Living with Mindfulness Using Tarot Cards

The Magician

Why do we love magic?

When the English magician Steven Frayne starred in his TV series Dynamo: Magician Impossible, it was viewed by more than 280 million people worldwide at its first showing. His walk across the River Thames in front of a crowd on Westminster Bridge still fascinates people.

How did he do it?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that in the world of Tarot, everyone is a Magician.

The Magician is portrayed as a person who has all the tools he needs in life. They’re close at hand, ready to be used. On the table in front of him are the symbols of the four minor suits: wands (willpower); cups (soul); swords (mind); pentacles (body).

We all have willpower, soul, mind and body. There are almost magical results when all these tools are used in unison and wisely.

The mathematical symbol for infinity floats above the Magician’s head. It’s an elongated numeral 8, positioned sideways. This represents the connection and continuity of all things. It’s a graceful reminder that we are eternal. We’re made of stardust and mud; and invisible, essential forces. We don’t know where we are on the continuum, but we’re there somewhere, caught up in the flow of all things.

The Magician has one arm extended towards the heavens, the other points to the earth. This pose reminds us of the dictum: As above, so below. The Magician is the lightning rod. He guides universal power through to the physical realm, helping “Above” meet “Below” safely.

Mindfulness and the Magician

A helpful way to consider the Magician card is to think of it as encapsulating This Moment.

Mindfulness is all about living in the moment. Mindfulness dwells in the moment. So does the Magician.

You do real magic when you summon your whole being into this moment and become one with it so that what you do is the best that could be done by you right then.

You don’t create a blockage, cause a blackout, blow a fuse or start an enraging fire.

In that moment your thought or no-thought, action or inaction, and words or silence, unites with the flow of the universe.

You continue along the flow of the mathematical symbol of eternity.

The French Jesuit philosopher, paleontologist and geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote:

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

Steven Frayne (the magician Dynamo) once said:

Sometimes I wonder if my life has all been an illusion. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that reality is only what you make it.

Back to the question posed at the beginning:

Why do we love magic?

Because at a deep-down level we suspect we can do real magic, if we could only figure out how.

The magic we want to do isn’t done with sleight of hand or trickery. It’s done right here, right now, with you and me living the life of the Magicians we really are.

Our role as the Magician isn’t to waste energy on cleverly deceiving those around us but to use our energy to perform our own mindful miracles.

Insight

You have all your need.

Know and respect your tools: willpower; soul; mind; body. Use them wisely.

There’s power in all of us, when we learn how to use it.

The next article in this series will feature the High Priestess.

Foretaste: Ask yourself questions (not someone else).

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the article about the Fool, the first card of Tarot. Everyone’s the Fool. We’re all on a journey, unsure of what the next step will bring. Find out how to be the best Fool you can be!