Welcome to Exploring Emotions with Tarot! This week we will be exploring the Hanged Man and how it can be used as a prompt or brainstorming in our writing as well as a means to explore character traits in readings.
It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe the reason for this is that visual art has a way of tapping into our symbolic and metaphoric vocabularies on a subconscious level. In doing so, it evokes emotions and creative thought within us.
This series aims to explore this phenomenon using tarot with intentional purpose. The goal is to have a personal character trait keyword bank by the end of the series inspired by the images of these cards to enhance our brainstorming in our writing and improve our reading skills.
Introduction of the Card
The Hanged Man is card number 12 in the deck within the Orphalese Tarot program and the thirteenth card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
If you haven’t learned about the basic meanings of this card, you can learn about it here from my Exploring Tarot series.
If you haven’t learned about the emotional meanings of this card, you can learn about it here from my Emotional Tarot series.
Let’s take a look at the following examples of this card below.
Card Examples
Notice the similarities between them and take note of their differences. Do any of these move you more than the others? Take your time and allow yourself to feel something with these cards.
The Writing Exercise
The assignment for this exercise is to write a character sketch as inspired by this card. Either choose your character trait keyword first and get started from there, or start with your idea for a character to work your way towards a single keyword.
What this Card Means to Me
The keyword I choose for this card is: SPIRITUAL
You can learn more about this card at this site, which also includes a list of associated jobs and careers for the card.
I’ll be using this random character generator and random name generator to get me started.
Hoyt Harmon
- a spiritual truth seeker
- beady eyes the color of smoke
- luxurious, straight, lemon-yellow hair with a stylish mustache
- very short, graceful build, light-colored skin, with a small mouth
Hoyt seeks the truth in everything he does as part of his spiritual journey.
I would love it if you linked or pinged back what you wrote so I could see where you went with this.
Happy writing!
~ Celtic Dragon Tarot by D.J. Conway (Author), Lisa Hunt (Illustrator) © 1999
~ Dragon Tarot by Terry Donaldson (Author), Peter Pracownik (Illustrator) © 1995
~ Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2015
~ Goddess Guidance Oracle by Lisa Iris (Illustrator), Doreen Virtue (Author) © 2004
~ Mystic Dreamer Tarot by Heidi Darras (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2012
~ Mystic Faerie Tarot by Linda Ravenscroft (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2015
~ Mythic Tarot by Liz Greene (Author), Juliet Sharman-Burke (Author), Tricia Newell (Illustrator) © 1986
~ Necronomicon Tarot by Anne Stokes (Illustrator), Donald Tyson (Author) © 2012
~ Panda Tarot by Severino Baraldi (Illustrator), Lo Scarabeo (Author) © 2017
~ Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2011
~ Steampunk Tarot by Aly Fell (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2012
~ Universal Tarot by Lo Scarabeo (Author), R. De Angelis (Illustrator), A. E. Waite (Designer) © 2001
~ Credit for 3D model and assets used in this rendered image can be found here.