The Fool

Themes: New beginning, leap of faith, liminal space / transition, freedom

My The Fool story

My Fool Year

Shortly after turning the big 4-0, I am eating a burrito amongst boxes after a Task Rabbit moved my life into a 500 square foot apartment. I feel an exhilarating aloneness that is freeing, empowering, and a tad scary. It was a series of leap of faiths that brought me to that moment in January 2020. The year before, I left the safety of a good corporate job that gave me financial security to pursue a more spiritual vocation. And just a few weeks ago, my partner of 7 years and I consciously decoupled. With faith in my heart, I set out on my own to find my person and pursue my purpose.

To put it bluntly: I’m 40, newly single, living in a shoebox basement studio with my cat, pursuing some woo woo pie-in-the-sky life. Onlookers likely thought I was having a midlife crisis — a fool for leaving the safety of what I had. But deep down, I knew this was what my soul called out for.

The Year of Liminal Space

2020 was going to be the ‘New Year, New Me’ — or so I thought. I was excited by all of the possibilities of what could be and thought I would simply know what the hell I was doing after I took these leaps. What happened instead was a mystifying, transitory time where I had closed the doors behind me, but a new door hadn’t opened yet. In the sea of possible directions, I wondered: where do I even begin?

There is something about the intersection of so many endings, and the overwhelming amount of potential that catapulted me into an emotional spiral, stripped me of my identity, and what I thought I knew. Who am I anymore and what do I really want? My perfectionistic inner critic tells me I should know already: If you’re going to blow up your life, shouldn’t you have a plan by now?

And then, the pandemic hit. As news of death and sickness reverberated, the world shut down, and my focus turned to pure survival. Covid made an intense time more intense; the unknown even more unknown. A dark cloud hovered all of society as we knew it, and it drove me even further into the liminal. As I sat in my tiny place, feeling frozen from all that was going on, I decided I needed to stop fighting the need to know, and allow myself the time and space to figure myself out.

Doing ‘nothing’ is doing something

Upon the insistence of the Universe (by pulling The Fool many times during this period!) — I decided, I was just going to live life, without pursuing anything yet. Be the free spirit (best I can during a pandemic!), and give myself permission to enjoy life with simplicity, to explore without commitment, and allow myself grace as I move through this intense time, as I got reacquainted with me, myself and I.

Most of my days consisted of waking up, having my morning tea, meditating and holding energetic space for the pandemic, a daily card pull for my altar, then taking a walk around the neighborhood. I worked a lot on healing and self love, attending various spiritual circles with friends over Zoom and listening to pre-recorded talks by my favorite spiritual teachers.

I wish I could tell you all the things I did at this time, but really, I did a bunch of nothing. This liminal space was in many ways a reset. A time and space to release the old me that I still wanted to cling to. We think that once we make the change, we just instantly become a new person. But it doesn’t work that way. I now know, we gotta empty ourselves out and explore who we are, so that we can know who we are. In a blog entry dated August 16, 2021 entitled Space, Death, and Purpose: There is Timing for Everything, I wrote:

“I had to first become an empty vessel, void of any notion of who I am, before I could begin to fill it with my sincere, heart-aligned truth and authenticity. This empty void is incredibly disorienting, and has brought many to existential crises, that only fuels our fire to discover who we are with more enthusiasm. As we begin to fill our empty vessels, uncover what’s in our hearts, we slowly begin to settle into our new selves.”

Others may view me as foolish, but to embrace The Fool is beautiful, freeing, and completely necessary at certain times in our lives. It was exactly what I needed, so I could know myself, what I desire and what it even means to be authentically me. I will always honor that time when every day, I stepped into the unknown, before the new beginnings that would soon enter my life. This Fool time was before I knew I would end up marrying my ex-coworker 2 years later. The time before I created this very space, The Journey Circle, that brings me so much joy and sense of purpose.

I know now: don’t rush it. Allow yourself to embrace The Fool!

Rider- Waite Smith Tarot

The Fool

The meaning of The Fool

A young Fool playfully prances with open arms in the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot Deck. Dressed in a brightly patterned smock, they set out with a bag in one arm, and a white rose in the other. Its little dog companion is equally cheerful as they embrace the sunny day with openness. The Fool is so immersed in the present, they do not see that they are perhaps about to fall off a cliff.

The Fool is card number zero (0) in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. And although The Fool is considered a new beginning by many, I consider it before the new beginning. Zero represents pure potentiality. Completions & endings have occurred, but nothing else has happened yet, and everything is possible. As mentioned in my story, this can be exciting, but also scary. It can create a liminal space – a time between phases of our lives that can be disorienting as we calibrate to the newness.

Embrace life like a fool and be free

If you’ve pulled The Fool, you’re being invited to embrace life like The Fool in this card — open, free-spirited, and with wonderment. The Fool is connected to an innocent, pure side of ourselves that embraces the new with a beginner’s mind. Is there anything you want to do, but are holding yourself back from? The Fool encourages you to take the leap of faith into the unknown. Don’t worry so much about planning and making sure everything is just right. The Fool invites you to be present and simply enjoy the journey.

So many of us have lost that inner child that allows us to see the world with wonder. The Fool is so-called because to others, they may seem foolish. To trust ourselves and jump into the unknown is foolish in our hyper-masculine, planning-is-king type of society. They would prefer for us to keep the status quo and not rock the boat, rather than be a free spirit to pursue a new life.

The Fool invites you to allow playful exploration without planning or commitment. Open yourself to explorations like creating art without purpose, traveling to places you’ve never been or trying something new just for the sake of it. Though, it’s not about what you do, but the quality with which you do it — with openness, non-judgment, playfulness and purely for the sake of joyfully trying something new.

The Fool Quotes & Wisdom

“You aren’t lost, you’re just in an uncomfortable stage of your life where your old self is gone but your new self isn’t fully born yet. You’re in the midst of transformation.”

– Marcos Alvarado

“Free spirits are inclined to explore life and taste new experiences that hold the promise of a better life. They have no fear of judgment or failure, which gives them the freedom to chase their dreams.”

– Ellen J. Barrier

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”

― William Blake

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

― Shunryu Suzuki

“Be a Fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don’t try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let it happen and then go on dropping it. ….

In the beginning, it is going to be very difficult. The world will start taking advantage of you… let them. They are poor fellows. Even if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is really yours nobody can steal from you.

And each time you don’t allow situations to corrupt you, that opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become more crystalized.”

-The Fool, Osho Zen Tarot

Intuitively exploring the The Fool for yourself

Use the following prompts to explore the card for yourself using any tarot deck

Describe the imagery in the card.
What elements stand out to you?
What do the elements mean to you?
How does the card make you feel?

There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to intuitive exploration. The meanings above are an interpretation of the card, but I encourage you to explore the card for yourself.

A few written paragraphs is not going to apply to everyone, but simply a starting point. Get curious and explore the card for yourself.

Received the The Fool?

Additional Journaling Prompts to Ask Yourself

Where in your life are you in transition? How can you give yourself grace to see this part of life with a beginner’s mind?
How would you like to explore, learn or be creative without expectation?
In what ways can you be more free spirited at this time? How would it benefit you?

Tarot decks pictured in header: (left to right)
Modern Witch Tarot, Rider-Waite Smith Tarot, Tarot of Mystical Moments, The Housewives Tarot