GRAY TAROT
The Fool
The life and energy of the Fool is like life here itself. It did not create itself with conscious thought, it exploded forth with energy in chaotic directions. Chaos will always find order and patterns within motion. This energy’s relation to its surroundings gives it structure and identifies its individual path and function. Only once it becomes stabilized in its environment it can be analyzed and understood. This card embodies the action and momentum of new beginnings. This is an organic journey about growth and expansion. In this space we are embarking without consciousness.
The Fool card is represented by the number zero. Zero is the holy, symbolic essence of nothing, the beginning before everything else. This orphic egg of creation contains all the potential to break forth with limitless energy. The circle is a template shape encompassing all and mathematically representing nothing. Circles are formed in the uncomplicated functional connection of a line continuing into itself. Once it is created, it is hard to ever tell where the line itself began. This circle is a non-binary zeitgeist.
I chose the Fool to be represented here as the garter snake. Historically, throughout the world of symbolism, we have met the reappearing image of the interlocked, ever-continuing creation snake. The snake eating its own tail, “the ouroboros”, symbolizes the never-ending cycle of life and death, eating and being consumed endlessly; the beginning, the end, and all in between. Naturally, this is an appropriate place for the tarot’s journey to begin.
The Fool is naive, both with the positive and negative effects of the course of this forward action and the space developed between. Like the gart,er snake, the fool is very basic in function, built for living a very simple, subconsciously unaware existence. This creature lives without remorse or empathy, clueless to emotional depths. It is not malicious, it is merely unaware. In searching for a delicious morsel of food this snake has chosen the wrong target and started eating itself. It is not poisonous so this snake has caused no harm to itself looking for a “bite of life”. In this action we see that life’s lessons of trial and error are open for the fool to make.
There is a felicity of adventure within the Fool. Its spirit of awakening runs like rivers with organic veins branching out. This energy is electric and like electricity needs a circuit to complete and return this loop productively. There is an unlimited amount of potential found here in these connections. The goal is to have this line of energy completed full circle with the right intentions or ideas to ground it. Ungrounded and unconnected it is like lightning, wild, chaotic, and destructive. On this latter side, there are limitless amounts of stupidity and harm to be had from lack of awareness in action, often times developed from living in a one-point perspective. It is shortsighted to not think and blindly charge forward with this energy and can easily be the axis of disaster. However this trajectory is taken, we have the choice and stand in limitless majesty of possibility in wonder. Before you step forward, breathe, ground yourself and take a moment to be fully present.
We find the evolution of our species developed in the Fool. The card can represent carelessly branching out and chasing desires that develop in our natural clearheaded state. The hunger or the desire for sustenance has locked this creature within a failed pursuit, biting its tail. Unaware of its folly, the snake joins itself in loop. Simple and ancient like the ferns and snails surrounding it, the Fool is primordial ooze. It is an essence of new life and the spark of the primal development of ideas. This card represents the organic germination of the seeds you have dropped on your path and your influence in its development moving forward.
Influenced by Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac, it is the end and the beginning of our story. This is the formation of the beginning of a new cycle. This strange energy contains the momentum of the ending of a cycle collapsing into itself into new transformative matter. This new matter possesses exciting chaotic energy of movement and possibility just like the two slippery fish, tied together, swimming in opposite directions. There is no need to fear. We are still but children figuring it out in this place. We are playing and learning. Do not be afraid to take risks and embark with trust in the unknown. I invite you to stay lighthearted on your journey: work on being aware where you might be naive in situations. A fool can be wise if they’re open to learn and laugh at their folly.
Key Words: Trust, innocence, carefree/careless, Naivety, cycles, journey, childishness, play, humor, adventure, foolishness, immaturity, development, delirium, inconsideration, enthusiasm, new ideas, beginning, energy, motion, endless potential, freedom of thought, uninfluenced, clay