For an overview of what I’m doing here, please check out this post all about it.
The Athlete Archetype
Well, well, well. The spiritual powers of my life can be hilarious. Of course they would direct things so that I pull the Athlete archetype card for my very first substack divination post. Why is this funny? Because an athlete (in the classic sense) I am not. The empowered side of this archetype is something I have rarely identified with. It is like a foreign language to me.
The Athlete in the light (meaning the attributes of the archetype that are out for all the world to see) are all about the mastery of physical power and the ability to direct that power. The Athlete is perfectly connected to the somatic self; the physical body and the will are in alignment.
I don’t think the Athlete is necessarily about having any particular physical or athletic ability, such as a talent for a particular sport, but, rather, being so deeply in touch with one’s body that it can respond to the will in real time. This will look different for every one of us. Our relationships to our bodies are unique. No two are going to be the same.
The shadow side of the Athlete (the attributes that tend to be kept hidden or that show up when we relate with the archetype in excess) are about the misuse of physical power and/or being disconnected from the physical self.
This shadow side is actually something I know very well. For a great part of my younger life, I was completely separate from my body. I was in my head space 100% of the time. I remember having thoughts that my body was a nuisance and, in fact, an obstacle to my desire to sit and think. It didn’t help that I had a phobia of vomiting and was plagued with chronic migraines. As far as I was concerned, my body was not a safe place to be. So I retreated further and further into my mind.
Then, one terrible afternoon, my beloved cat disappeared. He just didn’t come home. This cat was pretty much the love of my life at the time, and I was devastated. The grief threatened to overwhelm me. It hit me with so much force that I felt nauseous. This triggered my aforementioned phobia and in a moment of pure shadow Athlete, I told myself, “No. this is too much. I choose not to feel any of this.” And just like that, I flipped a switch inside myself and turned off the emotional pain. Or that’s what I thought I was doing anyway.
In reality what I’d done was completely shut off the connection between my thinking self and my body. And about six months later, my body nearly died because of that choice.
The fragmented self cannot last. Every part of us longs to return to wholeness.
I became very sick and ended up in liver and pancreas failure. My doctors could not diagnose a cause and could only treat the symptoms.
As you might have already read in my bio, this is when my spirit guides came to me and said I had a choice to make. I could choose death or I could choose to heal myself. I made the choice to heal myself and it meant a long, hard road of relearning how to be connected with my body. Even twenty years later, it’s still something I have to consciously remind myself to do. (Thankfully, I belong to this great group of spirit guides who do things like have me pull the Athlete card when I need a firm reminder.)
This week we are being asked to examine how we are in connection or disconnection from our bodies. Do we listen to our bodies? Do we even know how? Do we ignore their needs and adopt an attitude of “push through the discomfort”?
More specifically, the wisdom of the Athlete is: Let the body and the mind be one.
What things can we do to get all of our parts on the same page this week?
The Magician
The Magician is card #1 of the tarot. It is the result of the zero being sliced open and, suddenly out from nothing falls everything. The Magician is all about the physical (just like the Athlete). It is a being that has the ability to pull things into physical reality according to their will.
The energy of The Magician gives a physical framework to infinity. I once read in a book called, “WTF is Tarot” a perfect metaphor for this. I’ve never been able to come up with a better one so I’ll use it here. In it, Bakara Witner writes “We are always surrounded by infinite space, but inside an expansive cathedral, looking up at the high, vaulted ceilings, we can actually feel it.” This is the power of The Magician: to take infinity and give us a tangible, physical structure for experiencing it.
The Magician is the first created thing. It is the conduit between the above and below, and is an external facing conduit at that. It is all outside action with really no interior at all. But in this action, there is no striving. Here’s the important message: the Magician has all the tools it needs. We see in most tarot decks that The Magician is standing next to a table upon which is every tool they might need in their practice.
This is such a significant reminder. We often forget that we have tools at our disposal. Or, if you’re like me, you can easily turn a blind eye to the resources that are all around you. We have so many stories that illustrate this exact thing. Dorothy went on a whole adventure to find the wizard, only to discover she’d had what she needed to return home all along.
Because The Magician always has whatever resource is needed—and is all about the physical—it can be said that it is the embodiment of one’s full potential. (Gosh, that sounds more and more like the Athlete, doesn’t it?)
But wait, there’s more! In just about every tarot deck I’ve seen, one constant in the image of The Magician is that there is a lemniscate above his head. The infinity symbol. It is a symbol of the undulating rhythms of life. Breathing and heartbeats. When the will of the mind falls into alignment with the body, the will becomes seated in the heart, in harmonious rhythm with life.
From this harmonious place, The Magician can wield the power of its resources. But this is power not generally seen with the ordinary eye. The Magician has access to the kind of power that has authority over matter itself.
How do the Athlete and Magician work together?
The way I usually get to the wisdom of the relationship between the archetype and the tarot cards is that I see an image, a visual, of them together.
In the case of the Athlete and the Magician, I saw clearly the scene of Steve Rogers becoming Captain America. In this superhero lore, Steve Rogers was a small, weak-bodied man who longed to be a soldier, but could never quite make the cut. A mad genius had developed an experimental (and magical?) “Super-Soldier serum” that he injected into Steve’s body. After this infusion, Steve’s body reached “the upper-most limits of human perfection in strength, stamina, agility, and durability.”
But it wasn’t the Super-Soldier serum alone that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. The ethics, morals, charisma, and intelligence that he possessed all along were just as vital a part in his superhero abilities as his physical strength. The serum was merely the magical catalyst he needed to get his body and mind on the same page.
To be clear, the message isn’t about becoming a superhero or being more able-bodied than we are right now. This week we are called to look at the ways that becoming fully embodied can help us see the magical resources all around us.
Some questions to ponder as we go through our week:
What is my relationship with my body right now?
In what ways do I trust my body?
How might I be turning a blind eye to the resources available to me?
Let me know in the comments, or feel free to send me an email, if you have any questions or thoughts about this week’s guidance. Blessings and kindness to you all!
Paid subscribers, below is the mini-ritual to go along with this week’s reading. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you might have.
(Everything is free for August 2023! This mini-ritual is available to everyone! Enjoy!)
I love these explanations Jenna, I too remember that disconnection well! The Athlete made me smile too. You’re right we need to be much more attuned to our bodies and the messages that they send us. They truly do know what we need to heal ourselves. Really look forward to knowing more. 🙏💫