Flames on Fool

Teheuti

There appear to be two flames on the Fool card - the one on his chest and one on his left hip. Is the one on his hip actually a flame? If so, what does it indicate (as differentiated from the heart-flame)? If not, what is it?

Mary
 

roppo

I believe it's a kind of fruit. A pomegranate, perhaps?
 

Rosanne

Hi Mary- I have thought it odd that the yellow shape behind the left chest is like a physical heart, and I thought it was the innocence of wearing your heart on your sleeve- but it is really not on his sleeve; the heart is supposedly on the other side. So it really matches the top design on left shoulder. I always think those designs are like sand dollars- no real money to speak of. The design on the hip where you would expect a sand dollar, that maybe a flame reminds me of the pommegranates on the veil behind the High Priestess -so placed there I would think of Hod/eight/mercury or if I was looking the other way Netzach. ~Rosanne
Edited to add- 3 odd shapes = Glory/Wisdom/Understanding?
 

Fulgour

Looking askance upon Le Fol...
 

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Teheuti

Fulgour said:
Looking askance upon Le Fol...
I love the graphics on the double-take. It's a great design.

What do you make of the mark on the hip? It's not quite like the flame above and it's definitely not a pomegranate. It's vaguely like an outline of the letter MEM but not really. I thought of the MEM because it's the third Mother Letter (Aleph, Mem, Shin).

Mary
 

namesoftrees

fruity

I think it's the same as the one on the chest, the one on the left shoulder and the one below it closer to the hem. but the hip one you're looking at has the top -'pineapply' bit towards the back and out of sight. The one below it was printed with a sand-dollar design on it it accidentally but was then changed to be fruity too.
The sand dollary ones all have a circle of green foliage around them, but it's lost in the pleats of the fabric, and the fruity ones all have a wiggly vine type connection which runs all over the tunic, which suggests to me that they are the flowers and fruit of the same shrub. in a pufball kind of way.

What I think is that everything is so airy about the fool, his feather and his gait, his foppish happy posturing, his pride and (forgive me those who like to look at the fool's ability to overcome and fly and such things, ) his imminent disaster, that the design on the tunic is ambition toward maturity or a false(or should I say potential) maturity. He want's to be summer, but he's in his early spring teenage sundancing years.
 

Teheuti

namesoftrees said:
I think it's the same as the one on the chest, the one on the left shoulder and the one below it closer to the hem.
The figure on his left should is a red star and a moon. The squiggle near the hem is the Hebrew letter Shin. The "sanddollars" are wheels of life with 8 red radii representing the turn of the seasons (quarters + cross-quarters) and the Tetragrammaton + alchemical elements as per the Wheel of Fortune and thus transmutation and rebirth. Among other things . . .

Mary
 

tmgrl2

The chest mark, under magnification looks more like a "blob' or circle or heart than a flame...to me. Also it is on right chest side, not above the heart.

It also appears to be within a yellow form that looks as if it could be a cat-shape.

The one on the left hip looks much more like a 3-pointed flame to me, with the largest point in the center.

terri
 

duskymorning

the flame on the hip

if it appears to you as a flame, then thats what you see, isn't it? i think it could either mean a burning situation pushing you to move to take an action, or a pain situation thats annoying you make you can't cailm depends on the cards around in the reading
 

Teheuti

duskymorning said:
if it appears to you as a flame, then thats what you see, isn't it?
In a reading situation I definitely agree with you. I always go with what the querent (including myself) sees in the moment and what the significance of that is regarding the question or situation.

But I'm also interested in discovering as much as I can about the cards themselves and also about any specific intent that might be there. These are two different approaches and both are important to me. Since this section focuses on the "history and iconography" rather than reading issues my intent in asking the question was to clarify what's actually there.

Mary