The Hanged Man

He’s waiting to fall like a fruit that falls when it is ripe and ready to be eaten.
In this way he waits calmly for his moment to come, allowing his energy to accumulate in his head.
He waits to fall and the sensation of falling is all the time growing more and more intense.
The moment that he waits for is the moment of the fall.
The riper the fruit the more intense is the sensation of falling, until the fall becomes reality.

This is the man that is hanging.

We all have had that sensation when we sleep, that sense that we are falling (or that we are about to fall) but we avoid it. His message is to see things from another point of view and to allow ourselves to fall.

He is suspended in the air without touching the earth. His hair looks like the snakes of a medusa, his yellow arch is like the halo of the saints. The trunk that he’s hanging from is like the cross of Jesus, and his clothing is like that of a dancing buffoon. His face is serene and his eyes, which watch attentively, seem to invite you to establish visual contact with him. There is always the impulse to turn him around and see him from a different perspective, or one has to see him upside down..

The hanged man.
They tied his foot, because his foot was his head.

The natural fall.
As in birth, it’s the head that first comes out to see the light.
The rope that is tied around his foot is the maternal rope that comes from the navel.

Being hung up as he is, he doesn’t look down towards the ground, he looks forward without worrying about his situation. It seems that he is where he is by his own will, without resistance, without wanting to come down.

If he could speak, what would he say?
If I could ask him why he is there, what would he answer?
Was he at sometime in the past walking like any other man?
Did he climb up there for some reason and did he tie up his own foot?
And what is he doing there?
He doesn’t wait for anybody it seems.
And why does he have one leg folded and his arms at his back?
Are you the forbidden fruit of paradise?
If I were to stand in front of you and talk to you, where would I look, into your eyes or into your mouth?

The light that shines in you is a light that comes out of your head, but it’s a yellow light, as if it was lighting up your presence.

You appear to be a neutral being, neither good nor bad. You don’t smile, you don’t cry, you seem like a battery that is being charged.
How much longer are you going to be there charging?
And what will happen when you fall, will you feel that there is no further sense in living?

You will stop being what you are. Only hung up can you feel good, your feet don’t want to touch the ground.

You seem like the opposite of the crucified Jesus Christ. You are there without suffering, with your head facing down, alive and serene, without expecting anything.
Watching.

It is not in suffering that enlightenment is found.
It is in the other direction.

You are hung up and your blood runs from your feet to your head. In your head the energy accumulates and your folded leg has something to do with sexual energy. Perhaps you are holding it in with that foot, sending it from that place where it seeks to be released up to the head.

It appears that you have a certain kind of discipline to be there, straight, peaceful, and maintaining that strange position.

The Map

As the metal gate squeaked open and he stepped into the cool bright air of the morning, he could see his destination. It was just two blocks away from where he now stood, but there were worlds between them. A sea of gray sidewalk that hid within it all the siren calls, all the sunken ship of dreams, all the maps to hidden island nations filled with spice and mushroom and song and music that shattered the mind into a spectacle of colored light.
The worlds were always there, but they took a careful look, more than most could give. That, he knew. You just couldn’t see them from a bus window, or a slowly moving bicycle, or even on a brisk walk. They were micro spaces that required micro attention. It was true attention, and it was what he had developed. And because he had developed it, he looked harder to find them. So everyday he opened the squeaky metal gate and stepped onto the sidewalk.
He looked up two blocks and saw the sign of the liquor store on Lombard and Dominican Dr. It was his eventual destination, but as soon as he saw it, he put it out of his mind. There were worlds to walk. To get there, he followed the cracks in the sidewalk, letting them lead him like a well-made map.
Of course, he knew the way, objectively, it was a short distance. For any other person around him, it was a quick walk. And though he knew it could be like that, simple, fast, blind, he chose to move a different way. He chose to voyage.
He let the lines in the earth lead him. The earth that had long ago been covered up by man and his concrete and his dominance, and his shortsighted plans. But nothing was permanent, and the earth moved like a softly groaning woman. It moved softly and subtly, but just like a woman, its force was known, shown to all that could look and see her sounds.
The cracks were her revolt, her soft laughter and cry. There were cracks everywhere, long straight ones that ended at the asphalt street and the jagged ones that looked like lightning and seemed to move in all directions simultaneously. Everywhere were the signs of the shifting earth and shifting time and he followed them.
Each day was slightly different, each route deviated slightly along the sidewalk, leading him past small remnants he had never seen, like the forgotten penny, the just-blooming daisy that had found the sun. Time was no concern, the weather was no concern, it all brought new gifts. A new shift of light, or a droplet of rain that would splatter between the cracks and bring out a bit of dark brown earth.
He let the cracks lead him, and because he relented to their shape, they showed him things he would have missed. Though he didn’t look up, he could feel the energy around him. The quick movements of the bus, the lone bicycle that sent a gust of air over him.
They passed him in a second. They passed him and the missed worlds and they never saw the treasure. He could hear some questions from outside, or perhaps they came from within him…he heard the echoes…”why?” The questions of those not looking perhaps.
They were questions lost in the wind and he walked past them, drinking them, eating them, letting them roll through him like another breath of air. The why for them could not be explained with the words of a meandering explorer, they were deaf to his words and blind to his actions and his true motive. He walked through the questions, slowly following the path of the day.
When the world was walked, he would claim his treasure. Sweet liquid gold would coat his tongue and throat and he would drink it as though there had never been anything else. Nothing from the twelve years that had come before, nothing that would ever come after.
This is the day that worlds were crossed. The only day in which it could ever happen.

The Snow

Shelly, my friend, sat on a massively tall red-brick wall. It was the very top of a building, only a couple of feet from the flat roof of the rectangular apartment complex. She sat on the ledge, her thick white legs were bright in the midnight light. A small breeze played with the edges of her thin silky white slip. She was relaxed there on the edge. Her hands were behind her and she relaxed into their support as she would with a comfortable chair. One of her feet was on the ledge, the knee of the same leg very close to her face. The other foot hung over the ledge. She looked like a rock star, confident and defiant, teasing the night. I could tell she was not okay. It looked like she had lived through many years of extensive drug abuse, and now, she sat relaxed, ready to die on the edge of that building.

I awoke. I was still.

The dream lingered. It was one of the many unusually strong ones that had come upon me in the week that I had been here in the mountains. Six other girls in bunk beds slept around me in the small wooden cabin. There was a girl above me now, dreaming her dreams. The cabin was dark and my fingers groped for the small headlamp that I had placed beside the bed’s legs before I closed my eyes. I had been with these women for a week. A full week of meditation and silence, there was still one more to go.

With the headlamp in my hand, I crawled out of the sleeping bag like a caterpillar breaking free of its cocoon. Only there were no orange and black wings, just a sleepy girl in baggy long johns and an oversized sweater. I walked to the door and stepped out as quietly as I could, but in the nearly silent mountain night, even a falling snowflake makes itself known.

And it was a sound I heard which moved like muted echoes. All around me, soft drifts of white snowflakes fell delicately. The ground and stairs were covered already with a thin coating, and I walked with a smile down the rough outlines of a path to the large cement dormitory a few hundred feet in front of me. The world was dark. The thick woods to my right were dark, the paths that led to the meditation hall were black. There were no lights, nothing to provide my city paranoia with security, but I let the initial habits of panic wash over and through me. The night felt safe. The stillness was safe. Different, much different than I was used to, but I could step into it. The falling snowflakes added a new element. A touch of the extraordinary, a light whisper of magic dancing on my eyelashes. It was all worth noticing, every leaf, every quietly waiting bough, but the snow brought an energy I was not used to. A duality of parallel lines, calm and still, yet filled with constant movement. They glittered somehow, without the moon, without street lamps, somehow they gave enough light that I could walk through them without the aid of my headlamp. I walked casually, letting them melt on my warm neck and in the folds of my clothes.

I entered the dormitory and used the bathrooms there, then I walked back into the snow drifts, back to the wooden stairs of my cabin, clunkily taking off my boots and moving the other shoes beneath the cover of the eaves. Then I crawled back into the silky red cocoon, ready to see what other tales the subconscious would spin for me.

When I woke the following morning and stepped onto the steps to retrieve my cold boots, the land was covered in snow at least a foot deep. So much had fallen in just a few hours. There had not been wall-shaking wind or rattling, it had just come down hard, intent on its descent. The buried path to the meditation hall was now white and invisible, I made my own way, delighted in the footprints I left behind. The snow brought with it a silence so complete. I could hear small out-weighed chunks of snow topple off tree branches and land with a thud on the already blanketed ground. It wasn’t just quiet, it was like the mountains themselves chose to whisper. It was like the woods nodded with a small wink and began to move just a little slower. There were people around me, others walking quietly to the large square building that awaited with pillows and warm walls. But despite the presence of humans, the mountains opened with its ways. Movements usually hidden among chatter and cars and noise and quick movement. A careful deer emerged from the white-wooden thicket and walked timidly to the bushes. With the whiteness, time slowed. There were no human sounds of laughter, nothing to disrupt the absolute serene stillness of trees, branches, grass, rocks, everything buried in snow. I walked the paths softly, silently filled with the sounds of snow and the simple process of a thaw.

Collector

She walked the streets of the sprawling city, looking for the perfect bit of trash. She of course, did not call it trash, that was a word her mother used. To her, they were all orphans, forgotten remnants, alone on the sidewalk, waiting to be found, hoping for a loving home. In her purse, she had small plastic baggies full of used cigarette butts and empty matchbooks and carefully folded pieces of old newspapers. With her eyes trained towards the ground, she walked past blocks and blocks of the famous fashion quarter. Hardly ever did her eyes wander to the plate glass windows that held the spectacle of mannequins in a static state of style. Hordes of fashionable young women walked by her, their high heels provided the music to her quest. She heard them, she heard their squeals, their chatter, their laughter, but their image went past her like a blur. When she wasn’t crossing streets or waiting for taxi cabs to pass her like yellow bats out of hell, her eyes were fixed to the sidewalk, to the cracks where litter seemed to gather for the party, to the gutters where she always found delight, to the 90 degree angles where cement sidewalk and storefront always met. A perfumed woman passed her, both their minds fixed on a particular obsession, an accumulation of things…one looking for new things, the other searching for the forgotten.
She took in a big breath of the city air. She had not been out here for a while. Over the last few months, her free days had become fewer and fewer, until she was only able to hit the streets on a dedicated mission every couple of weeks. Yes, she did walk the streets every day, gathering milk and eggs at the market or taking her mother to the doctor, but it was never the same when she had a destination, the needed the space and time to make the day about the journey, when all her attention could be on the sidewalk and its treasures. She carried her containers with her in a little metal push wagon. There were glass jars and small cardboard boxes for leaves and plastic forks. What she found was categorized and organized. She didn’t wait for later.
She stood on the street, amid gray soldiers in business suits and delivery drivers and creamy white women. Those women were like her sister, they would never see her collection as tasteful, even after a careful explanation. The women who gathered new handbags and French perfume just could not understand why she carried the remnants of the city with her. She had tried before, years ago when she was still figuring out her methods for categorization, when she was just beginning to feel the itch of the hunt.
Today, she was walking along the many jewelry stores of the fashion district. This is where people with piles of money came to buy piles of things. This was her favorite hunting ground. In the center of extreme consumption, she delighted in the salvage. She would not let the wrapper be forgotten, she would not let the grocery list find its way to the sea. She had their brother and sisters, she had others like them, she was the orphan hunter, the subculture collector.
She spotted something round and green, she stooped over, calm, with the grace of a rescuing angel… she picked up the small bottle cap in her gloved hand. Against the brown of her leathered fingers, the cap glistened with beauty. She turned it over and over, feeling as best she could the ridges along the side, the light of the sun reflected off the green metal and gleamed. Fifteen years ago, she would have walked by the cap, oblivious to its existence. She too, had been a fashionable, perfumed woman. She would have never known its temporary home, she would have walked by, never seeing its green, never touching its shape, never pausing to see what was there.
Tasteful? That was a question that the germ-a-phobes and the critics could debate. Her days had become fewer and fewer, she didn’t have time to waste with questions. She knew what she needed to do. She knew her place among the denizens of the city. She was the self-appointed historian, the archivist, the matron. The women and men of the city might never know she had been here. On her walks, she took away any signs of her voyage, tucking them safely in her cart, either in a box, bottle, or plastic bag. She gave them a home, and the fashion district might never know she had passed by.

The Artist

She knelt among the rocks, on the uneven ground that led up to the main road. She was on a corner, where the busy main street crossed over the park road on a flat wide bridge with arches of brick and rusty lamps hanging from its underside. From where she knelt, she could look over the road to the treetops on the other side, she could look at the trees that were right next to her, covering the edge of the road with shadows and green, she could look at the people passing under the bridge, in bikes and cars and on foot, sometimes looking up at the cars whistling by or at her, but mostly looking straight ahead while talking or listening to music on headphones.
She spread a wide fragile piece of thin paper over a rock and traced the edge with a soft pencil. Then she looked up again. The sky was bright blue above her, and it covered the day in softness and hope. Her own hands were a bit scarred from the hard work of many years but they felt soft and young on a day like this, when the wind blew through the branches just enough to make them sing and the sunlight came down upon her like a gift that never ends. She made another trace with the pencil and looked up again. The cars on the main street had stopped momentarily and she could hear the thumping of a loud bass coming from a long red Chevrolet. She made another gesture with the pencil, trying to capture the sound in a quick movement of her wrist. There was laughter coming from another car and the sound of loud children screaming coming from another. She looked up again and then the cars moved, and there was a blurry parade of faces in profile, of metallic colors and spinning wheels, all drenched over the placid and static figure of the bridge that stood solid and heavy underneath it all. She looked down at the park road where a young girl in a bicycle was riding by. There was another quick gesture of her wrist and a very light marking on the paper that she held and then the girl in the bicycle was gone.
She stood up momentarily, looking over at the couple just around the trees. The dark haired woman was on her back and the serious looking man was above her, looking deeply into her eyes. She knelt again and made another quick gesture on the paper. A strong wind came by just then and the large paper wiggled and waved in her hands. She held it tight and looked at the couple again. The man was slipping away and the woman was looking up at him with a trace of anxiety. One more flick of the wrist and something remained, a quick reflection of that which was already gone. A bird perched on a branch several feet above her. She looked up and the quick staccato sound of its melody came to her through the brown web of the branches. Again she looked down at the paper and made a quick gesture, leaving traces of melody and wing and beak and tiny bubbles that were eyes on the yellowish paper that she held in her hands.
She looked further down the road, towards the west, where the road curved away by the side of a wall of jagged brown rocks. A little stream ran next to the sidewalk there and she saw two women walking slowly by the water, smiling and trading words and phrases like bits of soft bright sand. She looked down at her paper, which was now getting crowded, and she made a few more gestures, trying to catch the slow movement of their steps, the ease of their voices, the watery music of the stream next to them. She looked a bit to her left and there were two men riding up in slim sport bikes. She made very quick gestures on the paper that would capture the silver of the light upon the wheels, the lightning icon on their helmets, the strong solid eyes that looked further down the road.
She took a deep breath and surveyed her work, a scattering of quick curves and marks over a large yellowish paper that still rustled in the wind, eager to fly away. She nodded and started to roll it up into a smooth even tube. The meaning was unspoken, the representation was obscure, the transmission was complete.