At first glance this is quite a frightening card. As a teenager I went to school with some boys who had been badly hurt in a car accident and this face reminded me of the very serious injuries they suffered.
I had read Marguerite Petersen’s explanation of the image: Through the Mask it sounds, I AM….. and then the image became more positive. The artist saw this as mask but in my unknowingness I see it more as the face of the Magician emerging from an inferno of energy and the as yet incompletely formed mouth uttering I AM .
The Magician is the Tarot Major that I understand the least. He does not feel real for me and I never get him in personal readings. I know what others say about him but identify with little of it. The power of ONE seems to fit. In this image the Magician is taking form. Is this what he means for us? When we begin something, alone, we face the chaos of a new experience. Is finding oneself in that space the choice of Fool and beginning to act a choice of Magician? There is something here beyond my ken. One can sense the tremendous power in this image.
To return to my opening comments, the boys in that car accident had to remake their identities and lives, which had almost been taken away from them. In some ways they also had to become Magicians. I don't know what ultimately happened as we left that town when my Dad got transferred.
Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face
grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.
In this imeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in this magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.
And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.
Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29