Bright Idea Deck - 0 - Freedom (Fool)

From the book: "We detest limits and love new beginnings, yet when anything's possible, chaos reigns. Freedom can mean many things, from license to lawlessness. What point on this spectrum best suits your needs today?"

Personally, I love this modern Fool: his loosened tie, his location ("over the rainbow"), and the curious objects that accompany him on his journey.

Before I post about some of my favorite features, I'd like to encourage you to feel free to post your own impressions of this card. If you're the free-wheeling type, just go with the flow. If you long for a little structure, you might consider posting an answer for one or more of these questions:

- What does this Fool have in common with favorite Fools from other decks?

- The Waite Fool faces left; the BID Fool faces right. What might these differences imply about the two Fools and the message they bear?

- Hey! What's that ox doing there?

fool

Could the fool facing right mean facing towards something in the future as opposed to looking back? The ox stands for the hebrew letter aleph. The egg symbolizes "birth" of ideas of potential (am I close) The book represents knowledge not yet known (blank pages) but coming. I don't see the symbols of though unless the jester stick is the wand for fire the swirling mass above for air? He is standing on the color green of the rainbow could that be earth? But what would represent water? And the hourglass means? Trice
PS I am looking at these cards without the benefit of the book, I wanted to see what I could learn from experiancing the cards from this perspective.So this should be interesting. Trice

Feedback on Freedom

To me, the card is an expression of "anything goes".
The book with empty pages, the egg and the rainbow...

The ox, indeed, maps to aleph, the hebrew letter some associate with this card.
I have trouble identifying meaning for him.(other fools have dogs or hares on them, which can mean that you can be guided by instinct, but an ox?).

Facing to the right, hmm guess the straightforward thing is that it is future related iso looking to the past (come to think of it, this version does not have a bag of "past experiences", or is that the hourglass?)
I think there is even a version with a blindfolded fool (The Alchemical Tarot?), so I guess the fact if he is looking, and to what direction, does not matter a lot.

I also have a problem with the big spiral in the background. I'm really curious to see your explanation of that one Mark. It reminds me of the Primum Mobile...

And the keyword: freedom. I like this better than "The Fool"

Patrick

If anyone can play, I'll go for the bull.

rpbat said:

The ox stands for the hebrew letter aleph.

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That's the second thing I thought about the animal. The first was that it was a bull, as in "bull market," signifying optimism and energy--often too much of both. And if someone is waving a jester's stick around, read the prospectus carefully. But now that I look carefully, the critter does seem rather--well, gender neutral. :

This deck seems like an inside joke, in a way. For the tarot knowledgeable, it is very unconventional. But for the people who are not used to tarot symbolism, the deck looks fairly ordinary: office scenes, people reading. So the Fool: he's wearing conventional clothing for an office, a suit, but it's slightly disheveled. Did he loosen the collar and tie, or did they come loose from his activities? In any case, he isn't paying them any attention and he's a bit freer.

Also, he has lots of time: the top of the hourglass is just showing a little space. Anyone with lots of time has loads more freedom than someone who doesn't. (Took me years to discover this, but the Fool seems to know it already.) And he isn't worried about the time, either. The conventional world runs on TIME and pays great attention to appearance. Our modern fool isn't concerned with either. This worry-free attitude is one thing he has in common with traditional fools.

And, if that's a whirlwind behind him I guarantee he hasn't heard any voice coming out of it. Or is that a labyrinth? Whatever it is, he seems to have walked right over it, something angels might have qualms about.

The conventional tarot Fool carries a pouch which holds provisions for the journey. The usual interpretation is that he is ill-provisioned, but we cannot see what is in the pouch. Here we plainly see a Jester which isn't bad provisioning for the new guy with fresh eyes and perhaps an unwary tongue.

Question: His right knee seems to be aligned with his left foot. Is he kneeling to salute somebody? Or is he supposed to be running?

Running

greycats said:

Or is he supposed to be running?

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Good of you to bring this up, greycats!

He reminds me of the torchbearer during the start of the olympic games, running on the hardcourt/track (*) with the olympic fire.

(*) English is not my native language, don't know how this is called.

Patrick

I see the egg as potential, and the book as being there to be written in as he journeys along...not unlike a Tarot Journal. I'm no expert on oxen, but I guess it's one. I took it for a cow, even though it has no bag. I thought it was a substitute for the usual dog, but must agree it's probably for aleph. Which brings quite a lot of structure and background and system into the card, which I'm not sure I like. I'm pretty sure he knows bip about Kaballah, tree of life, etc...and does he really need to know any of that at this point?
The Jester's wand looks a bit official to me, like the name-tags at business conventions. The hourglass only works if you turn it over promptly, which indicates he has control over time in his world, or operates outside time. I think the spiral behind him is the initiatory spiral of going in to find your self and your truth, and coming out to share your knowledge with others. I'm not sure about the rainbow, but think it's probably indicates that this is taking place in an "otherworldly place...over the rainbow.
Add it all up, and to my surprise, I see him as more an apprentice Shaman than a "fool". How Odd!

my thoughts...

Spiral background - Spiral galaxy. The universe is his to explore. All the world's his oyster.

Book with blank pages -- hHs story is yet to be written. There's no script to follow. He's making it up as he goes along.

Holding the jester baton aloft -- He's not self-conscious about being a fool. No concern for self-image. What you see is what you get. A child-like lack of self-awareness. Innocence.

Timer - He's got it but he's not looking at it and doesn't know what to do with it. No awareness of time, again like a little child. His time is running out, but he's not concerned, he's not worrying. He's here in the moment.

Egg - New beginnings. What will hatch out of it? Can't tell, because it's completely featureless on the outside. It could be a chicken, it could be an ostrich, it could be a snake. It could be a dinosaur. Anything's possible! The perennial question: "What do I want to be when I grow up?".

Cow - Okay, you've got me there. He runs forward, oblivious to the cow pies that might be awaiting him on his path?

The suit- He looks a little too well-put-together to be a true Fool -- I'd like to see him barefoot, or at least with his shoelaces untied.

I've enjoyed reading what others have written here. This thread made me look more carefully at the details of the card. I agree with many things here, so my apologies if my post is a bit redundant.

The major differences that I found between this fool and one found in others are that the he is in a more formal suit (yet with a loosened tie), does not have the little dog at his ankle, and is not on the edge of a cliff. Of course, there are the additions of the egg, book, ox, hourglass, and "rainbow." He carries a jester's wand instead of a sack, which I feel is a symbol of being carefree. He is following the way of the fool, putting forth the carefree nature of the jester he has raised on the end of the stick.

It's interesting. I didn't see the man as jumping over a rainbow, rather running down a road representing all of the colors in the BID, majors (purple), cups (blue), wands (red), swords (yellow), and pentacles (green). So, in essence, he is excitedly and with a burst of enthusiasm (and with speed filled with joy) starting his journey of learning, down the path of the major and minor arcana. The unknown swirl--or circle of life lies--before (or below) him. (Mark, what is this swirl?) Since it's a rainbow, perhaps his golden reward is the path which ends in wholeness (the world)?

I think that he is facing right for a change because the right side represents creativity, passion, dreams, and insight. It is also the side that deals with intuition, visuals, spatial patterns, and the like. These tools are helpful when using the tarot.

In terms of the other objects/appearances that are in the card, I also feel that the fool’s disheveled appearance may represent that he is loosening up, letting go of things.

His hourglass is not turned over, that is, it is not ticking off time. This means two things to me. On one hand, it could be that he is unconcerned with time; it means little to him. This would underscore his carefree nature. On the other it could mean that he ended one journey (out of time, sand is spent) and is starting a new one (resetting the hour glass). He is in that instant of ending something and beginning something. He is about to "turn over" the hourglass and perhaps his outlook.

As with others, the book represented a clean slate a new beginning to me. His story has not been written, it is yet to be done. He is will fill the book with new knowledge.

I agree, too, that the egg represents creation (it is still growing in the “womb”) and beginnings. It’s potential is yet to be released, to break through the comfort of the shell.

The ox, well, I was stumped with that. I don’t have any knowledge of Kabala, so I assumed that the ox represents the dog’s role in other cards. The fool runs ahead, but the cow moves slowly, surely, and steadily. He is there to remind (who knows?) the fool to slow things down when he rushes forward, to be more steady.

Sorry to ramble on. There is just so much in this card.

The first thing that came in my mind is : The man is running for a weird version of the olympic games! He hold the jester's wand as he would do an olympic flame. And I thought that maybe the goal is to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

But more seriously, there is nothing written on the pages of the book, not even scribble. Is the man supposed to write there?

For the cow and the egg, I don't have a clue. Maybe the cow is a sacred cow that live in India. Maybe the egg will come to crash at the end of the rainbow, as when Humpty Dumpty feel off the wall...

My two cents

I decided to pull the "Fool" card from my standard Rider-Waite deck and complare it to the one from Bright Ideas. Please bear with me as I'm fairly new to Tarot so I may be completely off base.

In more traditional decks, the Fool is shown as stepping off the cliff into a void. Presumably the dog is there to warn him of the danger and steer him away. The Freedom card shows a vortex or a "void" behind the young man so my interpretation would be that something was left behind and a new adventure is starting. The "ox" I thought was a bull and is present as a reminder to not be "bull headed."

The traditional deck also shows the Fool with a satchel, a staff, and a flower. He is going on a journey (albeit one that appears to end very shortly) and has made some preparation for it but still possesses an innocence about the "real" world. His gaze seems to be fixed far away - perhaps envisioning a new future?

The Freedom card on the other hand is very clear about the concept of new beginnings - the unhatched egg, the hourglass that could be turned over, the blank pages of the book. Each represents a new beginning, a new phase. As for the wand, I took it to mean that this is the person to tell the truth. In several books, I have seen authors use the "fool" to tell the truth. These characters could get away with stating the truth, bitter as it was because they presented it with humor. Nothing like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

Cheers,

Tigress