Shadowscapes Tarot

THE FOOL

It begins with a whispered voice. The serpentine song threads through her days and her thoughts. It beckons: Come...come...come.... "Where?" she asks, curious, but there is no response.

She ignores the summons, until one day that siren song unexpectedly explodes and fills her to the brim. Its pulse is undeniable. "Where?" she asks again, and this time the steady beat of her heart is the response.

The Fool has come a long way; traveled from far beyond to come to this pinnacle that rises up upon the edge of the world, and yet her journey is just about to begin. She senses this with instinctive perceptions as she rises up upon her toes, caught up in the breathless embrace of the wind in the moment before the plunge. Her heart pounds and flutters in her chest with the force of a hundred beating wings struggling to break free of the cage of her being, until she feels she must be sprouting wings from her shoulders to glide forth from that place, transformed.

Wait! Don't! cries a thin, trailing voice from within. Caution! Fear! it rails. Hold back!

Unheeding, she steps forward, and....

Meaning:

She stands on the edge of a very sheer precipe, with only the ribbons and the doves bearing her up if she chooses to leap. The fox takes this in. He watches. He is the embodiment of cleverness, but being clever does not preclude being a fool of a different sort. He can't comprehend the leap of faith that she is about to take. So who's the fool, she for stepping out into the unknown, in what seems to be a complete lack of logic, or the fox for being too firmly rooted in the belief of the reality of intellectual thought?

The Fool is a symbol for new beginnings and adventures, pleasure, passion. She rushes ahead, thoughtless and rash, doing before thinking, obeying instincts. Like the Fool, you may stand upon the precipice gazing out into the unknown. The endless expanse of blue nothing is all that fills the space between that high-up aerie and the ground that is so very far away. There is either an oblivious foolishness to the terrible plunge you may experience, or else a wild spirit of adventure and great faith and knowledge in what can and will bear you up and guide you through the times to come. There are unlimited possibilities opening up for the seeker.