BY MEG JONES WALL
The Hanged One Season
I don’t understand sleep: how it works, where people go, how anyone learned to travel in this manner. The closing of eyes, the quieting of mind and body, the ability to sink into that strange unknown world of mystery and memory, weaving souvenirs from our consciousness into tangled webs of sense and nonsense — it’s a skill I lack, a capacity for release that I have never been able to master.
Photo by Meg Wall Jones
Sleep is a forced pause, a time of stillness and surrender. It’s a liminal space that still manages to feel commonplace for most; a regular part of daily cycles that provides comfort, recovery, clarity. Every night is an opportunity to slip into darkness, to find a gentle temporary death, to embrace liminality and adventure to far-off, unknown spaces within the self.
But most nights, I lie awake, alone, listening to sirens and alarms, the stirrings of the city outside my window, the side effects of so many people living in such a relatively small space. Most nights, I watch the stars come and go, the moon rise and fall, wait patiently for the sun to break the horizon and usher in a new morning. Most nights, I fail to find that strange, mysterious place, unable to reach the beckoning grasp of slumber and make my way into those shadowed lands.
Sleep doesn’t make sense to me. There’s no map to reference, no hand to hold, no path to follow. It’s just me and my insomnia against the eternal night, the twinkling stars and city lights, watching one another, uncertain of what to do next. Sometimes days go by before I find rest, before my body is so exhausted that it drags me under, before I stumble into that unfamiliar place and hope that eventually I’ll be able to claw my way out again.
Photo by Meg Wall Jones
In autumn, when the veil is thin, when the shadows have lengthened, when the nights slowly gobble up the hours and greedily swell with excess, sleeplessness becomes seasonal. The heaviness and humidity of the air slipping into crisp coolness, leaves slowly rotting into spectacular decay, shadows thickening and loosening. It feels correct to bear witness to the longer nights, to consciously wander through thoughts and ideas rather than getting swept up into memory. The world feels restless and I can explore my own mysteries, can make my own liminal space, can serve as a guide for those who haven’t been to this particular crossroads before. We all hover at the veil together, contemplating how and when we will pass through.
It’s Hanged One season, autumn: a time of sacrifice and release, an opportunity to let something wither in the most beautiful way so that new growth can eventually emerge. The Hanged One is a necessary, inevitable clearing; the pause before winter’s Death, the moment when expansion ceases, when we observe what happens when our movement halts and our effort stills. It’s the deep breath before hibernation, the slackening of muscles, the willingness to take brittle air into our lungs and let it simultaneously soothe us and wake us up. What have we been doing, building, becoming? What have we been working towards, and where does this pause land in our own personal cycle? Who did we used to be? Where are we being called to let go of a dream, a pursuit, a version of self? And what happens if we don’t give that thing up easily, if we refuse to surrender?
Autumn is for harvest, for celebration – but it’s also for slowing down, releasing, honoring. Winter may be the full stop, the recovery, but autumn hints at the bend in the road, gives us daily reminders to contemplate the slow rot and decay that surrounds us. All that blooms eventually returns to the earth, dust to dust, year after year. Whether we cling desperately to summer or welcome winter with open arms, we have no control over the cycle, the seasons, the change. Either way, we become the Hanged One, powerless and patient, silent, observing: waiting for whatever comes next, even if we already know what is ending.
Photo by Meg Wall Jones
It’s strange but beautiful, not unlike all of those orderly, sleepy little deaths. Autumn isn’t bothered by our feelings or desires, our fears or uncertainties, and neither is sleep. It simply comes when it’s time, holds us in our waiting, lets us feel whatever we need to feel. Autumn lets us stand quietly, in awe of its power and grace, whether we’re ready to slow down or not.
Sleep, seasons, stillness, all feel out of my grasp these days. This strangeness that I feel every night when I crawl into bed, lying still, hoping that slumber won’t notice me creeping around the edges and trying to slip in silently, stealing a few hours of temporary death: it’s uncomfortable, difficult to define or describe. My mind and body, fighting a battle I don’t understand, unwilling to accept the reality of the Hanged One, wishing somehow to overcome exhaustion and live beyond cycles, beyond sleep.
Autumn reminds me that rebirth is always around the corner, that an awakening beyond the physical can happen at any part of the cycle, that giving up control can be a necessary breaking point rather than something to fear.
Every morning, and every night, is a new chance to surrender. And perhaps this year, autumn’s shadows will help clear out my own.
