I’VE LOOKED AT THIS CARD SO MANY TIMES. Is there anything I haven’t seen? 
There’s the lyre embroidered on the patriarch’s cloak; the heraldry on the archway; the shy little kid, who will barely remember her grandfather when she’s grown; the gray pups, grateful for their master’s notice; the graceful young couple; the flat blue sky of autumn. I’ve noticed all these details before.
Today, I challenge myself to find something new, something significant—at least to my understanding of the card—something I haven’t noticed before.
My gaze travels around the edges of the image. Nothing new there. I pull my focus back and take in the scene as a whole. Nope. Still nothing. Homing in on the middle of the card, I notice the woman’s fond (and familiar-to-me) glance at her husband. Following that glance, I consider the curve, like a sail, of the man’s blue cloak.
Lovely, but … significant?
Then, as my eyes travel that blue curve, I see it! The young man holds a staff, a detail I have never noticed in the hundreds of times I’ve considered this im
age! With this observation, suddenly his grip and his posture evoke the dynamic Magician holding his wand aloft! Although the young man in the Ten of Pentacles has yet to raise his own staff high enough to invoke its power, this subtle suggestion of The Magician’s potency changes—yes, significantly—the stories I can tell myself about this card.
Now, I perceive the courtyard within the skirt wall’s embrace as a womb, a cauldron, a place designed to protect and foster the young man’s latent powers. And, jeez, what stories could that notion conjure?
“The devil is in the details,” they say, but so is the life force animating every moment. Here, we find that force pulsing at the exact center of the image, the spot from which all the card’s energy emanates—challenging the weighty, static notions of generational obligation and inheritance that can be associated with this card.
Having experimented myself with this oh-so-familiar image, I offer you this …
Tarot Writing Prompt
Look closely at a familiar image, maybe a family photo. Jot down a dozen or so details as you scan the image, seeking the juice, the motor, among those details. Ask yourself, “Is it this? This? This?” Such close observation reveals what’s pulsing underneath. That, in turn, builds energy for writing.
Next, write the scene which occurs to you to write from either the cumulative weight of all the details you’ve noticed or from your close, fresh observation of just one. Make whatever associative leaps you need to get yourself someplace new.
EXTRA CREDIT! After writing that scene, let it cool for a day or two. Then, return to what you’ve written and to the list of details that inspired it. Reconsider both. Do you see anything that escaped your notice before? Write a new scene based on your second look.
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Thanks to U.S. Games Systems, Inc., for kind permission to use the image of The Magician and the Ten of Pentacles from the RIDER-WAITE TAROT.