No, Poetry this time. When I first created this picture a few years back, it was in the early days of my tarot picture project. I was trying to imagine what the Hanged Man trump might look like and was finding the elements that would go along with it. At some point, as tends to happen with my pictures, it started becoming something else. It became a totem of sorts.
I’ve always identified with the Hanged Man. The idea of sacrificing myself to myself for the sake of wisdom, or perhaps a better way to say it is, sacrificing who i am now for who I am in my deepest highest self, the man behind the mask. Amazing how being hung upside down can become so liberating.
In this picture instead of hanging by a rope, the central figure is caught in release of a dive, hanging in mid-air at the moment of freedom. Included in the picture are tricksters (the raven), messengers (the Owl) wisdom (the snake and the crone) and playfulness, another form of wisdom (the dolphin). Also included was the crocodile representing Sekhmet the eater of the part that dies). Almost everyone of these beings are in motion as is the plant.
This picture represents so many qualities I wish to elicit more and more in myself and many that I have. It remains one of my favourites of all the pictures I’ve done
From the Shadows by G A Rosenberg 
