The image in the Magician comes, in large part, from a recurring dream. A figure in robes would come to me floating over dark, still waters. In his outstretched hands was a giant pearl, which he and others like him, floating in the distance, offered to me. As I reached for the pearl I would be jolted awake and left with a great feeling of loss and emptiness.
Important to me in the dream was the big, gentle hands of the figure and the feeling of incredible universal knowledge the being and the pearl imparted. I really wanted to convey that feeling in the magician card, and also what I have since learned, that these entities, Universal Knowledge, are a part of every person and every thing. Like the hands, we are in control of our own destiny and attainment of the pearl of wisdom. We are the hands.