Hips and Legs

As your lower limbs, the hips and legs anchor you into your earthly life, providing firm stability, mobility, and the flexibility to walk, dance, run, and move freely. When the terrain beneath you is challenging or the ground feels shaky, they work together to help keep you steady, balanced, and on track, even in unfamiliar or unfriendly territory. When not working optimally - whether through injury, overuse, or other causes - one or both hips, knees, ankles, or specific parts of a leg may develop pain, stiffness, tearing, breakage, arthritis, inflexibility, restrictions, or immobility.

In Susan Drury's understanding, the hips and legs are far more than the mechanical structures that carry us through space. They are the body's foundation - the structures that connect us to the earth, that give us the ability to stand firm in who we are, and that carry us forward on our path. The language of the body reveals this: we speak of "standing our ground," of "taking a stand," of "putting our best foot forward," of being "crippled" by circumstances. These expressions are the body's wisdom speaking through the language of the lower limbs.

When Susan created the Elevated Body oracle deck, the Hips and Legs card was designed to help you explore your relationship with stability, mobility, and forward movement. Where in your life have you become stuck? Where have you lost your footing? Where are you being called to take a stand ... or to let go and move on? The hips and legs hold the answers, and this card helps you listen to what they have been trying to tell you.

Issues can arise when we become stuck, immobilized, or take a rigid stance, especially within specific relationships or restrictive conditions in our lives. When feeling uncertain or insecure, we can feel like we "don't have a leg to stand on" or cannot "stand our ground." During challenging circumstances, we might feel pushed to "bend at the knees," give in, or receive something undeserved, undesirable, or diminishing. When circumstances overwhelm us, we can feel stuck in place, as if we are "crippled" from moving forward in our lives.

"The hips and legs carry the story of your relationship with the earth itself - with gravity, with groundedness, with your right to take up space and move through the world. When they hurt, they are asking you to examine where in your life you have lost your footing, your stability, or your freedom to move."

Susan's approach invites you to bring awareness to your hips and legs - to notice where they feel strong and where they feel weak, where they are flexible and where they are rigid. Hip pain, for example, often relates to deep-seated patterns of control or surrender - the hips being the body's centre of balance between holding on and letting go. Knee issues may reflect an unwillingness to bend, to yield, to be flexible in the face of life's demands. Ankle problems may point to a lack of support or stability in your foundational relationships. Each area of the lower limbs tells its own story, and the Hips and Legs card helps you read that story with compassion and curiosity.

Read these words aloud and feel them land in your hips, your legs, your feet. Notice the sensation of groundedness that arises when you declare your right to stand firm, to move freely, and to dance to the beat of your own drum. The transcendence is not a wish ... it is a remembering of the strength and stability that have always been available to you through your connection to the earth.

Working with the Hips and Legs Card

Frequently Asked Questions

Find Your Footing. Stand Your Ground. Move Forward.

Your hips and legs have been carrying you through life since your very first steps. It is time to honour what they hold and to reclaim the stability, flexibility, and freedom of movement that are your birthright.