People who are guides, therapists, agents of change, holders of space, facilitators, coaches, healers, and so forth are familiar with the word “transformation”. We hear it in workshops, read it in self-help books, and banty it about in conversation.
Transformation sounds lovely. We say that we want to transform our lives, to become better people. To have a word for it — transformation — makes it sound easy. Is it? In a group experience a few years ago, post-Jungian analyst Marion Woodman declared to all of us, “There can be no transformation without sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to transform?” The room got very quiet as we chewed on this, not entirely liking it, yet knowing in our guts that she was right.
To transform is to change into another form of energy, to transmute into another substance, to undergo a radical alteration, to be stripped and rebuilt. Reflect on the myriad myths of death and resurrection. Trump 13’s Great Reaper in the tarot. Think about Scorpio’s penchant for elimination and total transition. Pluto’s power to slurp us into an underworld inititiation. Not always pretty or elegant, but certainly thorough.
To transform takes courage, or at least a willingness to keep journeying without always knowing. Let’s be honest; not many of us would call out, “Hooray!” if Life said, “OK, I’m going to dismantle you piece by piece, throw out what doesn’t work, keep bits of what does work, knead you like a lump of dough, then gradually construct your real self.” I’m not sure that it’s about becoming a happier person, but it IS about becoming a more authentic person.
Transformation is noble work; therefore, it deserves to be rescued from buzzword hell. By all means, let’s transform, but let’s do so conscious that it’s not all bubbles and roses. What are we willing to sacrifice in order to truly transform?
Using the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, I asked, “What is transformation?” and received the Hierophant, reversed. This suggests to me that transformation is a deeply personal initiation ritual and a time-honoured tradition that we carry in our personal and collective psyches.
Please leave comments and questions, my friends. Let’s have a conversation about transformation.
Yes. It is uncomfortable. And smelly. And altogether disorienting at times. And yes to sacrifice. And those who are clear on that may have an easier time of it. Struggle a bit less against it. Embrace the discomfort as a sign of growth. I like your read on the Heirophant reversed. It also suggests to me discarding what we think we know and practicing beginners mind. Thanks for your words.
Beginners’ mind is certainly a helpful tool in the transformation journeyperson’s backpack, Fleur. Each day (hour? minute?) can bring more eliminations as well as fresh illumination. To do our best to maintain a state of openness can help us work them well. I appreciate your input here.
How to allow yourself to be disintegrated and re-integrated with grace and trust…
I have been fascinated by the description of Caterpillar’s transformation into Butterfly. Apparently, inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar turns into primal soup.. disappears into something called Imaginal Cells. Isn’t that the most wonderful phrase?!
Only after it has been reduced to this stage can it build itself into it’s destiny as a butterfly. If you google ‘imaginal cells’ you can read all about this amazing process.. one in particular that is inspiring is at ‘community-intelligence.com’
Yes, Judy, the chrysalis is where the transformation takes place if the conditions are right. I like to think of the contents as “wise mush”. How many of us have the courage to become wise mush before we grow wings?
Interesting thoughts here, James, and I think you are quite right! Transformation is not necessarily the gentle unfolding of a butterfly set to spacey New Age tunes; it is rather an ongoing process that can be both ugly and beautiful. The Hierophant reversed also calls to mind for me the idea of overthrowing the existing order, breaking from convention and throwing off any self-imposed yokes that no longer serve us.
@Judy: That is fascinating! Next random google search, imaginal cells! 🙂
Thanks, Melanie. Each person’s process is so stunning. For some, it’s very manageable, for others it’s almost like dying. In fact, I really believe that some piece of our consciousness perceives all change as death. Nice take on V. reversed.
Another take on the reversed Hierophant: transformation is the process of being one’s own teacher
…and being one’s own spiritual mediator and authority.
Marion Woodman declared to all of us, “There can be no transformation without sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to transform?”
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Isn’t that the most perfect summation of the order of the Majors moving from XII Hanged One to XIII Death ?
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One word that comes to me for the reversed V Hierophant is Revolution (akin to what Melanie said, « overthrowing the existing order »). As we watch the revolutions going on around the world and even in the US right now, we can see that transforming the old order and the old regimes (old habits and patterns that held us in their grasp for far too many years/lifetimes), we have to be willing to go through the often bloody, painful struggle brought about by revolt against who we’ve become comfortable being. It makes me think of a lyric from the song « Feel » by Robbie Williams, « I don’t wanna die,
But I ain’t keen on living either. » How often are we fed up with who we’ve become, or with simply being the shell of who we know we have the potential to be…and yet, we are so afraid of going through the process of dying/transformation that continue to subject ourselves to the tyrrany of our old selves and our old ways rather than stand up in revolt and surrender ourselves to the infinite possibilities and potential that the Imaginal Cells would allow us to envision ? We say, « I don’t know who I want to be (or what I want to do, or where I want to go, or…) » because we aren’t willing to dissolve into Imaginal Cells that then give us the ability to Imagine different, Imagine greater, Imagine in an unlimited way. Isn’t the saying, « I scare myself to death » interesting…because it indicates that in order to get to the point of Transformation and the willingness to go through it, we have to give in to and embrace Fear in order for it to take us there.
The XII to XIII step is noted.
As one of my teachers once said, “Peacemaking is messy work.” Recently, someone asked me what I’d be willing to die for. I have to tell you that my honest reply was, “I’m not willing to die for anything. I’d rather live for it.”
There’s a really good book by Adam Kahane: “Solving Tough Problems”, with a chapter called The Miraculous Option. Considering that Kahane works in the area of tough problems which are incredibly enmeshed in the business/government world, I thought of him as a very inspired Hierophant when I read his work.
He talks about how as a consultant he saw that it was possible for people to see themselves as part of – not apart from- the problem they were trying to solve. Instead of using “clever viewgraphs or brilliant experts or anonymous decision makers”, one team broke into small groups and each group was asked to return to the whole group with any scenario it wanted. The listeners were not permitted to shout down any story with “That couldn’t happen” or “I don’t want that to happen” – they could only ask “Why would that happen” or “What would happen next?”.
He comments that using scenarios in this way can be an extraordinarily powerful process because it helps people to sense and ‘actualize’ emerging new realities.
I was delighted to read such words in a book that is regarded an mainstream – there is a shift there surely, from the established, intransigent ways of thinking about conflict and or its resolution.
Thanks for the heads-up, Laura. There’s some good material coming out these days, Laura. Berrett-Koehler is a publisher that’s bringing ideas that are not the cultural norm into the corporate, educational, political, etc. worlds. Reading their books by Christina Baldwin & Ann Linnea, Meg Wheatley, Adam Kahane, and many others are very much like being in council with wise ones who care about (dare I use the word?) transforming our culture into one that is life-affirming.
James – Thanks for the authors’ names and also the publisher – I’ll keep an eye out.
I was in a rush when I posted this earlier in the day, and as I was walking to my appointment, I realised I meant to put that I thought of Kahane as an “inspired (reversed?)” Hierophant.
And the other thought that comes to me now is about the Hierophant being a 5 – which in the minor arcana can express change that comes from some kind of conflict. For me, therefore, the Hierophant, upright, but perhaps even more so reversed, is about finding one’s own way through whatever infrastructure is currently hindering growth/development/*transformation*.
There are so many paths to the one goal, aren’t there? Let’s hope a gradual awareness is developing globally and that what we don’t endlessly learn from history is that we don’t learn anything from history.
And I forgot to say that I think you post is really informative and interesting. And that the tarot is always on the money, isn’t it?
Thanks for the article, James.
Interesting to see The Hierophant rev. Number 5 is a transformation number, can be chaotic, but indeed change will come out of it. The Hierophant rev, also calls my attention about transformation as a non linear process, not structured, maybe a more organic inward directed… Changes can be initiated in the form, but many times it includes a movement , a disclosure of our real essence.
Just my grain of salt.
Aurora
Mmm…non-linear is a great way to think of transformation, Aurora. It’s like a labyrinth in that as we journey we sometimes get close to the centre and at other times it seems as though the path is as far from the core as possible. Yet somehow we make it.