The Fool

At left is The Fool from The World Spirit Tarot. What makes this Fool different than most is the birds. Okay, yes, she's standing on a rooftop instead of a cliff, but it's still a precipice and a dog still tugs at her in what looks to be a useless attempt at stopping her from falling.

The LWB that accompanies this deck doesn't have much to say about the birds. The birds do carry flowers usually held by The Fool himself.

The birds don't mean much to me at the moment symbolically, but I don't doubt that I'll draw this card for someone one day and suddenly the birds will have meaning. At least for that reading--this is how the tarot seems to work. The symbols on any tarot card can jump out at you quite differently from one reading to the next. The rooftop (instead of a cliff) might have some very special meaning in a specific reading one day as well. For now, it's just a symbol of a blind leap of faith.

Oops, wait a second, I do see meaning in those birds. The meaning is negative, however, I see them as a symbol of the Fool's attempt to do the impossible. She loves the birds so much she has climbed up onto the roof to be with them and is so caught up in being with them that she's about to step right off the roof. Perhaps she has forgotten that she doesn't have wings and can never be a bird. While I'm not one for squelching dreams, the fact is that if you haven't gone to med school, you can't be a doctor. The Fool needs more preparation before she can fly like a bird. In a nutshell, she's putting the cart before the horse.

Essentially, I see this Fool as I do most of them. A carefree spirit moves ahead with no thought to the consequences. The logical, cautious part of the self (the dog) is ignored even when it tries to be heard.

The Fool, like all the cards, has a good side and a bad side. Sometimes we need to just MOVE for movements sake, other times acting this way can lead to ruin. The trick is knowing when to give in to our carefree nature and when to allow logic and good sense to take the lead.

Looking back at my last tarot journal I am reminded of other meanings The Fool has for me.

Inspiration in any form.
Creative energy.
Following your heart/dreams/ideals despite outside pressure.
A new journey, a new beginning, a clean slate.
Optimism.
Beginnings.
Innocence.
Naivete.

But The Fool can also carry a message to the querent, "Look before you leap!" There are other messages The Fool might be bringing to the table such as, "Are you holding yourself back?" "Are you acting rashly?" "Are your attitudes and actions harming others?"

My favorite note on The Fool from my old journal is, "The Fool should be too busy getting back on his horse to worry about how he looked while falling off of it."

If I were going to associate a rune with The Fool, it would be the blank rune. Yeah, yeah, you rune traditionalists hate the blank rune but I'm not a traditionalist. The blank rune fits The Fool nicely.