The Sorcerer & The Sage — Individual towards cosmos

Editor’s Note: This article continues our weekly series on the tarot. You can find some of the earlier ones by clicking the “tarot” category link above. In case you want to experiment with the cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator. The formation is called the Celtic Wings spread. It’s based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells how to use the spread. We’re happy to respond to questions and will take direction from readers who comment, so please let us know what you think. Today’s installment looks at the journey between two major arcana cards and their corresponding astrological archetypes: Mercury and Virgo. You can visit Sarah’s website at this link. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

Early next week, Mercury stations direct in Virgo. Tarot is a simplified form of astrology, and these two astrological archetypes are symbolised in two of the cards of the major arcana in a tarot deck:

— 1. The Magician – Mercury

— 2. The Hermit – Virgo

This week, we will be looking at these two cards as they are represented in the Xultun Tarot, a deck by New Zealand artist Peter Balin. Although this is a relatively rare deck (and the one I choose to work with), like all tarot decks its archetypal imagery is universal. The pictures might be new to you, and the Mayan heritage might create a different emphasis, but the message remains the same. Remember, all roads lead to the same destination.

So this week, taking what tools we have, including what we know from astrology, let’s examine, compare and contrast these two beautifully synergistic cards.

Step One — Knowledge

An astrological perspective

First, let’s look at The Sorcerer and The Sage using astrology as our tool. Many tarot decks use astrological symbols, and each card in the major arcana has an astrological counterpart. Some tarot readers use astrology as an integral part of their readings, some refer to it, others work equally well without it. It is a matter of emphasis and preference. However, given the astrology in the next few days, and the fact that we can tie this in with two highly complementary cards, bringing astrology in here seems fitting. As I mentioned, Mercury is going to be stationing direct in Virgo, taking place on the 12^th of September. This particular retrograde has been exclusively in Virgo, and Virgo is ruled by Mercury, so there is a focused and significant meeting point between the two.

Let’s add another couple of layers: not only is there a Virgo New Moon today, but we are entering the Mercury storm phase before Mercury stations direct. Mercury retrograde periods have an effect on our perception of our environment, our thinking and therefore ourselves.

According to Eric’s Mercury Retrograde report for this period: “[It is] the quest… of a journey already taken; a decision already made… Another view of what is so for us…. A real experiment in considering all that we know, and all that we’ve forgotten.”

These are moments of revelation, based on the contrast between what we thought we were, and what we discover we are beginning to be.

That is the astrology. Now, let’s look at these two cards using the knowledge of the tarot and archetypes and watch how the picture shifts and grows.

From the perspective of tarot and archetypes

The Sorcerer is the first card in the major arcana after The Fool, and it is also known variously as The Magician, The Magus or The Juggler, among others. Moreover, representing the element of mercury, it is the first alchemical card that we encounter (The Lovers and Art from last week being two others).

As you might have gathered from last week’s article, I’m particularly interested in seeing alchemy as the journey of self-discovery that we take, which psychologist Carl Jung refers to as “individuation,” and this is reflected in this description of The Sorcerer card by Michael Owen:

The Sorcerer represents focused purpose, thought that becomes action, one-pointedness, active will, the power of command, one’s desire to be alive and take up space, the search for knowledge, and goal-oriented drive. He is the One that has come out of the Nothing. He is the seed of all things, the breath that creates life.

When we decide to step out on the pathway that is the journey of self-discovery, we step out as potential: The Fool. We are not experienced, we have not yet been tried and tested; we haven’t encountered our limitations, nor met with the success of exceeding them.

Then, we meet with The Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is what we become when we learn that we have a degree of mastery over our surroundings. Retrogrades are about discovering mastery, and here it is in this card. Through The Sorcerer, we are invited to a sneak peek of what we are capable of achieving, and often it makes us feel incredibly powerful. I remember this particular feeling several years ago, when I realised that I didn’t have to be who I always thought that I was — someone who needed to fulfill particular expectations, to satisfy certain conventions. Circumstances conspired in synchronicity to show me that I was being called to something different — and that something stood in contrast to what it was that I had felt I ought to be in order to be acceptable. I became The Sorcerer, and I felt I was invincible.

But here’s the thing about The Sorcerer: as seductive as this card can be, it is, and will remain, the second card in the major arcana. Not the 22^nd, the 14^th, or even the sixth. The second. The journey has only just begun, baby. And when we realise this, many of us are apt to return to earth with a thud… often at the point where we choose to enter into relationship with something or someone else and become closely acquainted with our own shadow material (The Lovers). By encountering parts of ourselves that we have been unable or unwilling to claim as our own, we meet with our limitations. The magic of The Sorcerer can feel completely absent during this time.

And so, we find ourselves entering the time of The Sage.

The Sage, as the ninth card in the major arcana, symbolises a time of introspection. It is the archetype of the wise old man, or senex — one who shuts themselves away from the world as contemplative, as integrator.

The Sage represents the moment of individuation, where we turn away from what is expected of us by family, community, society — from what Eric refers to as conditioned and inherited values — and towards what we discover that we really want and need. The card doesn’t necessarily refer to our physically locking ourselves away. We can be very much in the world, but also choose to separate from it. We can also feel separated when we start to question whether what we are doing and where we are going are consonant with our soul’s calling — hence its being referred to as “the dark night of the soul.”

What we find during the time of The Sage can be painful, but it can also be enlightening and extremely useful. It is then up to us whether we take what we have learned and apply it in our lives.

Step Two — Intuition

Now let’s look at the cards, get a feel for them, and see where they take us:

The first thing is that the figures in the cards are facing the same way, suggesting that synergy that I referred to earlier. However, the figure on the left — The Sorcerer — is far more decoratively garbed than The Sage on the right. This is the bloom of knowledge, when we are decked out in our finery, displaying the outer accoutrements of our art. The Sorcerer is aware of how he is in the world, he looks good, and he knows it. He is self-conscious.

The Sage, on the other hand, embodies minimalism. He is not concerned with outer appearances. He is concerned with the inner. Where The Sorcerer belongs to the daylight, The Sage belongs to the night — the unknown. Though notice that the sun is present here too, suggesting that that part of life has not disappeared, but is rather relegated to the background for the time being.

The Sorcerer holds his staff in his hand: he embodies the practical, doing nature of mastery. The Sage’s staff is propped up behind him: he is more concerned with being. His hands are held in the birth configuration, pointed outwards towards the fire burning in the urn (which is, as yet, empty in The Sorcerer). This is the fire of consciousness — the fire that Jung believes that we are here “to kindle… in the darkness of mere being.”

Look at the colours in both cards. The Sorcerer is primarily blue with white; The Sage yellows, oranges and reds. Coolness vs. warmth; air vs. fire; soaring vs. grounding. Seen in this way, The Sorcerer strikes me as being like the ornately feathered Icarus, whose vanity and over-confidence in his new wings caused him to fall from the skies — away from the sun, the source of light and life.

And so, to go full circle… In this way, The Sorcerer and The Sage very much tie into the healing qualities of Virgo during this Mercury retrograde. What we bring to The Sage — the learning and mastery of The Sorcerer — is burned and transformed through fire (which removes impurities and makes way for new life) as we ourselves are burned, transformed and grounded. We receive that other view of what is so for us. And, look, there he is: The Sorcerer, inscribed on the far left of the lintel above the kneeling Sage. Mercury is indeed in Virgo, as we allow our own truth to communicate with ourselves. The essence is kept while what no longer works is seared away.

As I said, a beautiful synergy: Sorcerer/Sage; airy/grounded; expanding/contracting; extroversion/introversion; knowledge/wisdom; astrology/tarot.

Be that as it may, The Sorcerer and The Sage are still bound in human form, whereas there are no figures in the final four cards of the Xultun Tarot deck: The Moon, The Sun, Planet Venus, Planet Earth. It is when we start to identify ourselves with something that is not simply earth-bound that we truly understand what it is to be individuated. We are not simply part of the cosmos: we become the cosmos.

We grow up believing ourselves to be one thing, and then we find that we are called to something new entirely. The Sorcerer and The Sage tell of the glimpse that we have of what we can be, and the effort that we need to put in to rise to that invitation, to embody it and to live it.

Previous articles:

– Intro to Tarot: Symbolic Alchemy — A view of The Lovers and Art

– Intro to Tarot: The Lovers – A three-card comparison

– Intro to Tarot: How to read a picture

– Intro to Tarot: Synchronicity and card positions

– Intro to Tarot: Gearing up for a reading

– Intro to Tarot: Humanity’s relationship to symbols