by Paige Ozma Ashmore, author of Red Feather’s newly released Tarot of the Kingdoms.                                         

“​May you live in interesting times.”  

–Unknown

Today there is no better time to be a magician. I don’t mean someone who does sleight of hand tricks and illusions, but a magician who practices magic to change patterns and outcomes in life. Aleister Crowley stated the following:

“Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.”

–Aleister Crowley

As a magician, I embraced this definition of magic when I was first learning to manifest. I no longer do. What has instructed this change has been the 2020 pandemic. Please understand, I don’t mean that I feel helpless in all of this, although I have certainly experienced days where that has been the case. Rather, what I have learned from all this is that in order to be an empowered magician, there is a certain degree of letting go and surrender to the current of change that can allow for brilliant manifesting to occur. 

Once when I was swimming with a group of friends in the ocean by Mexico, we got sucked into a riptide that pulled us out to the ocean. We were all holding onto each other’s shoulders huddled in a circle and hadn’t noticed that we couldn’t see the beach anymore. When we realized this, we began discussing what to do about it. There were six of us and most of us knew how to get out of it, so we continued talking and visiting and started spinning in the direction of the tide and slowly spun our way out of it, kicking our legs, until we came back to shore. 

This is what practicing magic can look like when you’re working with the current instead of against it. I’m going to show you how to do this, but first, we must look at what the current looks like to know how to get out of it.   The pandemic has forced everyone inside with reduced to non-existent contact with groups, social distancing, and masking.

If you look with metaphysical eyes, this new world looks surprisingly like a monastery.

When you go deep into spiritual study, to find the Divine within you, a monastic life will remove all outside interferences and diversions because it is a way of making you go inside to discover your personal truth and where your psyche brushes the edge of God. You learn things about yourself, a few bits of wonder, some uncomfortable truths, and what you miss that you might have better appreciation and gratitude for. 

In the ancient days of Greece, the Oracle at Delphi was the place to go for divination in regards to what the will of the gods was for you. To go there, you had to enter your name into the temple and it was drawn by lottery. Once your name was pulled, you were allowed to enter the temple and ask one of the priestesses your question. Once answered, you never got to re-enter your name into the lottery again. So if you had a chance to get one thing divined about in your life, you had to make sure it was a good question, because one shot was all you got. Above the temple were the words, “Know Thyself,” because by truly knowing your deepest truth, you could ask a good question. 

In today’s world, we are invited in our private moments (which are aplenty right now) to “know thyself.” Entering a monastic life was never an easy process, but at the end of it was peace of mind and even a form of bliss. Enlightenment could be attained through this practice. 

There has always been illusion in the world. In the Hindu religion, they have the concept of “maya” which states that everything we see in the world is an illusion, the greatest illusion of which is the concept that everything is permanent. This is simplifying it a bit, but the idea is that we as spiritual beings have a mission to pierce through the veil of illusion and discover what the truth is. There is plenty of maya going on in the world today! So many different ideas about the pandemic. 

This is the current. 

To align yourself with its pull, yet still spin out of the chaos into your own truth, what you must do comes from a place of neutrality. From that still point place, you can access your power as a manifestor and engage your gifts as a Divine being. Each moment is an invitation to see what is happening, bless what is happening, and then release it. 

The following card is the Three of Fire from my tarot deck, Tarot of the Kingdoms. The story behind it is that once there were dragons, but they left the earth so that humanity could embrace their destiny and learn how to reason. Wherever the dragons disappeared into the earth became paths of strong energy and power, known as ley lines. Only the most adept of magicians could use their energy to create with these sources of power. This is your chance to become that magician.

The meaning of this card indicates things that come to an end, so part of engaging in the magic of aligning with the current involves some house cleaning. You may notice things you need to let go of. Let this baggage drop from you. What is left will be what is essential.

The second part of it involves learning who you are. What do you value now that you’ve seen how the chips have fallen? What do you desire, now that this new perspective on life has presented itself? If the conditions of this world have taught us anything, it is to release our attachment to the outcome.

When we let go, that’s where grace can come in and arrange for more beautiful results than we can imagine.

This is the place where miracles can happen. What can help with letting go is embracing the mystery. The mystery is that we don’t always know how the Divine works it out and there’s a part of us that thinks we need to know how. This isn’t true. You don’t have to know how the Divine does it in order to experience it. Release your attachment to the need to know. It’s the Divine’s job to do the heavy lifting.

Your job is to seed the universe with your heartfelt intentions. Then let the tide of the current carry you to where you want to be.

When this whole pandemic happened in the world, the Italians said that we would see acts of great beauty and ugliness. Embrace the beauty by breathing it in. By following the breath when you see beauty, you “brick in” the beauty and anchor it as a part of you. When you see the ugliness, open your heart and send compassion to it without judgment. You can imagine sending a certain color to the ugliness you witness. Don’t see it changing to what you’d like to see it become, just send compassion. This is an act of kindness and I will tell you now that if there was 10% more kindness in the world, it would be enough to change it for the better overnight. This is what it is to be a magician, to embrace your magic.

To illustrate the gift of kindness, this card from Tarot of the Kingdoms is The Universe. It’s one of the two extra cards in the deck and it embodies a love note from the physical universe. In the picture, imagine yourself sitting in this lotus, having tea, and witnessing the souls of planets being born. 

This final card is the Ten of Earth. My intention for you for placing it here is that it may bless you with that feeling of knowing yourself, feeling connected with everyone you love, and of receiving all that is good and beautiful in the universe. May it be so.

Enjoy a brief video look at Tarot of the Kingdoms:

Guest Author Bio:

Paige Ozma Ashmore is a professional Tarot reader and artist. She has been reading cards for over thirty years and creating art for most of her life. Paige enjoys combining these two worlds in the form of sacred art, seeking to bring more enchantment to the world and reconnecting people with a renewed sense of wonder. Her art is collected internationally. She currently lives in Arizona.