🌕♒︎ Magician to Chariot: Spirit Make Me a Vessel
The Magician and the Chariot cards from the Smith-Waite tarot, surrounded by flowers.
This month’s spread has coincided with some of the most potent and intense astrology of the year.
Mercury has turned direct yet still lingers in the sign of Cancer, building momentum as it shifts to forward motion again. Alongside this time of deep emotional processing and confusion, the outer planets have slowly arranged into an alignment of sextiles and trines anchored by Jupiter in Leo’s opposition to Pluto in Aquarius. The Aquarius full moon this week accentuates this configuration as the luminaries take their places next to Jupiter and Pluto, the lord of heaven and the lord of the underworld, as they fully face one another during their cycle’s peak.
The slow moving outer planets in astrology correspond to collective patterns, disruptions, cycles, and trends. Jupiter, with its relatively short twelve-year zodiacal cycle, is the most personal planet among these giants. Jupiter has to do with our beliefs, our sense of faith and optimism, the horizon we may envision our life moving towards. Jupiter’s principle is one of expansion. At the collective level, it governs systems of ethics, laws, philosophy, and spirituality. On the other side of the zodiac, Pluto is an underworld figure. The most recently discovered of the modern outer planets, Pluto’s emergence in our collective consciousness coincided with the development of nuclear energy, and the horrifying realization of humanity’s capacity for self-annihilation. Pluto governs power and wealth and the kinds of subconscious forces that will do anything to obtain it.
As it slowly moves through the zodiac, Pluto reveals collective shadows, bringing them into public consciousness. In Aquarius, a sign emblematic of technological innovation and humanistic ideals, Pluto’s ingress has coincided with the public emergence of techno-fascism in the US government, the proliferation of AI, and the expansion of surveillance technologies. The promise of Pluto here over the next decade may be a redistribution of power into many hands as opposed to the few, but this depends on mass organized and sustained collective action, which is only beginning to take shape.
This astrology, with the Sun and Jupiter in the heroic sign of Leo opposing the Moon and Pluto in the collective sign of Aquarius, is asking us where our collective understanding of individualism as an ontology has brought our society. The myth of the hero promises glory to the one who succeeds, and ingrains in us the notion that every person’s success or failure is personal, with no systemic or structural dimensions. The reality of interconnection reveals to us the folly of this view, but power structures depend on the continuation of these myths. Under this moon, I imagine power and wealth disparities will be even further stressed, and perhaps some rupture will occur. Full moons often mark a period of coming to fruition, consequence, and letting go. This is a good time to explore the notion of “main character syndrome” within yourself and ask, what might you be willing to do, to offer, to achieve, if you weren’t the hero of the story, but one point among many in a shining constellation, all playing a role.
The weeks leading up to this moon have been marked by Mercury’s retrograde in Cancer. This brings me back to the Slow Tarot spread of this month, which was drawn at the Cancer new moon in the midst of this retrograde. In many systems of tarot, the Magician corresponds with Mercury, and the Chariot signifies the sign of Cancer. This synchronicity alone is invitation enough to delve into these two cards more deeply, but the story they tell together does not end there. In the context of this full moon’s astrology, the Magician and the Chariot speak to how we might break ourselves free from the myth of individualism and into a more full and relational engagement with our place in the world.
The Magician is creative initiative, the spark within us that demands to be an active participant in life.
We see them, fully resourced and ready to cast an alchemical spell, bringing the energy of the enchanted cosmos down into form. The Magician is number one in the tarot, the principle of individuation, symbolizing the magic that we alone can envision and offer.
The wise Magician understands that they are a channel for the mystery, and its humble collaborator.
Through their spells, the Magician asks to be a vessel, a conduit for energy to flow through as it takes shape. The sub rosa setting of the Magician is a reminder to hold your magic close, to refrain from identifying the ego and self with its achievements alone. Artists, musicians, and writers often speak of themselves as a channel for the work to spring through. We can practice our craft and refine our techniques, but creative act often involves a collaboration with the ineffable. As the tarot teaches us, this journey of the self is a constant dissolving and becoming, and hubristic clinging to an unyielding self as the individual hero can end in collapse and destruction, for oneself or the collective.
In the Chariot, we meet the spell the Magician cast. We become the container for creativity to move through.
Like the Magician, the Charioteer holds a double-pointed wand. The veil of roses above has become one of stars, and emblems of the cosmos adorn our vessel and its driver. Perhaps most significantly, this driver holds no reins. The mystical creatures at the head of the chariot – a black sphinx and a white sphinx – are not being controlled by material force. The Charioteer might represent the conscious conception of self, but the card points us to the vehicle of the Chariot, the combination of self and the unknown components of psyche, the forces beyond our control, all that needs to align for us to achieve forward momentum towards our creative vision.
Tarot and astrology teach us that the psyche is so much vaster and wilder than our individual egos want to believe it is. The suppressed, shadow, and hidden parts of us may greatly outnumber the coherent self our sweet minds acknowledge. The deeper we go, however, the more we learn that the line between internal self and external world is blurred and regularly troubled. The Chariot speaks to this truth, that unseen forces are always partial drivers of our initiatives, creative or otherwise. And so it is with humility, emotional intelligence, and the wisdom of this truth that we can be more wise stewards of our vessel through which our Magician’s spirit flows.
Returning to the entire spread of this month, creativity is at its forefront.
Slow Tarot spread for Cancer - Leo season.
The Ace of Wands at the top of this spread speaks to the creative energy available to each of us in this moment. The Magician to the left of the Lovers in the center reminds us that our heroism is not the point of this moment, but instead, we must uncover the authentic spark inside of us that wants to take root at this painful moment in the collective. The Two of Swords asks us to find the protective space we need to reclaim this seed within ourselves, and summon the bravery to usher it into the unknown (8 of Cups). This Mercury Rx in Cancer may have brought us face to face with emotional patterns of self-protection that keep us small and keep this creative force within us hidden, but at what cost? Finally, the Chariot reminds us that we are always driven by seen and unseen forces.
It’s a wonder that any of us maintain our connection to the creative force within us in this stage of human development we find ourselves within.
The forces of late-stage capitalism and social conformity effort to stamp out creative sparks early. The less creative we are, the better consumers and workers we become. Art has found itself in a feedback loop with massive wealth, and as a vehicle for wealth to become static and inaccessible. The message is that there are few genius individuals who are fortunate enough to create art, and the rest of us can only witness it. Many of us deflect any opportunity to reclaim our artistry with phrases like “I’m just not creative” and so the light in us may dim and falter, but it still smolders, somewhere.
Courage is a trait that both the Magician and the Chariot embody.
The Magician is courageous in their audacity, because magic always contains a morsel of the unknown, and things can always go awry. The Chariot’s courage is evident in their distance from the safety of society, the armor of the Charioteer indicates a battle may lie ahead. Cancer, the sign of the crab, is ruled by the moon. The crab’s shell provides safety from external threats and creates space for vulnerability. The moon is the fastest moving body in space from our persepctive, always changing and shifting, never still. Returning to the black and white sphinx at the head of the Chariot, we can understand that the forces driving the Chariot forward are not fully known to us, and are likely to change and evolve. And so, embodying this vessel is not to take our rightful place as the arbiter of these forces, but to hopefully have the clarity to recognize when they are in alignment. Cancer and the Moon have something to say about receptivity and intuition. Our determined will alone cannot drive the chariot, but has to align with unconscious longings of our psyche and forces outside of our control.
This Mercury retrograde in Cancer aligned with news of consequence.
Parasites spreading stateside while millions die abroad, both consequences of the same cost-cutting measures of this administration, which occurred during the Mars retrograde in Cancer last year. The mentality of isolationist protectionism, of white Christian nationalism, comes at the cost of violence, death, and suffering inflicted upon neighbors. What could possibly be the value of creativity in a time such as this? Another question is, how will we make it through this time without it?
The cultivation of emotional intelligence and a willingness to meet complexity are essential components of this journey we are on, together. It is all too clear what happens when the will is overtaken by a subconscious force, we only need to look at any of the outspoken billionaires in our midst to see that external striving and accrual can never soothe the emptiness within. It is the inter-connection of the Lovers, the act of offering our creative gifts to the world as reciprocity for its abundance - that puts us in alignment with something greater.
