the Magician w— Sean Nguyen-Hilton + Hez Stalcup

A conversation with two artists on the archetypal Major Arcana card The Magician.

Sean Nguyen-Hilton (they/them) is a Virgo Sun, Pisces Moon, + Leo Ascendant. Sean danced “professionally” for about two decades, and worked in higher ed for about four and a half years.* Sean is a tarot reader of 27 years and is currently studying Hellenistic astrology. Sean is a Co-Founder and Team Member of Fly on a Wall, an artist led platform that presents and supports process and performance. Sean invests in care, awareness, sensation, and love, all of which he practices through the lens of queer stamina, movement, and evolution.

Hez Stalcup is an experimental dance artist. He works with bodies, words, sound and objects. He makes dances. He is usually in them. He makes other things that maybe get seen. Most people think his work is about being queer or about gender, its only sometimes about either. Often he is dancing about time, failure and personhood with people he thinks are smart and funny and should be looked at. He doesn’t make beautiful dances per se, rather he thinks about what makes something outlandish and solitary enough that you want to love it forever.

LINKS

If you enjoyed the episode, check out —

Meditation on the Fool w— Hez Stalcup

Episode w— Alkistis Dimech on The Occulted Body + Dancing with Daimons

Episode w— Laura Zuspan

More about our guests —

Sean’s website

Sean’s Instagram

Fly On A Wall website

email Hez at hezstalcup@gmail.com

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This podcast is produced by Softer Sounds. ✨

Transcript

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Music. Welcome to the Homebody Podcast. My name is Mary Grace and here we explore big questions in embodied ways. These conversations intersect the mystical, the practical, and the artful, bridging a range of topics such as astrology, creative practices, what healing can look like, and cultivating deep love and care for the more-than-human world. We not only want to live better, but live more fully, with more connection, courage, and creativity in our day-to-day lives and work. And this podcast asks, what are the ways we can do that? We hope to enliven you and inspire you towards possible regenerative futures, and we hope to encourage you so together we can become dynamic agents of beauty, fully awake, fully alive to all that life has for us. We want to be here for ourselves and for one another with more grace while making room for curiosity, sensitivity, hope, and joy. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a few moments to share it with someone else. And thank you so much for listening. Music. Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode, which is a conversation with two friends of mine who are both artists and longtime tarot practitioners, Sean Noyan Hilton and Hez Stalkup, and they will be discussing and conversating around the magician. For a long time I've really wanted to start having interviews and conversations on here that aren't necessarily facilitated by me and it feels really lovely that this format kind of birthed alive with this episode with the magician between two people whose work and personhood is so dear and sacred to me. It feels like you're getting to listen in on what sort of a coffee date sounds like with these people in particular but also just with the vibe of the beautiful friend community that I feel so lucky to be a part of. It's very much a gift and I feel really excited to share their work, their ideas and their perspectives with you. The magician here we're seeing is, you know, worshipping atoms and putting on veils, performance, your creative nature and sloughing off coats and identities that no longer feel sparkly. Previously has stock up guested and did an episode on the fool and so you can find the link to that episode in the show notes this particular conversation feels like it builds on that episode in a really beautiful way. When the way that's very insightful and a creative continuation shawn is a verga sun pices moon and leo ascended shawn danced quote professionally for about two decades and worked in higher education for about four and a half years Sean is a tarot reader of 27 years and currently is studying Hellenistic astrology. Sean is a co-founder and team member of Fly on a Wall, which is an artist-led platform that represents and supports process and performance. Sean invests in care, awareness, sensation, and love, all of which he practices through the lens of queer stamina, movement, and evolution. You can learn more about Sean's professional dance career and also their teaching and faculty positions in the full bio that is on our website with the full show notes. Their experience is always so well-rounded and widespread that I always appreciate all the different things that Sean is bringing together. Hez Stalkup is an experimental dance artist and he works with bodies, words, sound, and objects. He makes dances and he's usually in them. He makes other things that maybe get seen. Most people think his work is about being queer or about gender. It's only sometimes about either. Often he is dancing about time, failure, and personhood with people he thinks are smart and funny and should be looked at. He doesn't make beautiful dances per se, rather he thinks about what makes something outlandish and solitary enough that you want to love it forever. Be sure to check out the show notes for ways to get in touch with both, of these brilliant guests, and Sean also has a performance series coming up this month, so if you're listening to this and you're in or proximal to Atlanta, then be sure to check out their Instagram for more information on that. In the show notes, you'll also find more episodes that you might find interesting and that relate tangentially to some of the topics that come up in today's conversation. And if you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to share it with someone else who you would also find excited to listen. And so with that, I will leave you in the capable and bright hands of Sean and Hez. So you and I before this recording spoke briefly, well, maybe at length. Music. Because you just did a podcast episode or moment where you were talking about the fool, which was like a meditation on that. Do you want to just like do a brief sort of like what that was? Yeah, yeah. So that was just a little guided imagery based on some of the concepts that come up for me around The Fool. One, it was just a card that appealed to me and felt very relevant in my life. It was very synchronous when Grace had approached me about doing an episode and gave me a lot of freedom for how to do it. I went through a lot of we talked about this, I went through a lot of different ideas and different cards. And for some reason, the fool had been the first thing that kind of just like flashed into my mind and in life, I find that that often ends up being what I come back around to. Yeah, and. So then of course I went through like 20,000 ways of talking about it and then and then realized it was just happening in my life. I was like, Oh, yes, I chose this card because this is this is what's happening to me. And it ended up being this really this prompt for this like really rich journey of noticing and observing dreams and parts of my life where it was really starting to become apparent and ended up thankfully being distilled into this one piece of guided imagery to kind of encourage people to embody a narrative, to walk into a story where they could imagine themselves going through different scenarios where they would end up needing to suspend the assumptions of what was coming next, particularly in precarious and challenging situations, which was really what distilled in my mind as one of the big, important takeaways from the Fool card. BD Yeah. And when I listened to it and so Grace approached me a while back about doing this and said that, you were doing The Fool and I was really going back and forth about like what I wanted to do and I had all of these cards picked out and at one point I was like maybe I do all of them and I was like okay calm down Sean and came to The Fool and then you and I were just hanging out and talking about it. And through that conversation, I realized that my sort of contribution to the series and this approach to tarot would be to talking with you about it. And through, that conversation, we talked about the Fool and the Magician. And I was saying that in. The older decks, particularly the Marseilles deck, the Magician is called the Batilleux, is either the fool or I've done some more research at the juggler. This kind of blur from the fool into the magician, I think is a really interesting way to start this conversation and talk about it in the air quotes Coleman writer weight deck. I like to put Coleman in there because Pamela Coleman doesn't get enough recognition for all of the work that she did. It's this very divine image, really holy looking. Where it came from was this like kind of rough and tumble like person that. What is kind of he's kind of giving like snake oil like salesman energy is kind of like on the I always imagine him on the periphery of like a market which is pretty interesting cuz I i read tarot markets now once a month. And yeah, this sort of like this zone of like, and also we think of magician as like, you know, hat out of a rabbit out of a hat, hat out of a rabbit, rabbit out of a hat person where they're kind of fooling you, like there's an illusion kind of sensibility about him. And that in that moment of kind of pretending that you're the thing, you end up being the thing. And both of you, both of you, both of you and I, multidimensional. Gemini Moon. That's right. Are performers, artists that use the body as a medium. And I've experienced in performance, you know, which is kind of the setup environment, right? Where you, like, people are invited to come and watch you and you're, like, performing this thing, this version of yourself. I've found so many times in that moment that something else comes through, like this other spirit comes through. And we see it with acting and hear it too from actors speaking about roles, how when they're in those things, they become that thing. And there is this sort of essence of fooling people. Because I think that starting point for the fool too is what you so beautifully described in that meditation of like, okay, it's like potential. It's like the accepting of the and not knowing and kind of falling literally into it. And then I see the magician as this. Kind of person that operationalizes that or like goes, oh, that's what's happening. And I can kind of like lean into that to kind of get people's attention or get people's energy. And in that moment of sort of operationalizing being a fool, this other thing actually comes through. But it's still a little precarious. So it's not again, not as like, kind of described as the the writer, the Coleman writer weight, but a little messier. Yeah, there's a feeling like as you're describing this, one, it makes me think about how it's more daring. It's it's also still building on that full energy of being kind of like, ah, what if we did this? What if that cliff weren't a terrible idea? What if falling weren't a thing? What if I got right to the edge and something else happened? It feels like the fool is almost a kind of tending and cultivating the soil, that it is the atmosphere and the mood you're creating a space for disbelief, for questioning what is known or what might seem to be codified. But you're not really planting any seeds yet. It's really like you're doing the groundwork. This is ground zero even. And so this idea of cultivating the soil and kind of creating the rich mix that you're going to pull from, that you're going to tap your wand into and plant a specific request, a specific costume, a specific identity. And then the magician comes along and it feels like it builds on that as something where you do start to manifest from it. You do start to pull up from the ground. You do start to put something in it, but it has to stay in that kind of between the worlds playful spirit. Like I love the snake whale salesman as actually, kind of an archetype to reclaim that we talked about this before that one of the amazing things about what would be a modern day equivalent of snake oil and I'm sure was true in the past is placebo. Oh, right, right. Yeah. You were, you know, supposedly getting one over on somebody else or like, you know, there's any, it could be a derogatory. Reference to this kind of trickster energy or it could be very playful and innocent, but all of those still can work. People can still end up with a new reality, with a cured illness, with a new something in their life that actually becomes manifest. And that to me, it does seem really relational to this spirit and this attitude that is this like, tending the ground of like, what do I grow things out of? What is going to create these realities? And that there's a lot of suspension. But yeah, and then this idea of many identities, like many, many different hats. The snake whale salesman is also somebody who's kind of like, over here, I'm also the barkeep. Over here, I'm also the stage manager. Over here, I'm also this. And so, So write this connection for both of us around performance, and embodiment as something where we're knowingly going into a role or an inhabitation of something as a way to experiment and like it's transparent. We're like, yes, this is a show. I'm putting on a show and yet. And. There's a reason we still do what we do. Yeah, there's all, yeah, and that made me think of so many things, but just to speak to that point, it's like, it's like there needs to be this distraction. It's like, because. Spirit, and I'm using spirit as, you know, as magic as feeling as intuition as all of faith as all of these kind of esoteric sort of metaphysical, non-seen things. My experience, because a lot of the work that I do in performance is around sort of these ideas, is if you try and describe it or define it too much or try and look at it too directly, spirit that is, that it's slippery. Like it doesn't want, it can't be that direct. It can't be that sort of definitive. Like it has to be this like, hey, I'm doing this thing up here. But really, you know, it's like one, you know, it's the magician thing, right? Like, watch this hand over here, because this other hand is actually doing something else. And I think that is also interesting with the high priestess coming after the magician, which is like polarizing the fool with the magician in the middle, which the magician is often talked about as the pillar as well like because in a lot of the decks he's pointing up to the sky and down to the earth you know as above so below and the magician themselves are this. In between sort of conduit that like that yes metaphysical yes physical and like grounded reality and yes metaphysical but it's blended into this this being in this like middle place and that you know in a lot of the images to the elements are. Right in front of them, Earth, air, fire, and water. And it's also saying like, everything you need to do this is right here. Like start where you are and you know, like with snake oil, right? Like, I don't know, what do I have in the cupboard? Like just like mix it together. And then I say, it is this cure. And then I put it together. And then it's like the speaking it into existence, which I, another interesting point is the planet that is associated with the magician is Mercury. And this kind of like, it makes me think of like the word and the, what is it? Like it's like the spirit or the thought is in you and then the deed or the word or getting it out, it's like manifesting in the saying that I am doing this thing, which performance does, right? Like sure, I'm doing a dance or whatever, but I am saying that this dance is doing this thing. And because I'm saying it, and I've told you that I'm saying it. And now you're watching me do it with that frame, I'm now actually doing it. It's relational. And that, and my previous point was, and then in that doing, as I've experienced, and I'm sure you've experienced as well as a performer, this other thing comes up and you're like, oh, what is that? I was pretending, but now this other thing has kind of come up. And to me, that is the high priestess, which is she's often hiding behind things, and it's not direct, and is this deeper, darker, sort of intuitive knowing. And it's like the magician is sort of a mix between the fool and the high priestess. And he is this boots on the ground, physical yet metaphysical thing where he says, I'm, not fully fool-like and just kind of willy-nilly just letting things kind of occur, but I'm also not this sort of like deep, dark, esoteric thing. It's this middle place where... There's more potentiality, which I think is interesting too that it's one, number one, which makes me think of Aries and the first house being the self and the declarative I am. And that's what he's doing. He's saying, okay, I'm putting on the magician hat and I'm the magician now. And in that experience and in that manifestation, things happen. He is the manifestor of the deck. Yeah, but there's something about Mercury communication and the saying of it, which going back to Placebo or the snake oil salesmen, you can win people over by saying things or saying it in a really interesting or clear way or convincing way. That's what Placebo does as well. It's like, here, take this pill. It is dot, dot, dot. And we see from scientific data, which I'm putting kind of at arms a little further over there. But in this way of quantifying it, we do see results. You see results like that where it's like, no, it was a sugar pill, but we got, the same, if not sometimes better results by giving this placebo to people that just believed does because we said it. We said it so. Yeah. I love this idea of thinking about the magician. Being between the fool and the high priestess in this way that just you saying that where it's like, no, look at this hand, look at this hand, like not over here. And the way that that is a skill to do with yourself in this way of embodying a reality or an identity and that being in an arts field is a really great way to get to do that. And I feel like a lot of artists become very adept at being able to talk about that without realizing that a skill they would be learning is the idea of accidental channeling. Then you're like, oh, wow, it's funny how I made made a piece about that and then I became it. You know, and that something, that there's a fooling of the self. To you know and so kind of how where does that skill come from the full card and then start to become something that there's action taken around. It feels to me like this progression is one. Where there's more skin in the game. Literally. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That literally you've put your body as the conduit in this and you need all of those full skills that are like whoops, tumble tumble over here. Oh, look, I'm wearing adjusters hat. I didn't even realize I put it on. That's the only outfit I have apparently. And this kind of observational prowess that what do you where do you go from there? And that is what allows you to to start to dare and to start to say like, Oh, I've had this dream. But you know, what if I just went out and told everybody I was this thing? You know, like, what if I just went out here and wore the suit today? Yeah. You know, and what if I started to act more like this in whatever form? Yeah. That it, I feel like the magician is still in a place where it can be a little bit, I think you said something to this effect earlier, but like still a look, it's kind of a facade. Yeah. It's still playing a trick in some ways. It's still like, I'm in costume. I'm just pretending to be this. I'm just trying this on today. And yet it is the moment of catalyst that. There's alchemy here and bringing them back in the idea of Mercury coming in in this really the power of communication and that it's not. Words and communication don't just exist around ideas and dream states that are always ephemeral. Yeah. That it is a point of connection to reality. Yeah, there's something about flow as well, because I think that with that pretending or that what-if-ing or just the doing it, it allows more flow to come in, because I'm thinking of the opposite end which I experienced a lot because of my placements of like, I have to define it, I have to make sure it's completely the right thing, that everything is facing the right direction, which it grounds it too much. It brings it too much into the physical plane. And so, yes, there has to be some physicality for it to be, I think, visible or like, like, registerable by other people, but then there still has to be this flow, which makes me think of Mercury, the element, like that it is solid-ish, but it has this mercurial flow to it and this like, it changes, but it's still it has substance. It's and it's not as like, it's not it's viscous, it's not as thin as like water or like as wispy as air but it has this viscosity that gives it flow but also gives it density and kind of um. Yes substance and like wait to it which is really interesting and now i'm thinking about communication as that as well right like like if we think of an idea. Like i've got tons of ideas and ton of them live in me that i've never said out loud before and then when you put it into words and it comes out the mouth then it's like it's not. I've not physicalized it yet or like, you know, like, let's say I have an idea for a pot that I want to make. Like if it's in the head, that's an idea. If I talk about the pot that I want to make, it's almost in existence, but it isn't yet until I actually make it. And then when I make it, it is the thing and it's no longer sort of malleable. Like it's, and, and which is, oh, this is blowing my mind, which is the body, right? Like, we are, like, semi-permanent. We have these structures and systems that move us through the literal world, but we are constantly changing down to a cellular level and one day will not exist anymore. And in this kind of in between. So the body is the magician, you know, like, and yeah, again, going back to his, his, his stance of like, I'm not up there, I'm pointing at the sky, which is spirit or higher knowledge or whatever you want to call that. And I'm not in the ground yet. I'm like in this like middle place. And in that middle place, I can manifest things, but it's this constant state of like, never landing, which goes back to that mercurial like nature. It's like... Yeah, yeah. Yes, I love this also connection of kind of... I know that there's various ideas around the fool's journey and looking at the entire major arcana as kind of a journey into humanity and this kind of moment of landing in a body and that you're like, guess what? Surprise! It's a mixed bag of elements in here and we have these incredible powers to be able to embody things, that don't seem to be obvious and wouldn't seem to be manifest in a form or in reality, and yet this between the worlds existence is just part of being a person. And I think especially, using the body and that there are things that you just don't know until there is an act of embodiment. And I think that's some of the distance between zero and one two is this idea of all of the ideas I have that are kind of in the zero place of just like they can get big, they can get small, they could go left, they could go right. And I'm kind of back to that Mercury idea that that it's like it can go over here, it can flow over here. And then... As soon as I say it you know there's a level at which that is like oh oh oh even just the speaking becomes a reality where it's like okay I'm not even I didn't even think about. What that would mean yeah how I feel about it there's a so one reality already gets engaged by giving it a name by giving it some parameters and then when you start to play with embodiment when you start to play dress up. Put on the costume, try it on for a while. There's a lot more information that happens. And yeah, and so this place of power really, where it is so tempting, because I agree, I also have a heavy Saturn in my chart. Where it is tempting to be like, no, I need this confirmed. I need to know this is absolutely the right thing to do. I need to know this is my one identity. I need to know that I will be this forever, that I will be in this body forever. It's never going to change. As opposed to the reality of all of our humanity and all of our bodily existence is this trickstery place where we are always needing to fool ourselves in some way that that's actually a very healthy relationship to have with the self and with the body. And so having to constantly be returning in a nonlinear way back to zero and touching in with this ability to kind of repool the self and go back to. Yeah, being in a place of potential, but also that it just feels like the magician is so necessary. This is something I feel like that's that I'm learning in my life that it's so. Necessary to exit the dream place to to speak the word. Yeah, I'm thinking of to speak to that I'm thinking of like you're now speaking about like the numerics of like zero and one and I'm thinking about the movement of those or Or with gravity as a player, zero tumbles because it is round and it rolls, right? And unseen forces enact upon it and because of the shape of it, it is kind of vulnerable to that action and that movement. And one stands up and says, well, those actions are there anyway, but what if I am vertical? And then it develops this relationship of like, yeah, the tumbling, yes, the tumbling is there, it's always going to be there. And we can think of like the natural elements as far as water and wind, but also just like our emotions and spirit that like comes in and ebbs and flows. And then one, the magician stands up and says, well, that's still occurring, but I'm going to say that I'm vertical and I'm not going to get tumbling. But inside, I know it's still tumbling and all that stuff. And I'm going to try on, yeah, that can come back to the hat, but like the coat or like the gloves or like whatever. And working with the zero to get into this, yeah, in between sort of liminal space where things occur, where things happen, you know? I love that. And yes, it makes me feel like some of the lesson of the magician is the importance of picking a thing, of picking one. Yeah. And it is not the only one you will ever pick. It is not, you will not always stay in a one state because guess what? That's not up to you anyway. Like you will be coming back to zero, and in a cyclical and seasonal nature in your life and in your body because that is the nature of change and of being alive, of living. And yet I feel my tendency to like shift in one direction or the other. So I have this like very rigid Saturnian like permanent one state. Make it in stone, though there won't be a two. Yeah. It's just one. Just let it aside. My whole life is just trying to figure out the one. And then once I get it, then I'm just going to stay there forever. And the rigidity of that that is too far. but then on the other side the two um. Almost like staying in the womb too long, staying in gestation too long in this, being too liminal, too out of. There's no daring in that. It just stays kind of pulled and kind of loose and questioning. And there is something that activates a deeper level of curiosity and a deeper level of play when you have skin in the game. And when you brought it to being like, I've chosen this one, I will be this character. I am making a dance about this thing, which has always been a struggle for me is to take it from the like, oh, but what about potential, potential, potential? I have these 10 ideas, how will I know which one? You know, and then it's like the super rigidity kicks in. So there's almost like an alchemy of these two states. Yeah, yeah, that's making, because when you said that, because I experienced that too, and I wonder if it is a common sort of human experience of that like when I get to the one, I arrive and then I'm there and that's it, right? Remembering that we can flow back into the zero, that, right, which is performance, right? It is dress up. It's like, because I'm putting on this coat, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna wear this coat forever. Even though I want to, because I want the security of being like, I am this coat. Like this is who I am now. But even, and sometimes there are moments, right, where we, I've experienced that, where it's like, I am this now, like this is what I am. Absolutely. and... There are times when I've lost sight of the zero and then when inevitably that oneness gets challenged or has to change because of the natural flow of our lives, it has been, I have experienced severe difficulty with accepting like, oh, I'm not that or it doesn't fit anymore. That coat doesn't fit anymore. And I thought I would always want to wear it, but I don't want to wear it anymore more because the magic's gone. Like the rabbit is dead. The children have gone home. All the balloons have holes in them. And so, yeah, it's remembering to put it down. And now I'm thinking again, going back to kind of like the physicality of the numbers and like how does one get back to zero, which is like the head tail curl back into the fetus, into that rolling sort of position, which now I think we're talking about life and death. You know what I mean? Like, fetal, we're talking in massage therapy school and kind of like the natural sort of processes of the human body, which is that we start in this fetal position, we extend, and then as we get older, naturally, we kind of this head tail curl happens kind of because of gravity and the way our bodies are breaking down. And so we're literally expanding and contracting and an opening and closing, right? Which is helpful for me because I always have, I think, this shared human experience of like, well, what happens when we tie? And like, is there more? And with everything, if everything is everything, and everything is an indicator to something, then it would suggest that there is just another opening and another one, there's another verticality but on a whole other sort of plane or whole other level. Great. Well, we figured out life and death. That makes me feel fantastic. February 3rd, 5-11 p.m. as Sean figured out life and death. Great job. Good job accomplishing so much today. It's so interesting how when you lean, you know, like these symbols and these archetypes, which seem so simple, you know, like when you really lean into them and start talking about them, fleshing them out, how much they resonate and reflect just the human experience. It's fascinating. Absolutely. I feel like something that you were saying really makes sense to me about also how we're constantly practicing life and death in our life and that there's many seasons like them in my and I many seasons, little little seasons in the day in the year in our lives, that we go through these moments of one, where we stake our claim. And I do think there's something, really almost teenage about the part of me that wants one to be permanent, you know, that is like, I've become this, I'm becoming an adult. And so that means I'm going to know my permanent status. And also that it will allow this eventuality of two, three, four, five, six, you know, like... That I will choose something and that will therefore unfold everything working out for me. That it's the secret key to unlock everything. And yet, we're constantly. Practicing this returning state to zero, but we're building. And so there is something very humbling about the magician and this trickster quality and the snake oil salesman that were having to kind of be teenage again and go for it at a level that is like, okay, maybe it's not a problem that I have a desire to be like, yeah, I'm this, I'm this now. I've become an astronaut. I'm going to be an astronaut everyone, get ready. To a degree. It's good to maybe not be so rigid. But this idea of that we have these small seasons to experience how we live in one identity and then can die from that identity. The coat can become, the rabbit is dead. You're just shoving that little corpse in and out of a hat. It's like, I die. Stop doing the trick. You have one trick. Stop doing it. And I think everyone has those moments where we realize that we've worn the coat too long, where we've worn the one outfit for too long, and then we return to this place. Of like – and it is scary. It is scary to regress, so to speak. And even though it's all not – it is outside of this idea of progress. It's outside of a linear forwardness because it is building, like you said, on the large scale, taking in the reality that's making itself known around us is that we continue to return to another one that is an entirely that is an experience that we can't encapsulate in our thoughts entirely. Yeah. That makes me think of – so we're talking about this kind of going back and forward from zero to one. And I'm wondering, because of kind of the linearity of number and how the major arcana goes, that if we – as a model, let's accept that each card is either expanding or contracting in this way that we're talking about. There's way that like tumbling with the fool which is kind of like being at the at the will of life, spirit, whatever these kind of circumstances are happening or kind of jostling is around and the fool kind of like revels in that or like kind of you know per your your meditation can can accept it or can kind of be in that flow. The magician stands up and says no I am the thing even though. But then that going back into the flow after experiencing the magician, the high priestess comes up and I was as you were talking earlier about twos, I was like trying to figure out why the high priestess is two and I was like, why isn't it the lovers? Why isn't it another person? And I'm now thinking of the two as reflection and that the two is an internal reflection. It's an internal relationality of being a little wiser now and thinking of the high priestess as listening as instead of being bowled over and thrown by these circumstances, it's listening to it and accepting the shadow self and accepting that there's something other than me going on. I can't see it because she's always behind a veil. Oh, veils. She's is behind a veil or behind we're putting on veils for those of you that well for all of you. Those of you that can't see us unless there's someone creeping in yeah veiling veiling oh good, i hung these up outside so they would smell it smells really good smells natural um we're wearing black lacy veils. Yeah. Yeah, that this tumbling is now this kind of internal tumbling or, listening to the forces that kind of tumbled us before. Because by doing the fool, doing the the magician, we have that embodied experience. And now that we're going inwards again, we. Can listen to it rather than being kind of subsumed by it or being overtaken by it. And then from there, we expand out into the Empress who is like, like literal physical manifestation, like she's giving birth and it's about pleasure and like literal manifestation, like Venusian things like the senses and like touch and this kind of grounded creation instead of just the kind of. Pretendy kind of happenstance of the magician. It's like a literal manifestation. LS It feels like there's so much of this as I'm thinking through this progression through the numbers and these archetypes, there's a type of maturation that it is about kind of reframing what maturing means. And it's reminding me of a teacher that I had that prompted me and the cohort I was with to do dialogues with the innocent self and the wise self without assigning either one a hierarchical station, without saying, well, clearly the wise self is going to be the one that has all the secrets and knows all the shit. And yet also, so not discounting the innocent self, but also not as it kind of goes back to some degree about like the rigidity and the softness. And these ideas of what does it mean to arrive at a place of maturity and like what the Empress. Producing a human is a is a process of maturing. Yeah, you know, is that like, okay, yes. And now I've actually brought this into being and how it is necessary and important to have this relationship with all of this states of innocence and states of play and states of that these are interdependent. And so maturity doesn't necessarily become something that weaponizes itself against this shadowy learning state that it is learning is not something that just once again, it's also like reclaiming the the fool even using that title is something that tends to be derogatory. And So... Not making maturity the opposite of foolishness, but to say these are in relationship with each other. Yeah, they're just different perspectives. Yeah. Different points of view. And when you embody them, or when you experience them, you have that sort of memory and knowledge to realize the multiplicity of what it means to exist and to grow and to change. Yeah. And that is, I feel like something that has been a big lesson in my life is to not dismiss these moments of learning, or these moments of not knowing beyond the like, costume choice, that it's like, okay, what if I've only gotten to this place where I'm just daring enough to put on this one costume and see what it feels like. And then actually that's a place of incredible power. And to me it also feels like it's about scalability, that this is also something that can happen on a very small scale. This can be a gesture towards it's like, okay, well this is a short performance where I'm trying this on. This is a small item on my altar. This is a gesture towards this bigger idea. Yeah. And yet that can be such a place of power. So once again, like removing the hierarchy from this like mature state, and. Saying, okay, what what is possible now? What is possible around me? And that that's actually an incredibly powerful place to be. Yeah, that thing again, of accessibility of like, everything you need is is right here is right there. Like, yes, with the elements in front of you, you know, like, yeah, starting where you are and... I think, yeah, that's interesting because I've experienced too, and those, I think, getting heavy into the mind and, you know, like, sort of picturing or visualizing what I want to do, what I want to be, etc. And then kind of systematically planning that out and being like, oh, I don't have step five. So there's no way that I can get to the thing instead of just being like. Like, I'm going to make up step five. Yes. And I'm going to do it by doing it, which reminds me of this thing I wrote in a performance where I talk about the thing and being the thing. And if you're trying to be the thing, you end up not being the thing. You just have to be it. You just have to be the thing. And you just do that by doing it. And not, you know, like it's all quite rapid or like it's it has this flow to it. And if you try and break it down into kind of steps where you're like, okay, I completed this step. And now that means I can move on to this step. And that means that I'm steadily progressing towards this, the thing. Yeah, it kind of, yeah, the spirit moves out of it. And it has to have this tension, this, which is often uncomfortable and confusing. Which again is why I think one of the lessons of the magician is like the power and the importance of pretending of, yeah, playing. I mean, you know, and I'm thinking about, well, going back to the empress and birthing the child and you know they... You know, this person that was a child was the fool, was the magician, was pretending and now, and had this inner reflection and relationship is now giving birth to a child and they're like, oh, I was there. And I remember that and this is not me, but it is of me. And now I just have this perspective of it. And remembering to keep that cycle within us, which is, you know, so often why people are like, you know, famously, the children are our future. But like watching, you know, like the children have the answers, like, you know, like, and it's, you know, when you watch, children when they're uninhibited and they're playing and inventing and it's just a reminder that, you know, that is still, it's not something to just put down and be like, oh, it's child's play, you know, like I did it, I'm done. Like, it's still a part of you. It's still in there, you know, which I think, you know, art making a performance comes directly from that, you know, that that is that the child is kind of the ancestor of the performer. Yes. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah. And the magician kind of operationalizes that. And brings in this more serious side or like deeper or more substantive side. Yeah. I feel like this is also speaking so much to... This is such a grown person adult problem, is to be able to take that kind of curiosity and play and daring seriously. And that I find that it's tempting for me to want to dismiss that as real work and as an important part of a life and as also an important part of making decisions and creating anything that really even though my accumulated knowledge is really really pointing to this being yeah much like this tarot card as incredibly powerful and necessary catalyst that really runs against a lot of our modern hierarchies that kind of want to fetishize seriousness as these specific quantifiable things and yet leave so many people. Just dumbfounded for how to get from anywhere to anywhere else and not just be somehow fully birthed, fully formed. And so being able to take this. Landscape that children just naturally arrive at. It's an early life curiosity and where there's already so much judgment is suspended and everything is on a much more equal footing, you know, so it's like that scrap of paper is just as interesting, as this really, you know, valuable pearl necklace over here and, that is such an important tool of creation. And not even, I think people have associations of what like a creative life is or what creativity is, but we all create, we all, creation is any existence. It's getting up the next day, it's going to any kind of job, it's doing anything that you will do in your life. And so being able to take this incredibly humbling work work seriously and to not dismiss it and say, okay, well, this just can't be as important as my nine to five job over here or this job that has a status and a name that other people see and recognize. That. And yet to be able to take that and say like, okay, even if it's my small gesture practice, like this is my 15 minute magician practice is to be able to say this is vital for me to have of this muscle working in my body and my life to be able to return to because I need this. I need this like I need my lungs to move air, like my heart to pump blood. Like this is just a part of me being able to move through life. Yes, and not only that, I think, I mean, yes, that as well, but like kind of beyond the, let's say aura of that. Like when we take those actions, it changes things around us, which begins a conversation, it begins relationality, it allows things to move forward. And I think too in places, yeah, when I felt isolated or alone, like taking those actions, you're making it move forward by starting that conversation. So yes, it is vital and it is all of those things saying but it's I think and it's also. You're also contributing to reality. You're sculpting the reality. And we can kind of talk about that on the terms that we have, but also just literally moving atoms around. This is an interesting point that I was thinking about. It's kind of a bunny trail, so excuse me. But Earth, Air, Fire and Water was, you know, for a long time was assumed as what made up everything, right? Like these basic elements. But then some guy came along, I can't remember his name, but said, no, it's the atom. And so I was thinking about doing kind of, and maybe someone's already on this. Like, because in my ritual practice that my kind of daily situation is like gathering those four elements, putting them on an altar and doing whatever. But like, like bringing it into a contemporary moment. And again, maybe this has already happened. But like, what if we were to like, worship atoms? Or like, what would like, what would it be like? But then it's like, well, everything's atoms and then it's like well then everything is magic and everything is a ritual. It's just kind of like our awareness about it and you know. Absolutely. And I love that is also a returning back to potential. That everything is made up of, this pure potential and what does it mean to treat that with respect and like what is the balance of of play and respect to say, I don't have to come to any conclusions, I don't have to come to any assumptions. And also I can notice what I notice. Like I cannot judge what I find interesting. And that there can be a lot of power in things that other people judge. Historically we've had experiences of things being dismissed as being less important, as less important interests, as less important identities, and now no better, hopefully, at least on a larger scale. How that was coming from fear and the desire to control and restrict and to be able to... To that fear of, well, things can't just be constantly in flux. They can't just be unknown forever. And that also, of course, being a reflection of the personal experience too. But I love this application that you're bringing in to also take it out of this single figure. Like kind of out of the silo of like, okay, this is just the journey of me. Like this just my individual experience of life, but to say how am I contributing to the whole because I am indelibly part of the group. BD Right, which I think is what we're getting to kind of the crux of it. And this is where I bring in the C word, capitalism and the myth of individuality and how – yeah. And also the reason why art is so underfunded and why dance is at the bottom of the rung of arts funding and arts in general is because like when you bring it back to just movement and the body, it's, it's, and yeah, I always wonder about this because like there is power in it, like we're talking about, you know, but like with capitalism and like making things defined and very physical and like kind of grounded in like. Like, let's say currency, which we're in a moment now where like that is all changing, like what is even money anymore? Like, it's, it's just numbers on a screen to most of us. It's the art and this like serious play that you're talking about, it's there's so much power in it. And it's I can't help but notice that it's, again, underfunded under, let's say underappreciated or that, you know. Is it because there is fear or that there is knowledge that that power is there or is it that it can't be exalted and upheld in the same way as capitalism can be because of the high priestess? Because of the same thing, we can't look at it so clearly. It takes artists and healers and magicians like us to continue to do that work, which is really challenging when you're not always sitting in veils talking about this to someone else that you really love and respect. So I guess we just have to do that more. But yeah. Yeah. We're creating a form right now. Yeah. But it's remembering, right? And rituals are ways of remembering to remember. Rituals are ways of us going, okay, this is powerful. Okay, I remember now. Okay, yes. Doing this thing matters, even though my current culture tells me it doesn't matter or like I'm not getting supported in the ways that our current culture deems valuable or you know, which I think we're also seeing with social media and you know, validity is and it's interesting to seeing like metaphysical things pop up on social media like tarot on social media and like how it you know, how it's just just getting capitalized and like, capitalized though with like likes or attention kind of. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, yeah, bring it back to the body and the word. That feels like a full beautiful picture of the many different directions this goes in and the ways that it is personal and the ways that it is personal connected to others. Ah, wow. We're back. We're back. We're back from beyond the veil. Beyond the veil. The moon is rising so beautifully over there. Wow. Well, I think we did it. I think we did it. I think that was a lot of good stuff. Thank you for participating in this conversation with us. Music. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a few moments to subscribe to the show, leave, us a review, and share the episode. These tiny tasks help our independent podcast so much. Be sure to also check out the links below to learn more about any free resources, guests, or things we talked about today. Our intro and outro music was created by artists Erin Palavich and Jared Kelly. Our podcast logo was created by Elaine Stevenson, and this show is produced by Softer Sound Studio. Thank you for being here. Be well. Peace. Music.