The Fool (Tarot Triptych)
Name: The Fool
Number: 0
Astrology: Air
Qabalah: Aleph
Chris Gabriel February 29, 2024
The Fool is green, inexperienced and pure. He carries a bag, and is followed by an animal. A vagabond and his dog, nothing to his name but a backpack, and wandering on the side of the highway. There is the Fool. We know not where he’s going, nor what is in his sack. A symbol of having nothing but infinite potential.
The fool changes across the three decks.
In Marseille, we see the Fool very plainly, he is at his most Human. His dog is tearing at his raggedy pants. He is numberless - the only numberless card in Marseille. He bears his sack, and with his chin up, he walks to the right.
In Rider, the Fool is in a more Noble light. The Sun is shining, he is adorned in a beautiful coat with fine green pants, a clean, and youthful face. He bears a simple sack, and a white flower.
His dog is warning him, for he has his head in the clouds, and is about to walk off the edge of a cliff. He is 0.
In Thoth, we are shown the Fool as a God. He is a Horned God, like Pan, and stands atop a crocodile like the Child God Harpocrates. Spiraling energies flow from him. Rather than a dog, a tiger bites at his leg. His sack is transparent, and we see it filled with coins bearing the symbols of the stars and planets. He is not walking but leaping, splayed out in energetic ecstasy. He is Air, Aleph, and 0.
Across the cards we are given many keys to the nature of the Fool, who is in fact a singular archetype. While we’re looking at these three decks, every tarot deck shows us a face of the singular Fool.
We can experience the Fool physically by blowing a raspberry: by making our mouths into a 0, and blowing out air. You can create a silly sound.
This is the silly nature of Fool, the Creative Nothing. We become like the child: learning how to play with our mouths for the first time, to create.
The fool exists across culture: The ancient tradition of April Fool’s Day, which corresponds to Spring, when nature begins anew. In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:10 declares “We are fools for Christ’s sake”. In the greatest wisdom expressed by Socrates when he states “I know that I know nothing.”
And perhaps most fittingly for our reading of Tarot cards, William Blake says “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”
When dealt this card, we are given a call to adventure, the beginning of a grand new journey, or we are being shown our own silliness, the missteps that we have taken. In truth, these are the same thing, a chance to start again.
The 22 Major Arcana in every tarot is precisely this journey, from foolishness to wisdom. The Fool as zero is there every step of the way. He is at the very beginning when we have nothing, and he is there after all we have learnt.
“When I was a little boy, I had but little wit / It is some time ago, and I've no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live, the more fool am I.”
