The Hanged Man card is sometimes referred to as the traitor card. As history makes blatantly clear, persons whose individual conscience is in opposition or divergent from the collective viewpoint, can appear as traitors to the Establishment. Often upside down in relation to family, friends and the government, nonconformists can be even branded as criminals.
“Clift’s is one of the voices – and one of the most important female voices – that rose above the crowd during the post-war period, as the western world unknowingly girded itself for the social revolution that was to come.
Through her columns she advocated for a bolder, more outward looking future, and as someone who was naturally cosmopolitan she was avidly interested in seeing Australia become more open to the world and better integrated into the Asia-Pacific”.
A Woman Ahead of Her Time – The Conversation
When Prometheus willingly defied Zeus and gave shivering man a firestick he was severely punished. There is plenty of evidence that humankind is as unforgiving as Zeus. It does not respond well to those who defy establishment. But without these sacred rebels we would not have advanced beyond the cave days.
It is unlikely that Prometheus, who is shown here being punished for his defiance, was on Charmian Clift’ mind when she challenged society, but her acts were no less Herculean. Like Prometheus she confronted the fall out from stepping outside the lines of society.
Clift was born on 30 August 1923 in the last of a straggle of weatherboard workers’ cottages on the outskirts of the New South Wales coastal township of Kiama. Both socially and geographically, the little settlement of North Kiama was regarded by the townsfolk as being on the wrong side of the tracks. Of course we all know that growing up in ‘the sticks’ is not always a deterrent. Many shining stars, whose legacy lives long after them, have risen, perhaps to spite their humble beginnings.
The Hanged Man represents independence from the flock, the willingness to see things differently, see them your way. It can point to critical thinking or awareness (especially when paired with other cards that deal with this theme) and it can represent courage.
Little Red Tarot
Charmian Clift was in the vanguard of the post-World War II wave of feminism, attracting large and loyal audiences for her columns in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Herald. Commissioned to write columns “from a woman’s point of view”, Clift wrote powerfully, passionately and emotionally in essay style about the Vietnam War, conscription, world hunger and the Greek junta. Many prominent women writers, including Helen Garner and Elizabeth Riddell, have referred to Clift’s work as an inspiration. Clift survived the scandal of an affair with her long-time famous partner George Johnston and the social restrictions on women in the 1940s to become a significant figure as a journalist and author in her own right.
Wild Mother Calling 