78 Steps

Posted By Jade on May 21, 2009

Tarot Watch: I found an ad for a computer game featuring tarot cards:

3 Cards to Midnight

The Fool’s animal is: the eagle

Magickally, the eagle represents the divine spirit and our connection to it.  It’s a solar animal, also associated with sky gods, lightening, and air.  The eagle represents being in a state of grace and the ability to balance dualities. “Eagle asks you to grant yourself permission to be free in order to reach the joy that your heart desires.” (from Totem Animals – Crystalinks)

But the eagle isn’t the only animal associated with The Fool. From it’s Hebrew letter, The Fool is also tied to the ox. Since oxen are tied to planting, this would imply an association between The Fool and work or toil, something we really don’t see in The Fool. But oxen were driven towards a field marker to insure straight furrows, which could mean that the journey of The Fool is one with a specific intent — a planned outcome. For an in-depth explanation of the signifigance of “ox”  in Hebrew, see The AHRC Logo.

Finally, the RWS deck and its derivitives picture the Fool with a little white dog. Some other decks picture a wolf on a leash. Many interpretations I’ve seen state the dog is either the Fool’s bestial side or is the real world, trying desperately to grab hold of the Fool’s attention and failing.

The Fool’s herb is: peppermint.

Peppermint has been used for healing since ancient days for a wide variety of ailments. It’s magickal uses also span a wide gamut, from purification to healing to luck to sexual prowess. It’s strongly associated with Air, which is probably part of the reason it’s been attached to The Fool.

The Fool’s magickal weapons are: Dagger and Fan

The fan reiterates The Fool’s association with air. The it’s a symbol of authority and represents a connection with the divine. The dagger is also associated with air and is frequently used to represent the element of air in pagan and magickal rituals.

What’s Next?

So now we come to the end of  The Fool. I could continue analyzing it’s various symbols and more esoteric correspondences and permutations of those correspondences for at least several more months. But there’s 77 more cards in the deck to cover and I feel it’s time for me to move on. I will come back to the Fool’s Enochian Symbol when I find out more about Enochian magick.

One card in and this journey has already brought me many surprising changes. I’d originally conceived of this project as a collection of images and the correspondences merely secondary. But in the course of defining the correspondences, I’ve found they’ve intrigued and inspired me more than just finding Fool-like images have. So, I’ve decided to shift the emphasis of the project to developing and analyzing the correspondences for all 78 cards.

So I’m going to take a (very) brief hiatus to sit down and come up with a version of The Fool that takes these correspondences into account. I hope to have it done (at least in rough pencil format) by Monday; when it’s completed, I’ll scan it in and post it here.

But now the question becomes: where to next? I do want to finish the Major Trumps before I start on the Minors, but I’m trying to decide whether I should take the Majors in order, or draw one at random. Perhaps I’ll let the cards decide .

Category: Correspondences, Major Arcana, The Fool, Week Card
Tags: animal, Correspondences, herb, Major Arcana, tarot watch, The Fool, weapon, weekly card