April Fool's Day!
By Pamela Colman Smith - http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37197827
Did you know that we are inhabiting quite an extraordinary day today?
Today is April 1.
In popular imagination, it is “April Fool’s Day!” A day for jesting and making others into a fool, and getting a laugh out of it!
It is also New Moon in Aries. A New Moon is a symbol of new beginnings. A day when the moon completes a full lunar cycle and rests, before beginning the next cycle. Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac, again representing a new beginning. The new energies of Spring. A time for new leaves, baby animals, and some new buds. It is the day when the feminine energies of the New Moon, the virgin, the “unseen one,” blends magically with the masculine energies of the god of War, Aries.
Coming out of a multi-year pandemic, this energy feels so very welcome! So many of us yearn to set out on the road, once again, with the Fool as our guide. We want to let go of responsibilities that weigh us down. We are lured by the promise of adventure. We yearn to thaw, after the heaviness and darkness of a long winter (which doesn’t seem to want to fully let go just yet!).
As we contemplate new beginnings in our lives at this time, it may be worthwhile to pay homage to the Fool of the Tarot.
The Fool of the Tarot
Note the demeanor of the Fool in the Tarot card above (from the Rider–Waite deck). S/he is a merry, light-hearted youth, journeying into the world with nary a burden, and with their head held high, looking up at the heavens! The Fool of the Tarot is oblivious to the fact that s/he is right at the edge of a precipice. One false move, and the adventure will end prematurely. The fool is not looking where s/he is going. They are immersed in their own thoughts, their own poetry, their very own song.
Sounds familiar?
Have you ever been “taken” by the desire to be free? By an idea or an image that “runs away with itself?”
Indeed, our word “fool” can be traced back to Latin follis, meaning "windbag, empty-headed person." Also from the Sanskrit source, vatula, meaning "insane," or literally "windy, inflated with wind."
So, it is interesting that given this association with insanity and inflation, Tarot wisdom places this card - this archetype of the Fool - as an image of extreme importance.
By Roberto Viesi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59650709
The Major Arcana of Tarot, also called the “Trump cards,” is composed of 22 cards. Together they are understood by many esoteric thinkers to represent the journey of “individuation.” In other words, these cards, and their progression, is thought to represent stages of spiritual maturation and integration.
Interestingly, while the other cards in the Major Arcana are placed squarely on this journey from a source toward a destination, with numbers assigned from 1 (the Magician) to 21 (the World), the Fool is assigned the number 0.
How do we understand this numbering?
I would posit that this numbering makes sense because individuation, or achieving spiritual maturity, is not a linear process - but a circular one. Once we finish our journey through one portal, with one life challenge, we are asked to begin again, freshly, with a different task or challenge.
This wheel of cyclical individuation (or spiral, if that makes you feel better!) turns on the hub of the Fool. The Fool is the beginning of the journey, as well as the end. The starting point and the destination are the same.
As the Tao Te Ching announces so poignantly (translation by Ursula Le Guin),
Mind the end as the beginning…
Or as the Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, tells us in his poem “Journey Home,”
The traveler has to knock at every alien door
to come to his own...
Lesson from the Fool: keep your instinct close
The Fool holds the ultimate Wisdom. Partly because it does not look like wisdom at the first glance.
The Fool knows its own “airy” nature. Knows about its head in the clouds. So, the Fool of the Tarot never leaves on an adventure without their beloved companion, the dog. The tiny animal, apparently insignificant in the scheme of things, who has its nose close to the ground. The dog is the Fool’s instinct. The devoted companion who will make sure, if necessary by biting on the Fool’s ankle, to tug him/her back to awareness. The dog called Instinct will ensure that the Fool pays attention to the edge of the road.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OdysseusArgos.jpg#/media/File:OdysseusArgos.jpg
Indeed, myth after myth speaks of the absolute necessity of this old, devoted instinct-keeper. For example, when Odysseus of the Greek myth returns home to Ithaca after twenty years of absence, and enters Ithaca in disguise, no one can recognize him, including his childhood friend, Eumaios. All except his beloved old dog, Argos, who is instantly aware of his master’s return.
So long as we keep our relationship to our instinct open and vibrant, we can take more risks on the journey of life. We can have our heads in the clouds, because we will instinctually be aware of risks as they show up. We will not have to “plan” for them. We will not have to prepare ahead for every eventuality. Thus, we will be more likely to actually complete the journey, and return home. And not only that, we will likely be free enough to pay close attention to the lessons during the journey. And, like the New Moon, our return home will be only to rest, in order to start the journey anew - maybe even over multiple lifetimes.