Bright Idea Deck - 1 - Capability (Magician)

Our friend from Trump 0 has moved on to Trump 1 - the first station in the "Humanity Cycle," or the realm of daily human life.

From the book: "Are you attacking your challenges with easy grace, or with graceless ease? Are you more interested in dazzling ... or doing? Will your performance empty the theatre ... or bring down the house?"

Our friend on the Capability trump has evolved a bit from his earlier incarnations in the TdM ... but hints of his lineage abound for clever Tarot students to spot!

As always, feel free to post any impressions you have ... or, if you prefer, you can wrestle with these questions:

1) What significance do you assign to the objects this Magician is juggling? How do they correspond to the traditional "suit symbols" on the tables of earlier Magicians? How are they different?

2) Compare the Magician's tie to the Fool's. What differences can you see?

3) What's up with the fowl footwear?

4) What's the hidden Hebrew letter association here?

Have fun!

Reverse order is easier, so

4) The hidden Hebrew letter is “B” Beth, the house.

3) the fowl footwear indicate the presence of Mercury (hanging out on a cloud), a Greco-Roman god who seemed to be everywhere at once. He was a psychpomp and a messenger, a healer and an esoterist, god of merchants and god of thieves—pretty good training for a slight-of-hand artist. Our Magician could be all of the above.

2) The Fool’s tie is a charcoal grey-something that has a faint streak of red at the end. The knot is loose and the end of the tie hangs below his waist. In the Magician, the entire tie is bright red, it is knotted snugly at the collar (which is fastened) and hangs just to the waist although it is still out of the coat. (I haven’t looked ahead to the Emperor, but I’ll bet that tie’s well tucked in.) The Magician still has some flexibility, and his will may have firmed up.

1) Our Magician is juggling The World (disks), his home so near to his heart (Wands), social/emotional (cup) and time (an idea: used to be swords).

Without studying the minors, I’m not sure how the suits are going to play out, but here’s my guess from just this card:

World: disks, stuff, money & nature------------mostly as traditionally represented.

The house: wands, passions, conflicts ----------- as above except maybe conflicts. Though traditional wands did explore some conflicts. Maybe more emotions here?

Coffee cup: cups, milder emotions, emotional needs (?) social situations ---------- some parts of cups might have gone to wands.

Clock: swords, the idea suit -------------conflict, passions seem to have gone to wands. But sorrows and failures would be sort of foreign to a bright idea.

I’m hypothesizing here about the suits. Like the Magician, I have nothing solid yet to support me. It’s all big puffy theory.

Notes on Capability

The thing that first came into my mind was, "whow, this guy can manage lots of things at the same time" (something which I have a problem with ...)

His capabilities raise him above everyone else (he's high up in the air)

Object's juggled:

It must be a stopwatch he juggles in the air, because he's also wearing a watch on his left arm. He commands when to start and stop things?

I know it is a globe he juggles, but for some reason or another, I always think of a football there... "He's got the whole world in his hand" and "life's a game"?

There's the house, which greycats identified to correspond to the associated hebrew letter.

The cup, which does spill some coffee in the process! (a cup is also present on the TdM version). Spilled liquid = sacrifice of part of soul needed to manage this all?

This card also reminds me of something we used to say at work, seeing the activities of some executives:
"It is not important what you (really) do at work, it is important what they THINK you do at work..."
Come to think of it, this maps rather well to the mercury-trickster part of this card.

The red tie? Suggests something very phallic to me

Patrick

magician

Did you all notice that the fool and magician look alike? To me the fool appears to be stumbling forward into the unknown while the magician seems to be standing firm in the air (both feet aligned ) on top of and in command of his environment. The red tie suggests power and energy to me. He is neatly dressed and seems very confident. I liked the idea of the wings on his feet for the trickster, but to me they also signify his ability to move between worlds comfortably? This is so much fun learning the symbolism with you all. Thanks Marc and our illustrius moderators for taking the time for this group. Trice

Yeah, both the fool and the magician look alike in this deck. The only difference that I see is their clothes.

I like the modern shoes with little wings on them. And this magician is in the sky, in the cloud. Until now, I was thinking he was juggling time and diffenrent activities (work, home, eat, chores, preocupation, etc...)

Giving it a Shot

Here are my thoughts on the Capability card. I haven’t really read what others have written so my apologies for redundancies.

1) I am not sure how the four things relate to traditional suit symbols. My first impressions was that the globe represented the pentacles because pentacles are earth signs. Likewise, the coffee cup was the suit of cups, or water sign. But this line fell apart for the other two things. I am not sure what suit is represented by the house and the pocket watch. I initially thought the house represented the wands because you can build a structure with sticks (I know, I am reaching here). I also thought the time piece would therefore be the swords; time cuts through all things, time is a socially/economically constructed concept, ideas and thoughts relate therefore to swords (another stretch).

It just may be that these four objects that the man juggles are simply modernized concepts that we have to juggle or balance daily, that is, time (watch), aspirations (world/globe), responsibilities to other people (world/globe), home life (house), and relaxation/break time (cup of coffee). To do this we have to keep focus and our heads above the clouds.

The man *appears* to be at ease juggling many things, but this could be all just a show, an illusion of control, of confidence. This ease may be what he projects, but is it really how he feels? He is spilling the coffee from the cup, so he isn’t juggling flawlessly. On the other hand, it could be that he has worked to achieve control, focus, and mastery of these things so juggling everything is truly effortless for him. He is capable of doing everything when he concentrates and puts his focus on these things. The magician is performing. Could it be a real show of skills (keeping everything in the air at once) or is it simply that he is putting on a show (and therefore can spill coffee)?

I have some other random thoughts about the card. Perhaps the watch is linked to the infinity sign found above the magician’s head. Lemniscates have no bounds, no beginning or end, they are timeless. It is therefore limitless, and the magician represents limitless capability or abilities of a person. The energy from the magician comes from above; in RW cards he looks like a lighting rod to me, channeling energy from above to the earth. Perhaps this is why this magician is above the clouds? He is channeling his energy from above, floating above the earth. I may be going over the top with this, but I thought I would add it.

2) Fool’s tie is dark grey/black and loosened. The magician’s tie, however, is crisply tied and is bright red. His whole outfit looks a bit more pressed. I interpret the red tie to be the red cloak that magicians wear in many tarot decks. To me, the red tie (or cloak) represents power, energy, passion, confidence—in essence, capability—or the appearance of such.

3) As for the winged shoes, they are often associated with the Greek god Hermes/Roman god Mercury (sign associated with the card), who looked out for, among others, tricksters, con artists, and magicians—interestingly the traditional title of the card. Tricksters, magicians, con artists (or confidence men as they were called) have the appearance of confidence, make things look easy, appear in control, and if good at what they do, can put on a dazzling display that deceives the eye. The magician juggles with seeming ease, but it takes practice, focus, confidence, belief in one’s ability (or capabilities) to perform. It’s a dual edged sword. On one had, the magician can be good at what s/he does, but on the other it can result in hurting someone, involves deception, and things can take a spill (hence the spilling coffee).

Hermes, among other things, chaperoned the dead to the underworld and was a swift messenger. He was known for speed, and maybe this quick movement is related to the swift use of his hands to juggle many things.

4) I don’t know what the letter association is as I do not know Hebrew. I could look it up, but I’d rather just put my thoughts up first.

Patrick, I like your comment on the spilled coffee, that it is a loss of spirituality. I also found your comment on appearances at work interesting too.

It's great to read that others find this person more in control and with power too--and greycats also associating the watch with ideas. Great thread!

This is the sound of C

Thanks for the kind words nikkeihime.

You mentioning "con artists" lets me see the capability card as a consultant, a word also starting with "con"

Furhtermore, I see on my TdM card a strange letter C on the table, exactly like there is a "letter" C near this card's left knee in the clouds...

Capability, Con artist, Consultant...

I have a hard time with this card, and I don't know exactly why. He looks puzzeled instead of confidant. He's dressed for business, but his hair isn't in a business cut. He has the fool's face. the house looks stuck to his tie, and while I know it's for Beth, it seems very misleading/confusing to me. I can't imagine what a business person would make of it. The symbols he's juggling just don't work for me. But I do like the winged shoes...both for mercury and for speediness. But I'd rather see him on the earth than in the clouds. I've always seen the magician, one way or the other, connect to the concept of manifestation in the real world. I just don't see that here. This card confuses me.
I really don't mean to be critical, Mark, but I just so totaly don't get this card. I'll go back now and see what others have written. Maybe I'll find some answers there.
After writing this I have a much better grip on why I don't get this card!

Capability

The man on this card seems to be slightly better groomed than the man on the Freedom card. Does this necessarily indicate that he has achieved greater control over the events shaping his life? I do not think so. My personal feeling is that if one has control over the events in one's life, then there would be no need to juggle. I am not saying that a person will find time to do everything in life but I believe that she/he will find time to pursue what is most important. The fact that this man appears to be juggling various items indicates that while he is on cloud nine, there are still some important things in life that he is struggling to fit in. The concept of having it all is nice but the truth is that the juggling act goes on as long as we strive for goals. Every achievement requires some type of sacrifice and we need to decide what to focus on in addition to our dreams. The winged footwear might indicate speed but if he is running from one thing to the next in order to address all the things that are important to him, when does he get to enjoy them?

The one thing I miss on this card as opposed to traditional decks is that in the traditional decks the magician seemed to be a mirror between two worlds. "As above so below" is the easiest association that I can recall from the traditional deck. This aspect seems to be missing from the Capability card.