Mercury Magic: The Tarot’s Magician Card

(Based on the representations found on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.)

Too often I find myself in a process of unhelpful comparison. Invisible standards that are nobody’s imposition but my own; regret-filled after-thoughts of what I could have done differently in order to achieve the ever-moving yardstick known as “better.” But is there a baseline for “good enough”? When are my efforts “first-rate”? And, do I ever warrant receipt of that elusive gold star?

I’m not sure how much of this is socially or culturally conditioned. Perhaps we all suffer from this insatiable striving for “better” in different ways; perhaps we all feel as though we’ll never measure up in some area of our lives — never achieve whatever brass ring we’re shooting for, which may seem eternally out of reach.

I’d like to blame my twelfth-house Virgo placements for the hairshirt-like commitment I demonstrate for picking everything in my life apart. The Mercurial penchant for information-gathering, analysis, and assimilation is strong in my chart, but its shadow qualities can manifest themselves as a drive to acquire further data, constantly striving to improve. The analysis and dissection of everything — from the composition of an e-mail to the consequences of inadvertently skipping a bill payment — can weigh heavily after a while.