The Fool and fear

[Sheri]

Prudent yes and the least adventurous. Also those with the least faith in the Universe or themselves. If the Fool doesn't jump, he won't go on his Tarot Journey and he will stagnate.

True! And despite the potential aftermath of that jump/fall, he continues... one second after the scene depicted in the Waite Smith Fool, he is face flat on the ground, picking himself up, dusting off and continuing his trip

 

[willowfox]

Prudent yes and the least adventurous. Also those with the least faith in the Universe or themselves. If the Fool doesn't jump, he won't go on his Tarot Journey and he will stagnate.

I think this would apply to the Fool Rx, the person who is unwilling to take a risk, the person who certainly looks before they leap, the "stay at home" because the world is to big and dangerous to go running around in it. The person who is too fearful to be able to make a move of any kind, always worried and cut off from the rest of us. The timid mouse who will die of starvation because he fears venturing out of his safe little nest.

 

[magpie9]

True! And despite the potential aftermath of that jump/fall, he continues... one second after the scene depicted in the Waite Smith Fool, he is face flat on the ground, picking himself up, dusting off and continuing his trip

I've always thought that some of the time he pulls it off, and actually does walk on air.. My sister once had a dream about me that I was flying a plane straight into a cliff face and she was sure I would be smashed to smithereens, but at the last possible moment I went vertically up instead, and came to no harm.
I think the fool can do that some of the time, and he trusts in that inner unconscious knowledge.

 

[willowfox]

If you have the faith then you can walk on water, the Fool upright has the faith.

 

[Seafra]

Prudent yes and the least adventurous. Also those with the least faith in the Universe or themselves. If the Fool doesn't jump, he won't go on his Tarot Journey and he will stagnate.

It took a long time for me to grasp this. Eden Gray boiled it down to this: "A fresh choice is before you. Choose wisely." I, rather unwisely, didn't bother with the weight of the second half of her representation of the Fool for quite a long time. Blind admiration!

Well said, caridwen. And again -

But that is why the Fool is 0. He may leap into any part of the Tarot cycle, even the Tower. To me, he is the Trickster and the most likely to get you into trouble.

Some lessons come hard. I told my daughter not to finance a new car, the time wasn't right. She had to have the new car. Now she's constantly complaining about the loan and the awkward financial position it has placed her because she "jumped the gun". The fool leaping into the Tower.

Sometimes his bread falls butter side up, sometimes down.

If one were to get the Fool as a daily one-card draw ... hrrmmm

 

[BrightEye]

So if you ask the question 'how does x feel about y', what would it be then? I'm getting more confused the more I read.

 

[magpie9]

Personally, with that question and that answer, I would draw a clarifying card. The Fool can mean too many contradictory things with a question like that. A question requires an an answer with at least some hope of completeness, a sentence rather than a phrase. You need more words in this sentence. I'd pull another card or few.

 

[BrightEye]

Personally, with that question and that answer, I would draw a clarifying card. The Fool can mean too many contradictory things with a question like that. A question requires an an answer with at least some hope of completeness, a sentence rather than a phrase. You need more words in this sentence. I'd pull another card or few.

You are probably right. It's odd - I draw this card in answer to this question (with a more specific slant) with uncanny regularity.

 

[SunChariot]

I recently read something really interesting about the Fool, that he is about abandoning fear, which seemed to imply trust, which in turn implies the form of innocence he is often associated with. I always used to draw it as guidance for myself some years ago and now I always draw the card when I ask how a particular person feels about me. I never used to act on the advice of the Fool because I was too afraid. Could it be that then: that if someone feels the Fool about someone, they feel afraid to take a leap of faith?

To me the Fool is like the child who has not yet learnt to fear or mistrust, have not yet been hurt enough by life to know these feelings. He/she is still in a state of pure innocence. Like so many people mistrust the opposite sex because they have been hurt in relationships, the Fook is them before all this, before they learnt to mistrust.

Well, to me it means the opposite, Someone who fears may get the Fool card as he is being asked not to, to go back to that time in their lives before they learnt fear and try to act from that place within them. To me then in someone feels the Fool, they are reminded that they still have the memories of feeling that way inside them. They are being asked to access them ans use them. There is a part of them that knows how to feel carefree towards that person. They have that in them, maybe sometimes buried in fears. Then they are being asked to ignore the fears and to focus on the carefree feeling that is beneath them instead.

Babs

 

[Grizabella]

I see the Fool as the absence of whatever. The big 0. The big negative. Then at the end of the Majors, you have the World, which is the big 0 with someone standing in it. So it seems that the Fool would mean that the person hasn't formed any real feelings, wouldn't it? That he/she is plunging off the cliff blindly without giving it any thought or feeling anything in particular. He's not abandoning fear because he just never had any in the first place.