GRAY TAROT
The Magician I.
We all are bestowed great inner power on this earth, possessing the freedom to choose how to focus this energy. The laws of nature and life itself teach that the will to live and create stems from desire. The Magician is this cornerstone of humanity, dawning the beginning of art and invention. Represented by the number 1, The Magician is the “I”, or self, that animates our internal power into an output. At its highest frequency, The Magician is the realized self, holding creative power to manifest. At its lowest frequency, this energy turns into a black hole of our potential, becoming chaotically toxic, leading to destruction and a continued cyclic waste of our time. This card represents humanity’s first step entering the realization of creation. When The Magician is present, we are enchanted to call and conduct the magic in our lives. We all have this power, yet most are ignorant of it or believe that power lies elsewhere, denying this responsibility which is ultimately ours. We hold the power to manifest what we want through our practices. You are called to be conscious of this gift of energy that emanates from within. The Magician is the potential within the vessel that can be positively released through self discipline. With practice, we can thoughtfully use the elements surrounding us with our will and imagination to manifest our goals.
The Magician calls us to use our individual power to shape our trajectory through the physical world with symbols and elements. Owls have timelessly represented the great totem of wisdom, study, and magic. This mysterious wise animal is the daily practitioner of patience, and an illuminated creature of the night. Owls are a powerful symbolic familiar of The Magician, operating in the darkness of the veil, they can see what we cannot. Owls carry the power of Thoth and other magical deities including Athena, Santa Muerte, Lakshmi, Lilith, and countless others. The recipe for manifestation comes through desire, dreaming, imagination, vision, focus, and practice.
The Snowy owl is depicted in this illustration with two different eyes, needed to truly see and address all aspects of life. The sharp clear cat’s eye on the right keeps focus on the tactical world, honing in on the work you desire to do in the physical material realm. Then there is the left blind milky intuitive eye connected to the subconscious mystic abstract plain of unseen energies, necessary for inner vision and perception. The key to making the right choices in life is to balance your perception. Through the power of the mind’s eye connected with these probing sights, you cut through the darkness and uncertainties of the veil. You posses the arsenal of sharp tools necessary to bend and create with the elements at hand. With power, focus, will, action, intention, and symbol, it is possible to reach and manifest expansive possibilities. This owl has collected a nest full of powerful symbolic tools and medicines helpful for nourishing and lending aid to The Magicians work. Material items provide symbolic conduits for energies to work through and are syncretic messengers that pop up in our lives, calling us to be present to make the connections. Keep your eyes open! Like talons, we hold the power to draw these elements together to grasp our desires, once we have a focused sight and distinguish target.
We are all dealt our hand of cards in life of which we have had no choice, yet we are called to be empowered to control our personal force and trajectory in this world with this hand. Our physical shell is the illuminating, blooming vessel of life’s manifestation and purpose to create. Through focus, handwork, and ritual we develop our personal skills. We find our purpose and connected space of service to this beautiful healing expressive world that needs nurturing and creativity to thrive. The Magician hones endless possibility of what the mind can achieve. Herein exists the works and world of experimenting heroes and dreamers. The path is expansive to dream, to try, and be open to new knowledge, bending the will within yourself in thoughtful application to the world around you. The snowy owl lends to us the magical powers of dreaming and imagination.
Desire and imagination are the key ingredients to ignite manifestation, but without focus they are lost within the ether. Work on realizing your own personal power through study, meditation, and observation. One of the most powerful elements of this card is the power of focus. Our energy is just another form of light. When it is focused and used with the right tools, we become a laser. Like the owl hunting at night, our patience, focus, and observational knowledge illuminates the darkness, harnessing it to our advantage, giving shape to the unseen possibilities we can grasp in the pursuit of desire. If you are lazy in your practice, your energy becomes static, clinging to unimportant things. We waste opportunity and potential when we let our energy go directionless instead of focusing it. When we let our energy become loose, angry, or unhinged, we are like lightning, ready to strike chaotically in wild and oftentimes destructive patterns without grounding. Like light, our energy keeps expanding out into the vacuum of the universe. Take care with the course of your inner flame. Like insulating electricity, try and find practices and grounding things in life to surround yourself with to protect this energy.
We are all so much stronger than we were led to believe. The power of choice is in our hands and what we strive for is on us. We are held unquestionably responsible for our actions and the ripples they cause. Being aware demands accountability. I have found underlying fear and superstitions held within spiritual communities regarding owl medicine. This kind of medicine is shunned, feared, and frowned upon by many religions that take power and responsibility away from people, putting it onto the will of a controlling higher power. It can often keep one from looking inward for answers, power, healing, and manifestation. If we keep the focus off personal power and push it on outside elements it is easy to become lost and hopeless, thinking our efforts have very little influence on our outcome. Pacifying indoctrinating religious institutions (whose hidden underlying goal is to make money, obtain power, and brainwash obedient people), try to divide, push human hopelessness, constipate logic, absolve horrific human behavior, and set fear in social hierarchies. Unfortunately, paths of truth and knowledge and their messengers have been demonized, vilified, and altered. Like the elements and relationships in this world needed to keep the delicate balance of an ecosystem, we need to try and work in harmony with the ways of nature. When we take care of these things, we take care of ourselves. When we consider the earth and take care of the land (our environment) we heal with it. We need the medicine and knowledge of these religiously demonized figures, including powerful animals with magical insight like snakes, cats, owls, and many more.
The Magician represents power rooted in the oneness of the self. Like the yin and yang, and the masculine and feminine, we are all encompassing, being made whole by these opposing dualities. This includes the shadowy yin feminine side associated with moon cycles, healing, and the mysteries of night, along with the yang masculine energy of light associated with the sun, our planets self sustaining generator of power that pushes life into existence. Embrace this wholeness as you manifest your magic. Owls represent the neutral and are balanced in the gray. These night creatures associated with the shadow, operate in the dark and rest in the light. Because the power of The Magician is manifested within the self, it includes the full self, the gray area, experienced in light and personal darkness. To save yourself the trouble and destruction that can manifest working with The Magician’s energy, I encourage you to dive within yourself. Harness those dualities and seek honesty and balance. Find your core. Try to identify the inner workings of your full and true self and understand how that drives your actions. What is it I wish to manifest? How do I use discipline, ritual, and routine within my life practices to get the results I want? What is magic to me? What do I want to focus and develop? What is it I truly desire and wish to birth and bring forth in this world and how do I tend its care? What dreams do I want to start or are already in the process of manifesting and how do I sustain them into fruition?
Keyword: Illumination, creation, manifestation, imagination, dreaming, inner power, energy, Art, intention, focus, addiction, new opportunity, realization, study, mastering work, seizing opportunity, awareness, therapy, ritual, practice