drawn right-side up, as a man stepping over a snake (thought to be a representation of the missing virtue of Prudence). What would be your most prudent course of action now?
The Halo of Enlightenment
The Marseilles Hanged Man is clearly being punished. As they mapped concepts of sacrificial enlightenment to this card, occultists added the halo. What have your own trials taught you? How might those lessons apply now?