FOOL

From Prairie:
I'm going to assume everyone here has a fairly good grasp on the meanings of the cards. We covered the basic meanings in Tarot 101, so for Tarot 201, I will be going a little more in-depth, and incorporating a bit of numerology in the lessons.

I realize the Rider-Waite is a rather unpopular deck, but it is the definitive work on the symbolism of the Tarot. Every image on every card is there for a reason. Even the colors have symbolic meanings. So, I will be using the Rider deck for this section of the class.

The FOOL is numbered 0, the number of unlimited potential, and doesn't actually have a place in the sequence of the cards. He can come either at the beginning of the Major Arcana, or at the end. In fact, the Major Arcana could be considered the Fool's journey through life, and as such, he is ever present, therefore needs no number.

When the Fool is seen as the beginning of the Majors, he is depicted as just beginning his journey, with unlimited potential. Like a newborn baby, the Fool is facing a world of choices and opportunities, and only he can decide the fate of his life.

The rising sun behind him represents the beginning of his adventures. He is facing the NorthWest, the direction of the unknown. He is looking upwards, toward the sky, or Spirit. He's a newborn soul about to step off a cliff into the material world. Is he prepared? Well, he has all the tools he needs in the bag on the staff, but he hasn't opened the bag yet. The staff itself represents his will. The white rose represents purity and innocence. Like any newborn, he is about to enter the world as a pure and innocent soul. He has unlimited potential, but at this point, it is all unrealized. He does have a guardian in the little white dog. The dog will protect him throughout his journey, but he will also push him to learn the lessons the Fool came here to learn. Notice the dog nipping at his heels, urging him forward. Life is wasted if no lessons are learned. While the dog will protect him, he will also push him into experiences whereby the Fool can grow and learn.

The mountains behind the Fool represent the realms of Spirit that he has just left, and will spend his life trying to attain again. The valley he is about to step into represents our own physical, material world.

This is an excellent card to meditate on if you are experiencing a lot of fear in your life. The Fool enhances courage, risk-taking, and the creative expression needed to open up new areas in your life. The Fool is always whole, healthy and without fear. He is the spirit of who we are, the spirit expressed  & experienced as wonder, awe, curiosity &  anticipation. We never know what's in the future, but like the Fool, we must blindly go forward.

He teaches a lesson about making right choices. It's good to be focused on spiritual matters, but stay grounded at the same time in the physical world.

EXERCISE
Tarot 201 is a bit more comprehensive than Tarot 101 was. I actually expect you to use the symbols of the Tarot cards in your daily lives. :-)

So, here is your assignment for this week. Take out The Fool from your deck. Study it until you are familiar with all the symbols on the card. Now, this week, as you go about your daily life, I want you to be aware of the symbols as they appear. For instance, if I were using the Rider deck, I would take note every time I saw a little white dog. Or a white rose. Or a staff (stick) like the one he's carrying. Or even mountains and a cliff. Remember what the symbols mean, and see if they correlate to anything that's happening in your life at that moment.

For instance, when you were feeling particularly vulnerable or confused and in need of a guide, did you happen to notice a picture of a white dog in a magazine or somewhere? Did the neighbor down the street choose that moment to walk her white poodle?

When you were feeling spiritually drained, did you happen to catch a glimpse of a mountain out of the corner of your eye? Or see a kid with a knapsack when you felt you needed help and were drained of energy?

I want you to tell us about your experience with the Fool this week. Tell us what deck you were using, what symbols you saw, and how it related to what was going on in your life at that moment, or even if it relates at all.

The Magician lesson will be posted Friday. Between now and Friday, live the Fool! I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences!!

From Prairie:
This week, I noticed a few mountains. (Living in the Pacific Northwest, it's kinda hard NOT to notice mountains!) But, this time, whenever Mt Hood was looking rather majestic, I thought about attaining spiritual heights, and what I needed to do to accomplish this. Today, I took one of my clients on a train ride and we went through the Hood River Valley. Again, a reminder of the Fool. I thought about what areas of my life I was jumping into blindly, and that made me face a work situation I've been puzzling over. Monday, I was feeling kinda like I was adrift on a sea of chaos, and I said to myself, "So, why don't I seem to have a spirit guide?" I turned around, and there was a guy in a truck with a yellow dog in the back!! I had to laugh, as I thought, "Okay, okay, I got the message!!" I also noticed white flowers everywhere! A reminder of something that I need to deal with.... again, work related. So, how do it go with you all?? Write and tell us YOUR experiences with living the Fool this week!

From Carol:
Well, my intentions were good, and I did take a blind leap, but...LOL

(Prairie)The Fool's intentions are always good. Remember that white rose he's carrying. A lot of times in life, like you, we start out with the best of intentions. Whether we go down in flames or not, we must not let go of that rose.

I've been getting an unusually high number of FWD chain letters, lately. Normally, when I get them, I'll scroll down (sometimes 30 clicks or more!) to see if the message is really important, or just another Urban Legend, then I delete it.

This week, however, I determined that I really needed to do more than just delete - especially after I recieved the 4th message on the same subject within 2 days. I had a goal - to stop this junk-mail menace and save cyberspace! LOL Too bad that I'm house-bound, and alergic to dogs - I really could have used one about this time...

The person that sent the message had not only sent it to me, of course, but to about 2 dozen others, as well.

So, Lofty Intentions in one hand, and my trusty keyboard in the other, I proceeded to fire off an e-mail explaning that this message was a hoax, and that it should not be passed on to others.

Did I stop at just emailing my friend? NO, of course not! I took the full leap, and sent the email to everyone on her forward list!

(Prairie) Now, there's the Fool I know and love!! He starts off with good intentions, does something that others may see as foolish or bad, and gets a negative reaction. The thing to remember about the Fool is that he still has that innocence about him, and may end up standing there, scratching his head, wondering what he did wrong!

Flames from here to the Tehachapi Mountains!!! (Which I have not been able to see very well because of the smog in our valley.)

This should be a good lesson to everyone: MEDITATE on the card - don't go so far as to BE the card!

(Prairie) Unfortunately, we've all been the Fool once or twice in our lives. I'm in a situation at work right now where I did something, flames are still being fired off in my direction and, like the Fool, I still cannot see what I did wrong. It seemed like a perfectly innocent thing to do at the time. When these things happen, the Fool is making his appearance. He can teach us some valuable lessons, if we are open to learning them

Just in case anyone is wondering, I take my Cards seriously...not life!
Carol

(Prairie) Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for your wonderful example of the Fool!

From Armande:
Yeeha! Carissa came to visit me, here in The Netherlands (Europe) and what a blast it is! Over the last 2 days (she arrived Tuesday) we've been very active, did a lot of sightseeing. We spent yesterday in Amsterdam and we shopped till we dropped (and I mean DROPPED!!) Amsterdam is a cool place, we came home lumbered with parcels and plastic bags. haha. No, no tarot decks – yet. She is still browsing those. We had planned to do some cultural stuff as well, but when we arrived at the Anne Frank House, people were queuing arround the corner, in the rain. We decided that viewing the house from the outside was good enough as well, and continued shopping. We also saw the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh-museum… from the outside… LOL And contined shopping. LOL All in all there are a lot of novel things for Carissa; an important case in point is how different our toilet flushes! LOL Also lots of castles WITH moats and the fact that eating cheese at any chosen moment in the day is totally okay! Carissa now understands the concept of "culture-shock"! *grin*

Anyway [ON-TOPIC] about being FOOL-ish. Carissa and I both took a gamble of course, we never met in person before so we didn't know how it would work out. I see this as the Fool at his best: an impulsive action and just trust that it will be okay. Our intuition told us this would be going well. But we both got (some) negative responses from people around us. To Carissa they said: "What? You're going to visit a total stranger on another continent? What if she's weird?" And to me they said: "What? You've invited a total stranger into your home? What if she's weird?" And guess what? Neither of us is weird! LOL

So we're happily scouting about, visiting Antwerp in Belgium next week and doing one day of shopping in England as well. Will keep you posted!!
BB,
Armande

From Prairie:
For those of you who don't know, Carissa is the owner of our list, and Armande is one of our teachers. I can't wait to hear about the toilets when Carissa gets back! Of course, I'd like to hear about the other things as well, but that toilet thing REALLY has me interested!! LOL!! I mean, just how different can it really be?? Hmmmm......

Anyway, back to the Fool... Armande brought up an interesting observation here: "I see this as the Fool at his best: an impulsive action and just trust that it will be okay." The Fool is about impulse, and sometimes that impulsiveness can get us in trouble, but sometimes it turns out great!

If you never make that leap, you'll never know how it'll turn out. Sometimes, it's good to just step off the cliff and trust that you'll land in a place you've never been before and your "little white dog" will guide you through it!

From Lynell:
Since I just joined the group, I've been reading some of the past messages. Last week's assignment was about the Fool. Interestingly enough, I did have a Fool "pop up" for me last week. I have been organizing my computer and ran across a document with just the date April 16, 1999 as the title. I tried to open it up and found that I had put a password to it. It was an old journal entry. After a few tries, I managed to find the right password and it popped open. It was an entry about the Fool, complete with graphic. In part, it said:

The Joker is asking you if you are ready to go beyond what you have done before. He wants to know if it takes others to make it happen for you, or if you are really your own person. Do you feel comfortable here? Can you keep going? Can you make something happen in your life that hasn't ever happened before? Exactly what is that something?

(Prairie) You described the Fool perfectly! These are the questions the Fool asks us, and sometimes the answers aren't easy to face, but that also is the Fool. Facing the difficult questions and answers in your life is like stepping off the cliff into the unknown aspects of your own personality. Whatever you discover, the Fool guarantees it'll be an enlightening trip! Sometimes the free fall before hitting the bottom, finding the answers, can be frightening, but the Fool will be there to catch you. Just trust in him and don't lose that child-like wonder and innocence.

The Fool was back for me this week, asking the same questions. I've made a few big changes since April '99, but it looks like there's more to come. I've been trying to learn how to use my Flash program, and in honor of the Fool, I drew and animated a fool character (and his dog), gave him some music and let him dance. That simple little fellow just brightens my spirit every time I start him up! Best Wishes,
Lynell

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