For the week of Sunday August 22 thru Saturday August 29, Tarot of Transformation, 0 The Fool: Ignorance or Innocence?
The figure in this card wears a costume reminiscent of a harlequin, and a mask. She or he follows a star, but looks over her shoulder at a smaller figure who appears to be demanding attention.
The mask and costume make me think of how often we misjudge a person based on physical appearance, age, dress. How often we assume someone is older or younger than they are, or make assumptions about what a person’s chronological age means about them. In truth each of us has a child, an adult, and an elder inside us.
Some other meanings I see in this card are the need for caution at some times, and the need to overcome fear at others, or at least to move through fear into the unknown.
There are times when we must cheerfully step off that cliff into the unknown, move forward even when our fears dog us. (I’m drawing on Rider-Waite-Smith imagery there.)
I think this card meant to me this week that I needed to overcome some fears and obstacles to progress, a need for a willingness to be the Fool. I learned new things, at which I was the apprentice. I’ve also been fighting my desire to drift when I really should be working. The child inside wants to goof off, while the adult insists on a need to be more disciplined. Above all I need to be my true self, and that self is sometimes simply a child who wants to come out and play. Other times I hold inside fears, beliefs, opinions that I’m afraid to express. The Fool tells me to let them out, to be fully human, fully myself.
