The Fool

I admit– I’m a rank novice at this whole enterprise, and that’s one of the most enchanting things about it.

Our tarot cards have arrived, and I am utterly beguiled.

This image is taken from my deck, Fenestra, and the art boggles me– just the fact that what you read into the card is influenced by the deck you’ve chosen which is influenced by the way the art spoke to you before you purchased the cards, that complicated dance of meaning, choice, and future is intangibly beautiful, and the art of laying the pictures down and telling stories of a life that are drawn out from the pictures?

It’s everything I’ve loved about literature.

I particularly love this card.

The fool represents the wanderer, the person with that blithe optimism to just start a new enterprise with only a smattering of possessions and a faithful companion in his cache. He has courage, is unencumbered by prejudices, bitterness, or preconception, and can not only think on his feet, but thrives there. Of course, he’s not without his flaws–he tends to dodge responsibility–or at least be conveniently absent when it lands. He has no real home, so he is eternally searching for security, and he may be a little afraid that something secure will be the death of his optimism and cheerful rambling around the psychic landscape, and that’s a problem. A person should have a home.

In the picture, he’s about to tread into dangerous territory without a thought in his pretty little head–but there’s also the suggestion that his very purity of heart is going to get him through. Maybe he’s a lucky bastard who’s unaware of his blessings–could be true. But he is also wise, and joyful, with the heart of a child and the prudence to know when to share that joy with the people around him. The sun at his back and the wind in his face are simple pleasures and he loves these small things and indulges in them as often as possible. Perhaps he’s not as foolish as we first assumed–perhaps he just needs drive, decisiveness, emotional ties and a certain material stability to render him a fool no longer, but a friend.

It’s a pretty story, anyway, isn’t it? I like it… I think I’ll look at some of the other cards to see what they have to say.

Of course, there is going to be scads and scads of things that I am unaware of (and that some of you reading this post are probably DYING to tell me–I’ve noticed that there are many layers of meaning to a card that I’m just flat out going to miss)–but that’s okay. There used to be (still is) scads and scads about knitting that I was unaware of, but I practiced, made mistakes, practiced, and obtained a certain fluency with the medium, and I will continue to do so, I hope until my shriveled fingers stop twitching because my wool and my needles are a part of me as much as breathing is. I don’t know if this particular infatuation is going to dig as deep a trench in my soul and take root–but there’s always hope.

I am, after all, the fool.