0. The Fool

Once upon a time…

Upright

New beginnings, a leap of faith.

Reversed

Leaping without looking; disregarding consequences.

Element: Air

When we talk about The Fool, we aren’t necessarily talking about someone foolish. The Fool is a figure from many traditional stories and fables. The naive youngest sibling who ventures out into the world and magically finds what they need is The Fool. The trickster god who always gets away with it, and whose levity holds a special kind of wisdom, is The Fool.

The heroic child in the story often sets out on their adventure without looking ahead, and the random things they pick up and acts of kindness become a driving force in the plot. There is a special, strange kind of wisdom in The Fool’s actions, one that tells us to let our innocence, luck, kindness, or innate ability guide the actions we take.

The Fool in the Major Arcana is setting out on some kind of adventure, heading towards a cliff. But our stories tell us that this cliff won’t necessarily spell disaster for our hero, but rather might be an obstacle that their innocence and luck will solve in an unusual way.

In many ways, The Fool represents the first act in the story, which is fundamentally a leap of faith. We are jumping from this cliff while trusting that we’ll solve our problems with what we have, or what we pick up along the way. We are innocent and naive, potentially foolish, or perhaps only appearing to be. We are numbered at 0/21: all potential, no plot.

When reversed, The Fool takes on negative characteristics. We are about to leap without looking, and that’s a problem. We are disregarding consequences, acting foolhardy, and generally being the character in the story whose foolishness comes back around to bite them. Don’t be that fool.