The Magus

Fear whispers into her ears today, fear of the unknown, fear of the known, or perhaps a fear that what is unknown is already known, together with the fact that what she sees as known may actually be false. Knowledge is a moveable feast, it changes with the times, continually updates, leads us into blind avenues, surprises us with gems in the unlikeliest of corners, and dashes the most glorious edifices to dust. It is a dangerous pastime, the pursuit of knowledge, and there are no guarantees that what we find will be acceptable; all journeys have a price, some of which are greater than others.

Ascending the stairs, a heat rising like a fire within her, her unsteady heart beats a chaotic rhythm in her chest, and she wonders what path she will discover, what part of her will be revealed today. Stepping through the whirling blue and yellow colours of the portal as they shimmer and shift in the darkness, she finds herself surrounded by spinning fractals of colour that twist and turn and leap and fall all around her. Flames of air manifest, die, embrace and part in a cacophony of light, accompanied by the sound of laughter and chatter spiralling dervish like, up into the endless blue skies. To try to make some sense of it all, she closes her eyes, finding that she is attracted to a patch in the corner of her mind, a small and constant unmoving heart of darkness in the whirligig world of colour.

A tiny, but perfectly formed oak tree emerges from the darkness, looking to be many hundreds of years old, with its feet in the earth and its arms reaching towards the heavens, walking the path between heaven and hell and making a life in between. The tree beckons to her, and she enters, stepping inside the trunk and allowing her toes to reach into the roots and her arms to stretch into the branches as they reach up into the heavens. She can feel the energy coming from the darkness beneath her feet, flowing up into the light, and she sees the leaves playing in the breeze, soaking up the sparkling sunshine. She can also feel the twisted roots delving into the dark soil and how both roots and leaves have their part to play, relying on each other, as above so below.

She listens in wonder to the life of the rustling leaves, the birds and the animals that live in the branches, telling her their stories, poems and gossip, the voices of the world carried on the four winds pouring themselves into her listening ears. She feels the light of the sun, the moon and the stars and along with all this lightness and beauty, she can also feel the power of the darkness beneath her feet, and a need to explore the underground riches that lays beneath her rooted toes. Descending into the velvet grasp of the rich earth, she sinks below the ground and finds herself in a dark, dry cavern, sparsely lit from vents that let in tiny amounts of light from the world of sunshine above. In the centre of the cavern stands a large chair, perhaps a kind of throne, and in the chair, silent and unmoving sits the figure of an old man.

Sternly he watches her approach, saying nothing, and as she stands before him, still he says nothing, a gaze of ice, a wall of apparent emptiness greeting her as he watches the proceedings with an implacable stare that seems rather familiar to her. His eyes are a dark silence that goes to places that she cannot fathom, and so she kneels and watches. Slowly, and almost imperceptibly, a small point of light appears in the darkness of his eyes, as glistening tears gather in the corners, welling slowly and inexorably until they can gather no more, and begin to fall. One by one, they drop heavily onto his tired cheeks, falling from eyes that have seen too much and which have not wept; aeons of sadness that lie behind his coldness, the tears of a thousand years or more. Kneeling down before the old man, she waits in the darkness of the dry cavern in the roots of the tree.

She observes him, knowing that she cannot help him, but also knowing that he doesn’t need her help; it is just that she needs to show him that she accepts his pain, his injuries, the difficulties, the sadness and the loss, she accepts them all, as she accepts her own. She recognises that it is through her acceptance of that which she cannot change that the tree springs, fertile and alive, spreading its branches into the summer skies to make a home for the insects, the birds and the animals and plants that live there. Amongst the gnarled branches of this ancient tree, all that has happened in the past and all that may happen in the future will continue, whatever she may feel about it at the time, eventually unfolding in it’s own good way.

Accepting what is beyond your control, brings a greater understanding of your situation. There is a light and a dark side to all situations, and you are a walker between worlds, a builder of bridges, a translator of language and a writer of fate. Travel, gather, observe, search and understand; garner and harvest, shape your findings and your experiences into something meaningful, therein lies your power.

I The Magus
The Planetary Trump of Mercury
The Magus of Power

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