Neptune and the sign it rules, Pisces, are correlated in tarot to the major arcana card The Hanged One. With the shift into Pisces season, tonight’s new moon is Pisces, and Mercury stationed retrograde here, I can’t help but be drawn to this card of suspension. I recently relistened to The Hanged Man episode of the @betweentheworldspodcast, formerly the #strangemagicpodcast, currently hosted by @OracleofLA and @carolynpennypackerriggs. (If you don’t listen to this podcast, run, don’t walk, to check it out. It’s amazing.) It got me thinking about how this astrology relates to creative work. All Mercury retrogrades are a good time to review and edit. Mercury, the planet of communication, helps us revisit and revise the narratives we wish to tell and the narratives we tell ourselves. There is an energy of suspension in this Piscean season, though, of waiting or being held up, as we see depicted here in the Hanged One card. @OracleofLA pointed out in the episode that the tree from which the Hanged One is suspended is flowering, that there is something fertile about this Hanged One state. Like the 12th House in astrology, the Hanged One relates to the dissolution of the ego as we strive to connect with divinity, with Oneness. Part of the process of this egoic death are SURRENDER and SACRIFICE, and these actions can help us connect with inspiration, connect with Oneness, and find a way for creativity to flow and flower.
The Hanged One surrenders to discomfort (hanging from the tree); to situations outside their control (being hung from the tree); to the ramifications of their actions (this card follows the Justice card and there is the implication that this hanging is a punishment). To strive against every difficulty is exhausting, but to become comfortable in the uncomfortable provides a new perspective from which to view the world. During this retrograde, what discomfort can you sit with? What situations are outside your control that you need to stop resisting? Once you stop striving and sit (or hang) with all that troubles you, what new understandings arise that feed your writing, your creative projects?
There is also the theme of sacrifice in this card, especially when considering the need to shed elements of our ego that keep us separated from divine understanding and keep us trapped in negative patterns. This card precedes the Death card in the major arcana and tells of the moment of acceptance, surrender, and perhaps ecstasy that comes when we stop striving and acquiesce to the transformation necessary to truly progress. What sacrifice does your creative project require? What beliefs about yourself are holding you back? What delusions, illusions, or addictions (the shadow qualities of Neptune) must be forfeited? What suffering are you willing to endure?
Meditation and journaling will be your friends this season. Wishing you much rest and many blessings this new moon.
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