Questioning the Tarot: The Fool

Welcome to Questioning the Tarot, a series exploring the questions posed by each tarot card in the deck. Use these questions to guide your readings, personal practice, or explore new facets of their meaning. Inspired? Do add your own questions to deepen your practice. Reading for another person? Simply change the pronouns!

---

01 - The Fool

Big Picture

• What journey is just beginning?

• What requires a leap of faith?

• Where/how am I being reborn?

• How can I trust that things will work out?

Personal

• What part of me is emerging?

• Where am I being asked to have faith?

• What does my intuition have to say about what’s next?

• What risk am I yearning to take?

• How can I embrace a beginners mindset?

Social & Romantic

• Where do I need to let go of expectations and surrender to what’s unfolding?

• What relationships make me feel youthful and free?

• Who are my allies in life and how can they help guide me?

Work & Creativity

• What risks do I need to take in my career or creative life?

• Where might I need to start anew?

• What are my most important skills?

• How can I streamline my process, focusing only on the essential?

Weekly Forecast, Eclipse Edition: August 21-27

I have to admit I was more than a little excited to find out what the tarot has to say to us during the eclipse. I had a fun fizzle of anticipation running through me as  I was shuffling the cards and turning each one over (slowly, to savor the moment, of course.) 

It's a fascinating time. As the sun gets blocked by the shadow of the moon we're able to peer into the night sky in the middle of the day. I can't think of a better metaphor for a rare moment of insight - those times when an extraordinary occurence lets us step outside our normal boundaries and into something cosmic and grand.

These cards show us how those moments give us a rare opportunity to reframe our lives. There's nothing like the immense scale of nature - the universe! - to awaken us to the immense blessing of being alive and all the opportunities that come with it. I can't think of a better tarot card to sum these feelings up than The Fool. 

Here he is, at the center of our reading. And such a solar card, too! What we're seeing in the brief moments of the eclipse (either in person or remotely through photos, etc.) is refreshing. We're perking up and feeling the urge to shift out of old roles and stale plans. The Fool makes us feel young again, unencumbered by limitations and eager to set off on a new journey. When The Sun shines fully after the eclipse we'll be full of The Fool's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed energy.

I'll be curious to see how this effects each of us individually. It could pop up in any sector of our life as a new plan, adventure, or change. The wands cards on either side, however, tell us that it will involve creativity and action. We'll recognize it through how it feels - like being reborn and able to start anew with innocent and uncynical enthusiasm. That kind of energy is nothing to scoff at, though it might be tempting. Sometimes we want to protect ourselves by appearing jaded, as if we've seen it all before. Brush off that stale thinking! It's limiting and hides our true power.

The two other cards show us we've been tapping into our creative potential lately. It's big and simmering under the surface. We haven't named it yet and really expored its true potential. Like the Page of Wands, we're just getting the hang of things, experimenting and poking around. We're moving out of this phase of learning how to wield our creative power. Now, The Fool is telling us to take the risk and bring our new idea out into the sun.

This all tells us that it's a transformational time, a big opportuntiy we should treat as an adventure instead of a pressure-filled moment to prove ourselves. Furthermore, The Fool asks us to have a sense of humor and think in the "big picture," you might even say the "universal."

Look up at the sky with wonder, see how small we all are. In The Fool's mind this is wonderful, even funny. It means that we are both the heroes in our own stories, off to prove ourselves in this huge world, and also wonderfully inconsequential in the long run. The Fool can feel this way because they are detached from their own ego and we'd do well to follow their lead. 

Coming down from this energetic standpoint later in the week will be slightly jarring. The nine of wands sees us looking around, dazed and confused by all the options. Maybe we've bit off a bit more than we can chew (which is very much like The Fool.) It'll be important for us to remember that we don't have to do it all, especially not right now. We can drop some of our projects and push through to the finish line on the ones that really matter (we're close.) 

Most importantly, we can look back up at the sky and remember how it felt to see something incredible that's always there - the corona of the sun, the stars in the sky. Then we can refresh ourselves with The Fool's sense of openness and adventure and move forward on our heroe's journey through life. 

---