fool, hanged one, hermit

i don't talk much about my tarot work because i don't do it for others, & it's quite personal. but i call myself a fool (say that with a capital F even if you don't see one; it's a title) in part because i have always identified with the significance of that card. even though i'm in my 50s i have not left the fool-spirit. i do keep recasting what that spirit is in my life, though, & how i practice it. 

in readings over the past few years, cards have emerged that have never come up before, which is obvious when i think it through. i'm not a teen anymore; i won't be getting the teen's cards that came up when i started. but i have been getting the "hanged one" in micro spreads for a long time, & during everyone else's winter break, as i was trying to find a way toward some recognitions & choices i did/do not want to (have to) make, i finally made the connection. 

it's me on the tree. & the tree isn't what i thought it was.

that big post last winter about participation & a mentor & a need to choose comes from this tree. but i've been upside down with my back to the trunk for longer than that. i've been trying to aggressively chase down ways to participate in my profession--in the public arena of my profession, but not only that; i now have to change how i work & even what i make, to some extent. i've already changed how i get much of it into the world. but i have to change even more. how do i seek new pathways without seeking new pathways? 

i have been trying to cling to in-person social contact despite being less & less able to do speech-emphasizing stuff. i've been really, really learning how i am autistic. how that works. what it gives me, & what i have been steadily losing. the other stuff, the intractable migraine cycles that mean i can't look at digital display screens or be in a certain kind of light. i've been facing it all, facing it all, & meanwhile not realizing that the damn tree is this past functionality-performance i've been clinging to. i'm scared to let go.

the hanged one card is snap-read as "sacrifice." ok, sure, it suggests sacrifice--odin & all that, the usual suspects, gods that get stuck on trees or tree-analogues. i'm not a god. i thought the sacrifice was just being stuck on the tree. but the tree is the waiting room. it's the inaction i can't avoid. it's the double-bind. i have to sacrifice this past stuff that (kind of sometimes) worked, & i'm afraid to do it.

the last card in the three-card spreads i do is often "the hermit." i love that card, though it is also frightening. i am better able than most to tolerate solitude; i need solitude, in fact. but i also need contact, connection, intimacy, the mutual flow of energy & attention, the plain old exchange of love. recognition, affirmation, acceptance, a sense that when i am not in contact with others, i am missed. because you are missed. i need you to know that. i miss you & i feel the possibilities dwindling for mutual contact & the flow i've been talking about. 

"the hermit" frightens me because i do not know whether, if i stop this chase (for continued intimacy with friends, for modes of public professional participation i am actually capable of), anyone will come looking for me. i do not know that others' lives & limitations will allow them to keep up anything like relation with me, regardless of desire to do so. worse, i don't know how i can continue to be in relation with those whom my own limitations prevent me from being with. i haven't seen you, most of you, in years! i do not know how i can get to you, if you can't get to me...& how can we be together virtually, without such a heavy emphasis on speech? will i still be loved if i can't do...what everyone else can do, or does anyway? will people still want me in their lives? how will i know?

all last year i had been observing my adopted mentor with increasing desperation, in hopes of finding out how he worked through this stuff. he told me he has no idea what he's doing. i let my love & admiration for him convince me that, of course, he has it figured out. he's 80 & growing frail, & he's still stuck on that same tree i'm on! he is also afraid to stop, uncertain what will come next if he does, still doing this wild high-intensity acting & acting-adjacent workload. i told him i am worried about him, but i am worried about myself, too. i have to get off the tree.

hermits have visitors. people come to hang out & say this or that, ask for guidance ("milarepa, i'd love your recipe for nettles!"), bring, y'know, tidings. i remind myself of this all the time. but can i rise to it? what if i can't? what if i'm not given a chance to find out?

[the tarot images shown here are all from the "tarot in pandemic and revolution" deck released by nomadic press.]