The “Soft Landing”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although it still surfaces occasionally among new students, the outdated opinion that the upside-down orientation of a tarot card automatically overrules and refutes the upright meaning doesn’t get much play these days. The implications of reversal are now understood to be far more subtle and nuanced, even beyond the typical assumptions of “blockage” and “delay.”
My main point in this essay is that a traditionally difficult card doesn’t instantly become “better” when it is flipped, nor does a more salutary one become “worse;” nothing in the realm of tarot is quite that simple. For decades now, my thinking has been that the customary definition of a card doesn’t experience a radical transformation when reversed, its influence is just delivered in a unique way that can alter our experience of it (e.g. it doesn’t change much itself but elicits a change in our response). As yoga practitioners know, when we perform a headstand we acquire fresh insight that must be integrated into our consciousness, and the shift in outlook is often dramatic once it evolves beyond the usual psychosomatic rush of blood to the brain.
There are two trump cards that abundantly demonstrate the “heads-up” phenomenon, the Hanged Man and the Tower, and two more (the Moon and Death) that put a “heads-down” spin on it.
In the first two cases, the repositioning of the human figures places their feet under them, such that they are no longer entirely at the mercy of their predicament (the “soft landing” of the title). Rather than being suspended, the Hanged Man now appears to be floating like a helium balloon, and the only thing keeping him from drifting away is the fact that his foot is tethered to the crossbar. Sallie Nichols has described him as doing a “dance of liberation,” and this impression is strongly affirmed by reversal, in which he could very well be performing the jig she mentions. His hair now resembles a “flare of illumination” and he is about to poke his head above the ground symbolized by the vegetation. He is not denying his experience of the depths but rather celebrating it by exposing it to and merging it with celestial light.
Regarding the Tower, I once had a conversation about its reversal with someone who was amused by the notion that the falling figures might be seen as “flying back up into the windows.” I agreed with him that this is nonsensical, but it appears to me that they might well land on there feet rather than on their heads and walk away relatively unscathed (with lightning underfoot, we can only hope they will land on terra firma and not in scalding quicksand). Despite Alejandro Jodorowsky’s insistence that the appearance of the Tower offers a cause to celebrate, I’m thinking that its reversal is more about surviving the debacle with poise and dignity. In both instances, rather than dashing their heads into the ground, the figures are able to hold them up out of harm’s way.
The reversed Moon is an interesting symbol. Water is now placed above sky, and the lunar disk becomes a mere subconscious reflection of the primitive crustacean that dominates the firmament. If the Moon was an emblem of the imagination before, it is now shoved even deeper into the Unconscious, where it doubles-down on mystical ambiguity. I once wrote an analysis of this image that described the crawfish (my European friends insist it’s a shrimp) as a “fish out of water” that must descend the path between the towers to reunite with the source of its inspiration. I took a look at the I Ching hexagram that embodies “Water” over “Heaven:” №5, Hsu, titled “Waiting (Nourishment).” Perhaps the displaced crustacean is thirsting for the consummation of this reunion but it may have difficulty navigating when out of its element and will have to inch its way slowly toward renewal, relying more on gravity than dedicated effort. Rather than falling, the drops of “lunar dew” appear to be rising, flame-like, as stepping-stones to pave the way, but the self-absorbed Moon is largely indifferent to the whole drama.
When reversed, the skeleton of Death is returned to its proper domain, where it can set to work sprouting and nourishing the seeds of the new growth symbolized by the severed heads and limbs that are now in critical ascension. It will no longer walk all over us, but instead is positioned to galvanize our recovery from below with a swift stroke of its blade. Although it’s a rather perverse vision, I’m reminded of Aleister Crowley’s description of a lush garden beneath which, in a hidden cavern, “Nemo” (no-one) is busily torturing the roots of the flowers with acid and fire to encourage even greater vigor and beauty above-ground. (I believe he may have been into “cutting” as a form of self-discipline when he wrote this). This could be construed as culminating in the “alchemy” of Temperance, which transmutes the “gross” into the “fine” by methodically excising any corruption.
The last of the five “nasties” among the Major Arcana is the Devil, but finding useful inflection in the reversed image is more difficult. About all I can see in the TdM card is that the Devil is now plunging his torch Earthward instead of raising it toward the heavens (Waite obviously saw the truth in this Luciferian gesture of insemination), and his red-tipped member is substituted for that fierce demonstration of defiance while the two imps salute it with their eyes, at the same time scrupulously keeping their hands behind their backs. (We might assume that the Devil is rudely flaunting his “bits” at his erstwhile patron while sticking out his tongue.) If you’re intrigued by these thoughts, take a stab at the Devil yourself.
It’s a much bigger task to apply this redeeming plunge into self-correction to all of the nominally unfortunate “pip” cards, but the same principles pertain. Investigate any of my previous essays on the subject of reversal to see how this might be accomplished on a case-by-case basis. This one is particularly instructive:
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2022/09/26/reversal-as-reconciliation/
For the record, my current opinion of the less-favorable Major Arcana is that they may create the environment for our worst nightmares but they seldom pull the trigger without the cooperation and reinforcement of more mundane cards of a similar nature; it’s where “the rubber meets the road,” so to speak. It’s kind of like the Ace of Spades in traditional cartomancy; it rarely means physical incapacitation or death unless accompanied by other dire cards like the 7 of Spades or the 10 of Spades. Think of a trump card in most situations as establishing the “background theme,” not as a prime mover of events and circumstances.
Yesterday I dashed off a short poem that seems to have prompted my meditation on this subject:
A Cure for Insomnia
Sat and watched
The second hand tick
Around the dial
Sixty times and
Knew I had just
Lost a minute
Really no point
In pondering
The inevitable
So I closed
My eyes and
Went to sleep
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 24, 2023.
