Hanged Man (Transformation by Absorption)

In the “Way of The Seeker” workshop in San Francisco this past weekend, we looked at different tarot archetypes and how they represent the process of transformation, from the fiery, explosive destruction into construction of the Tower card, to the Hanged Man, which (in Voyager) is something like death by drowning, surrendering and returning to the undertow of the sea, only to bob back up and get thrust onto land, perhaps as a green algae slime mold, which is one “brainy blob” and full of nrg! (not bad for a new beginning).

What is the primal gift of the sea?  Its magic is as the ultimate container and cleaner; it takes our garbage, our sewage, our acid rain and absorbs it and recycles it into life giving water.  The almighty mother ocean dissolves so that it can solve and resolve.

It struck me that, as we were sitting in the class, each of us were absorbing everyone else’s words, moods, vibrations.  In the taking on of another through the genius of our mirror neurons, we empathically become another.  We absorb each other.  We are consumed by another as we ingest their essences and personnas.  In the process, our previous moment dissolves and is resolved into a new self, only to be dissolved again by the next influence, which happens from moment to moment.  Life is one big dissolution dance as we eat and are eaten by others.  Since we are mostly h2o, like the sea, we take in and are transformed, naturally, without trying.

So, transformation is continuous.  Gently and almost unnoticeably, we are permeable – changing as the ocean. The flood is on.