I - The Magician
The cards of the Major Arcana tell a story of evolution, of the growth of an ideal and ultimately conscious human being through life. So how is it that The Magician, a card indicating supreme skill, is here, at the beginning of the deck, at the beginning of life? In the card that precedes it, The Fool, our human has not yet left the womb and now, only an infant, this little human is pictured as the master of all the other suits, able to manifest at will. And so it is, for this is Spirit embodied in one of the most pure forms it will ever take on, and this embodied Spirit is about to manifest a life. Magical!
We come in knowing. As infants we carry the knowledge of why we have come to this place and of what we will do here. We have the benefit of no additional responsibilities and can, if we like, luxuriate in the joy of Spirit. Or, if we are a more intent type, we can use the time to ponder. You've seen those babies, they look quite serious...and no wonder. Life as a human creature is a challenge no matter what choices have been made about it prior to embodiment.
The traditional Magician is pictured with right hand up, left hand down, in what would appear to be the exact opposite position of manifesting. There are a couple of possibilities, since the left hand is considered to be the hand receiving energy, why older versions of the tarot would have chosen to picture the image in that way. The first is that the card is meant to act as a mirror so that if you reflect the position The Magician takes, you are then in the manifesting pose, drawing from Spirit, creating in the world. The other is that The Magician is offering the gifts of the world to Spirit before proceeding with his magic. The latter would make him a bit of a High Priest and therefore in conflict with V - The Pope or Hierophant who comes on a bit later and whose purview is actually quite different. But it is highly unlikely that you would see a High Priest, at least a High Priest pictured favorably, in what was, after all, a creation born of a very Christian outlook on the world so I think it to be the former, that he is intended as a mirror reflection.
The Magician of Sacred Earth, Seven Element has his/her left hand (presumably) open and facing down, drawing
earth energy in to manifest in the material world. The right, or manifesting, hand is out bearing that manifestation, a bubble. A bubble. Not very solid, really and not very long lasting, a reflection of a life on earth...but so pretty. Irresistibly radiating the rainbow colors of what we call our reality and reflecting any available light, the life of the bubble, as ours, is a brief thing. In the moment captured in this card, our little Magician is seriously meditating upon this very fact.
I chose this image precisely because The little Magician is sourcing from the physical to create in the physical as that is the information we receive from the world around us and what most of us are taught to do. If we sourced from Spirit as a rule this would be a very different place. I chose to picture us making our first mistake and reflecting in full knowledge on that mistake, a mistake many of us continue to make, thinking that what we are living is "reality," .
We all come in Magicians. We stay Magicians. Most of us just forget that fact, which is understandable in light of the programming that happens in utero and throughout infancy and childhood when our operating system, our brain, is besieged by the thought processes of those around us, embedding in the very physicality of our bodies the sense of limitation that so often comes from being human. It is that programming that we will travel through, and perhaps even out of, as we move through the journey of life that is the Major Arcana.