THE MAGICIAN — magic is storytelling
The Magician as interpreted by @waxwing.tarot and @eyesofbirch.
The number 1 of the tarot, the channeller, the magic-worker, the mercurial & intemperate embodiment of a sudden chill autumn breeze — the magician works with intent, but an intent that is unfixed & changeable. Like its astrological correlate, mutable Gemini, the magician's attention is at once focused, determined, calculated — and — divided, shifting, flexible. Both at once. Without contradiction.
In the guidebook for one of my favorite tarot decks, the Antique Anatomy Tarot, Claire Goodchild describes the magician as a card that "encourages [us] to become the architect of [our] own lives" (Goodchild 27). I see the architect as the creator, the artist, the storyteller — the one who takes reality into their hands & shapes it. Ba's depiction of the magician as holding a book is such a welcome reworking of this card, and a reminder that the possibilities of creative work are unconstrained.
How do your favorite books about magic describe what magic is? Due to the influence of Namjoon's recommended reading, I've been deep in the Ursula Le Guin of it all. In Tales from Earthsea, she describes the feeling of working with magic like this: "the guesswork of a [magician] is close to knowledge, though [they] may not know what it is [they] know" (LeGuin 14).*
The magician holds the balance of wielding one's ability with confidence in one's own earned knowledge, while also holding the wilder, creative, & ungrounded understanding that one “knows” nothing at all. That one is always guessing. The magician knows — and invites us to know — that "knowledge," "truth," and "magic" are stories we tell ourselves. We can arrive at them through deliberate work & by happy accident. The space between knowing & unknowing — and the ability to bring ✨something✨ out of that space — is the work of the magician.
Is it too obvious to close with lyrics from Magic Shop? Allow me to do it anyway: "all your answers are in this place you found // in your milky way, inside your heart."
*original text edited to remove gendered language
Artist’s Interpretation of the The Magician by @eyesofbirch
The organic, tried and true prose that “Knowledge is Power” — with this the Magician denotes a space of intention to practice gathering and manifestation. The alchemical communication that takes place within the self, using tools from all aspects of our environment. A transmutation that can lead to creativity or decomposition, fed through the aforementioned lens of “intention”. Thinking about this delicate but methodical utilization of gathering brought NamJoon to my mind immediately.
This is a study where NamJoon resides from his dynamic and complex inner world to his tranquil adventures in the natural world. I believe his gathering reflects heavily in the Magician, uniquely in this context, on the world’s bookshelf. I was drawn to the Magician by the presence of gathering power, inspired by the resources needed to transmute and reach a chamber of manifestation.
NamJoon’s role in leadership, while being the “middle child” of the group, stands him at the Magician’s table (or in this case the Magician’s bookshelf) with his team at all sides of him and A.R.M.Y. being his grand apothecary. He is incubated by their love, support and distinct abundance of talent and vantage points. It thus helps him easily tap into that space. With this particular faculty inherent to him, you will always catch him gathering power.
This simplistic and modern depiction of NamJoon, adorns him with totems of meditation and charge, readying his space with intention. Seeking out a book is quite usually something he fully embodies. He communicates carefully with his environment despite his clumsy nature. Just as the world is a library to him, he is an encyclopedia of creativity and record keeping. He is every book you’ll ever investigate, learning it’s strengths, neutrality and weaknesses.
