The Magician

The word comes from the Magi.
Persian priests who tended the eternal flame at Persepolis.
Not conjurers. Not illusionists.
Fire-handlers.
The root is magh — to be able, to have power,
the same root as machine, and might, and may.

In the card he stands at a table.
Wand, cup, sword, pentacle — all four.
One hand raised toward heaven.
One pointing down toward earth.
As above, so below.
He is not creating the four elements.
He is demonstrating their correspondence.

The Fool stepped off the cliff with one tool.
The white rose. The small bag. The dog.
The Magician has unpacked the bag.
Everything was always in there.
The trick is recognizing what you are already carrying.

Above his head the lemniscate — the figure eight on its side.
Not a halo. Not a crown.
A loop with no beginning and no end.
The symbol that time makes
when it stops pretending to be a line.

The Greeks called a Persian priest a magos
the same way they called a foreigner a barbarian —
with a word that named the other's knowledge
as its own form of knowing.
The Magi did not perform magic.
They performed attention.
The fire told them what it knew.
They listened.

The Fool's zero was the agreement to begin.
The Magician's one is the act of beginning.
Between them: the moment you realize
you are not waiting to become capable —
you have always been capable.
The tools were never missing.
You simply had not set them on the table.