What a great pair to follow yesterday's throw! I am trying real hard to not spend more time describing the images than interpreting the cards, but I keep getting lost in the symbolism. **deep breath** Okay.
The True Black Magician is awesome. The image shows a man with a beard wearing a hooded robe. Behind him is a dark horizon lined with sparks, billows of smoke and steam, and orange light, as if a conflagration was burning just out of sight. Silhouettes of Wands and Swords grounded in the earth are behind him Above him is the lemniscate, used to represent an infinite quantity. The Magician has his arms raised with thumbs meeting at his throat, with fingers in the same mudra as The Hierophant but with one hand pointing up with palm out and the other hand pointing down with palm in. Below his hands and at heart level is a glowing orb of energy, seeming to emit sparks that look like stars and planets. Behind him is a part of a sky map of the Southern Hemisphere.
The Empress of this deck has an aura of feminine confidence to me. She is lounging on a beautiful golden throne consisting of flowering plants and overgrown vines, with her knees together and pointed toward the viewer's right. Her hair is the same color as her throne. Her body posture is relaxed and sensually aware of how good it feels to relax and enjoy the pleasures of her physical senses. Her right hand is beginning to pull the white tunic she wears off of her shoulder, allowing her fingers to trail against her skin; her left hand cradles a golden, perfectly ripe melon, a symbol of mothering and birth. Behind her head is a diagram of the hormone Oxytocin.
The Magician is a personally significant card for me, and having him show up today, after beginning to work with this powerful deck and after yesterday's cards, is meaningful. His keywords in this deck are creation, manifestation, power and will. He is all about being a bridge or conduit between the Earthly energies and effects, and the powers of the Divine. His intellect, wisdom, and honed skills allow him to not only open himself to the flow of those energies, but also to use them to manifest his own will. The Magician makes things happen in a hands-on way because he has experience with the use of secret knowledge and a strong connection to his own intellect, and he tends to be oblivious of the constrictions of the concepts of normal rules and accepted behavior. In a sense, he has achieved the ability to work with the potential of the Aces of the Minor Arcana. Indeed, one interpretation of that infinity symbol is of a potential infinity, rather than an actual infinite quantity. He focuses outward to grasp the needed tools, but then he brings his focus inward in order to infuse those effects and powers with his own needs and then manifests them.
Pairing The Magician with the True Black Empress is such an interesting concept. He is all about power and the owning and using of power, and she is all about pleasure, the pleasure that comes from lush materials, intense sex, a loving embrace, and the release that comes from laughter. The Empress is surrounded with bounty, both the fruits of a fertile earth and the sense of home and health and well-being that cannot be purchased with any coin. The Empress also understands that gratitude and sharing are both an integral part of the pleasures she offers. Yes, she is fertility personified, but that fertility only works when it is shared, not guarded jealously. Her keywords are mothering, riches, pleasure and sexuality. Oxytocin is a hormone that is released into the blood in response to sexual activity, physical embraces, and birth labor, and it plays a role in social bonding, the feelings of empathy and generosity, and reproduction.
There is a message here for me, and it is empowering. The Magician reminds me that I have survived the extremes of the energies and powers of the physical world, survived alone and made my own decisions that allowed me to benefit from and learn from the experience. The Empress reminds me that my inner sense of rightness and purpose (and the pleasure that comes from that inner sense) can be applied in many different ways in order to create a more fulfilling tomorrow. The Empress is reminding The Magician that power, knowledge and skill are empty without connections, enjoyment and a grateful awareness of the bounties offered by the Earth. Yes, The Magician can connect the powers of the elements with the powers of the Divine, but The Empress can access the power of transformation and creativity that is inherent within Nature and manifest that power in the physical world. In a way, the workings of The Magician might be only an imitation of that transformative and creative natural manifestation of Deity that is Nature.
Hmmmm . . .
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