The Magician
Written by Kevin J McKee for the SoJournal and Personal Guide 2026. Reprinted with permission.
As he moves past the initial stages of his journey, falling or jumping off the cliff, our friend Everyman meets and becomes The Magician.
Standing centre-stage, with his arms pointing above and below him representing the concept of “as above, so below”, using the wand of divine connection in his “active hand” to draw down the insights of experience and divine insight.
The “as above, so below” concept is also very useful when trying to understand how energy shows up on different planes of existence. If you are not sure about a truth, look to nature, observe the world around you, the answer is there. It may be hidden by your own belief of “right” and “wrong”, or your fear, but it is there – surrender your preconceived ideas and observe with an open mind.
He is wearing a simple white tunic of purity and true intention. Covered by a red robe of passion, red also often symbolises the physical world, while white also represents the spiritual light of awareness. When mixed they create the pink of unconditional love.
Still very much a card of intention and potential, he is now starting to take considered action based on experience and insight. Learning how to use the tools he has unpacked from his bag (the four suits of the Minor Arcana: Wands, Pentacles, Cups and Swords) and to understand the endless cycle of creation (the sign of infinity above his head).
Around his waist he has a snake biting his own tail – a link to the Ouroboros symbol indicating the cyclical form of nature, death and rebirth. Wearing it as a belt shows that he is not only seeing the cycles but is also learning to use them to consciously to practically interpret, understand and manage his physical experience.
The card has a bright yellow background. Yellow is often used to indicate joy, optimism, clarity, mental focus, personal power, confidence, awakening and other similar concepts. For our purposes, even though he has a look of concentration on his face, he is calm, focussed, and totally confident in his actions.
He is also surrounded by flowers, mainly lilies (remember he had one in his hand in the previous card) and roses indicating love, abundance and creativity.
In terms of the Journey of the Fool, when meeting the Magician, our friend, Everyman starts to learn about his natural abilities and tools in the physical world using spiritual awareness.
Finding and exploring his personal power in the physical realm, learning through trial and error, decision and consequence, and gaining confidence in his abilities.
We all have the tools we need to have a fabulous life full of joy and passion. They have been hidden or neglected but they have always been there, we just need to accept them, embrace them and start using them.
Meditation
Read through the instructions below, don’t be scared to open your eyes and check something rather than hope you are doing it right. The answer to the questions; “Am I doing this right?” and “Am I meditating?” is always no. If you are thinking, you are not meditating. Meditation is a heart-based process, not an intellectual one.
Trust yourself just a little bit, you can do this. Everyone meditates in their own way, don’t panic, do the best you can right now and surrender to the process.
- Prepare as you normally would for meditation if you are an experienced meditator. If you haven’t meditated for a while, or ever, use a place you can be undisturbed, maybe light a candle (white would be good for this purpose), light your favourite incense, put on some instrumental music, lyrics will disturb your concentration. Sit comfortably on the floor or on a chair, wear loose clothing or at least loosen belts etc.
- Take a few slow, deep breaths focussing on relaxing, releasing the thoughts in your head, your mind will start running around a bit, that’s ok, acknowledge the thought, let it go and focus back on your breathing. Meditation is an exercise and like any exercise it takes a bit of practice to “get it right”.
- An important thing to remember about meditation is that it takes place in the inner planes of your mind, so release your expectations of what is going to happen, release your expectations about what is correct or right and relax into the process.
- If you try to control the meditation you are not meditating, you are just breathing deeply. Be open to receive, even if what you receive is not what you expect or hope for.
- If your attention “skips”, that’s ok, take another deep breath and focus again. It will get easier with practice.
- If you have already done a meditation to create a meditation temple or inner temple etc. you can use it for this process, if you haven’t created an inner temple or something similar, you can imagine your mind and awareness moving down from your head into your heart (PS – apparently your physical heart has brain cells in it too – called the heart brain – more about the heart space in the article on (0) or the blank page).
- Once you are in the heart space, hold the card in front of you, you can open your eyes, then once you think you can visualise the image, close your eyes again. Don’t panic about getting it 100%, go with what you can do
- Imagine stepping through the border of the card and speaking to The Magician. Ask him what he is trying to tell you, if you are feeling lost or powerless, ask him how you can find your power again.
- Just listen and let the thoughts flow and when you are ready continue.
- When you feel you have absorbed everything you can for the moment, focus again on your breathing, you may feel disconnected from your body, that’s ok, take some more breathes focussing on balancing your mind with your body, rub your fingers and thumb on both hands together until you feel centred, calm and grounded.
- Take a massive breath in, blow yourself up like a balloon, then exhale in a rush allowing all the air to rush out of your lungs, then breathe normally and when you feel ready open your eyes.
- Remember to make notes in your journal/mediation journal.