This is the second card in my Southern tarot series - I struggled to find a happy medium between realism and stylization on the raccoon that I found satisfying, and I’m not pleased with what I came up with, but somewhere around my third detailed sketch that I decided I had to throw out entirely, I remembered that this project was supposed to be relaxing and fun. Well, maybe in the following cards I will figure out what the hell I’m trying to do here.

The Magus represents skill, wisdom, flexibility, cunning, deceit, and theft. Sometimes it relates to occult power. The raccoon is common throughout the Americas, but our native species is Procyon lotor. They are a highly intelligent animal whose cunning is well known to anyone who has ever attempted to prevent them from accessing their trash can. In Native American folklore the raccoon often plays tricks on or outsmarts other animals, and according to some traditions it has natural spirit powers or other supernatural abilities.

The border of this card is composed of whitestar morning glory, or Ipomoea lacunosa. Although this particular species has no uses, others in the genus are known for their mystical associations. Ipomoea tricolor is used to synthesize the drug LSD, and was used by the Mexica as a visionary drug in pre-Columbian times. In the modern day South, this tradition is carried on by artists, musicians, writers, and other eccentrics, and packets of seeds sold in gardening supply stores are often treated with neurotoxins to curtail this. Another species, Ipomoea jalapa, is called John the Conqueror Root, and is used in New Orleans voodoo rituals. John the Conqueror himself is a trickster and folk hero, an escaped slave with supernatural powers. He (and his root) are mentioned in songs by Mississippi blues musician Muddy Waters, widely known and played throughout the South.