The Tarot Asks: Are you in suspense?
Reading by Rahne Alexander
“A defensive posture may feel natural, but this is not a time for defense, particularly if we are capable of holding on to the clarity that our previous dangling perspective provided.”
The Hanged Man
Sometimes when I pull The Hanged Man, I feel a sense of relief. The card helps me acknowledge the ways in which I am held in suspense by this circumstance or that, just waiting to be loosed so that I can get my feet back down on the earth.
The Hanged Man has a great perspective for watching the world pass us by. It’s the clarity provided by distance.
When I pull the Hanged Man now, I think of the early pandemic, when everyone was unsure of what to do, when many of us adapted to a “new normal” underpinned with the anxiety and hope that things would revert to what often seems like an easier time. Such is the pernicious nature of nostalgia. Pandemic notwithstanding, the nature of linear time requires that things will never again be what they once were. He may not have been able to do very much from his position, but the Hanged Man saw it all.
Being swept off your feet can be exhilarating, but it is always an impermanent condition. The Hanged Man will always come down in time. So the question becomes, what has he learned?
The Seven of Wands
In response, the Seven of Wands seems to be about being dropped into the fray. It’s a card about conflict and confrontation, about protection and boundary assertion. It’s about quick decision making. Our Seven here needs to hit the ground running, as it were, which means that it’s crucial that they make good use of what they just learned while in the birds-eye vantage point.
“Our cards are telling us that the time to act is at hand.”
Typically, when I read the Seven of Wands, I’ll think of it in defensive terms. Our friend here is directing their energy — Wands being the suit of fire — against some faceless onslaught that seems to be encroaching on their boundaries. Until now, I think of our Seven of Wands as simply holding the line.
But since the trajectory begins with The Hanged Man, our Seven seems to be playing offense here, landing in the midst of the conflict and ready for confrontation. It’s a bold, but necessary move.
I think because a lot of us have spent our lives defending against aggressions both macro and micro, going on the offensive can be extremely disconcerting. A defensive posture may feel natural, but this is not a time for defense, particularly if we are capable of holding on to the clarity that our previous dangling perspective provided.
What these cards are telling me is that if you’re finding yourself still in that Hanged Man place, great. Enjoy it. The world will never look the same to you again. Use that time as best you can to prepare for the moment your feet touch down on the ground, because when they do, you’re not going to have a lot of room for indecision. (As a Libra, this is an especially important thing for me to remember.)
June is both Pride month and Juneteenth. For most of my life since coming out of the closet, Pride events were somewhat uprooted from their original purposes and cast in a more celebratory and apolitical light. And until Juneteenth was finally made a federal holiday last year, a lot of us had no idea about the history of that holiday. So many of the civil rights victories we have celebrated for the past 50 years are in jeopardy right now.
Our cards are telling us that the time to act is at hand. As the saying goes, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
This month’s Tarot Tunes focuses on the joys and anxieties of suspension and conflict.
Rahne Alexander is an intermedia artist and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She holds an MFA in Intermedia + Digital Arts from UMBC. A tarot reader for more than 20 years, she can be reached for readings at rahne.com/tarot. Follow her on Instagram @the_tarot_asks.