Week 5 - Possibilities

This is the Hanged Woman from the Shining Tribe Tarot by Rachel Pollack.

Or, to be more precise, its my first version of the card as drawn originally in my week of Identity. And included in the picture for the review of that week.

I'd included it as one of two images that represented me - the other, the 6 of Trees, was the first card to be repeated in my daily drawn cards as I've continued to "randomly" select one card a day and draw it every morning after my morning pages (they have become morning pages not doodles recently).


The reason I'd considered The Hanged Woman an image of myself was because I'd done a self-portrait collage a couple of years ago with a woman in wellies, painting a rainbow - and I included her in a MMM earlier this year - I'd very specifically positioned the body in a positional variation on the Hanged Person. And I've only just noticed that in my version of the Shining Tribe card above I put a rainbow into The Hanged Woman - that doesn't occur on the card in the deck though the boat is described as Noah's ark.

I had later made a simplified version of it to use on ebay when, for a month I sold some tarot readings. (Incidentally I found this fun, and had amazing feedback on my accuracy but it was taking me all day everyday and I was spending more on new cards than I made on the readings - I had to stop! Not the new career I was hoping it might be.)

This week The Hanged Woman has come up twice:


This was the image that I drew on Wednesday - the day I began this week of "Possibility" (but due to Christmas things, brothers and plumbers have failed before now to blog).

The stars didn't make it in but otherwise its a reasonably faithful copy. Rather than concentrate on it after drawing it I drew another card and made an image of that too, so distracting me from considering The Hanged Woman properly. I'd felt that I wanted to make a new image... The card I picked was the 9 of Stones which is the card of the remade self. So another version of self.

Then the doorbell went. At the door was a woman asking about a Miss So-and-So, whom she asserted lived next door, and wasn't answering her door or her phone; the woman at the door said she had an alarm to fit.

I was confused as the people next door are not called So-and-So, but the name, So-and-So, was in fact the name of an ex of mine (who will remain anonymously a So-and-So unless he turns up and comments that its fine to name him), someone who'd considered The Hanged Man to be his card and for whom I'd painted a rather gaudy silk shirt featuring The Hanged Man as a central motif surrounded by other pictures from the Major Arcana.

He'd put rather a damper on the idea of ever wearing it (it was bright!) and I chucked it out (now I wish I'd thought of over-dyeing it). I do remember my sister saying as she looked at it during construction that I could draw in that tone of voice that says she'd always doubted it before! Anyway this was the first time that I'd actually copied tarot images and it was for Mr So-and-So, the Hanged Man.

As I talked to the woman at the door her mobile went asking where she was and I suspect she discovered she was in the wrong street - something that happens a lot around here as there are too many with similar names.

As I shut the door on her and her alarm, one of our smoke detector's alarms went off - the plumber had forgotten to disable it before he started soldering. I'd removed the one that was in a light socket earlier - a fire angel - not because I remembered but because the light bulb had gone...

Wednesday was also the day after the night before for us - we'd been to the IMDb's Christmas do on Tuesday. The plumber had commented that I was "hanging" which I assume was his expression for hungover! (I doubt he knew I'd interpret it as a reference to the Hanged Woman!)

So this week of Possibility started by me considering my past with respect to the image of the Hanged Woman.

Yesterday before pulling a card to draw I thought I'd like to draw one differently. Still basing it on whichever card from the Shining Tribe that I pulled but closer to my own style. Then I pulled 12 The Hanged Woman again:



Looking at it I feel that it needs even more adjustments to make it mine.

I had a dream a few nights ago which concluded with me saying "I'm Tree Woman"!

I see now that Tree Woman is what my Hanged Woman image should be. I wonder what superpowers Tree Woman would have - somehow I doubt she gets to fly... I'd always thought of my old avatar as a sort of tree woman but I'd never really considered what powers a tree woman would have.

And of course the other image that I used on my Identity picture was the 6 of Trees.


Last week was reading deprivation week and I abandoned L is for Lawless which I'd been reading the week before. I'd gone off it before the reading deprivation started which was very handy as there was less incentive to pick it up. So this week I've moved on to M is for Malice. And I've already noticed synchronicities as I read it - that was what I most missed last week - I almost always get synchronicities with the books I'm reading.

Today I've been playing more with the mixed real media images that I said I'd do as my five to give away. So far only Tinker has asked for one. I've felt really hurt by this. No-one else wanting my pictures. But really I'm having such fun making them (and no they are not ready to be photographed and blogged yet - I keep on seeing more I want to do to them!) that it doesn't matter if I get to keep them too!

I am actually working on six. I've owed Kyknoord a picture ever since the beginning of the year when I offered him one to brighten up his place. I'm planning to give him the pick of the one's I'm making and if there is one he likes he'll get that - if he doesn't that's okay - the arrangement was I'd only post him a picture if he liked it.

As soon as I offered it I went into a sort of blocked state and found it really hard to make anything that wasn't digital. Andrea has suggested I print out my digital pictures but the size I'm making them would produce pictures about 3 or 4 inches maximum on a side - it takes more computer power than I've got to create larger 300 dpi collages in Painter IX.

Wow this has been a long post - thank you for reading, if you have! It has been a chance for me to explore what this Hanged Woman means to me outside the Tarot meaning of the card.