DESCRIPTION
The Fool adorns himself in tattered rags and
jingling green cap topped with a single white feather. A slender,
muscular young man with clear blue eyes and curly red hair, he wanders
along a straight and narrow mountain path: one boot on, one boot off.
Sheer cliffs yawn on either side, and a vicious dog pounces from
behind. Even so, the youth steps buoyantly on his way, his smile a
symbol of his eternal, innocent optimism.
The Tarot of the Stars' Fool combines traits
from many earlier incarnations. He is not the bare-buttocked and
bearded gent from the TdM. He is not the well-heeled, carefree youth
from the RWS. Yet his ragged clothes pay tribute to a long tradition
of bedraggled Fools, and his radiant expression is clearly designed to
exude the wonder and optimism traditionally associated with a Foolish
outlook.
The customary pack, slung on a Wand, dangles
over his right shoulder; in his left hand, he carries another Wand as
a kind of walking stick.
NOTES
Two artistic preferences emerge again and again
in Tavaglione's Tarot artwork: symbolic complexity and a tendency to
render all individuals as long-boned, light-skinned comic book heroes
or heroines. The Tarot of the Stars Fool is no exception to this rule.
Friends who see me use the deck either love the
detail (the Fool, for example, is surrounded by a veritable swarm of
Hebrew letters, signs of the Zodiac, and symbols for the elements) or
find it impossibly busy. They either feel drawn to the
brightly-colored and heavily-shaded line drawings, or find them
inappropriate. This deck provokes extreme responses.
While numbered Zero, Tavaglione places the fool
in position 21, between Judgement and The World.
The unique features of this Fool -- the
treacherous mountain path in lieu of a cliff, the distinct impression
the path runs through high altitudes, the viciousness of the Dog
companion -- dictate (and reward!) further study and contemplation.
COMMENTARY
From the LWB (An unduly free* translation
from the Italian):
The Fool (The Abyss)
Unaware of hazards, Impulsive.
Having attained the summit, every Adept person
quickly realizes there are other summits, other mountains to scale.
We realize and take into account that we have not, in fact,
conquered all . and that all we have conquered is nothing.
Doing so, we behold the Great Mystery of
Mysteries: All is made of nothing, and to nothing returns. Such
truths are beyond reason. The Adept feels his own smallness, becomes
aware of his nothingness. He understands any achievement is only
part of a larger work that leads him indefinitely along an
increasingly dangerous and difficult, straight and narrow path.
At this point, all measures of self-control
and reason waver. There is a temptation to make do with what we have
learned (and carry in the bag over our shoulders). The Fool proceeds
from crevice to precipice, wavering and staggering like a drunkard.
The Lunar dog, embodying impulses and temptations, chases him
continuously.
Unconscious of the danger, "getting high" on
the heights, The Fool dares to attempt what others, bound by
rationality and fear, would never even consider. In the eyes of
others, then, the Adept appears light-headed, floating along,
impulsive and frivolous as the plume of his jester's cap.
The Fool risks a fall from his high wire . but
is aided by his intuition. He moves in a world of limitless
possibility, where the intellect is reigned in. He is the Prodigal,
the wanderer who feels his goals instead of knowing them. Because
his methods lie outside the spotlight of reason, they can appear
almost mystical, leading some to think he would do well to trade in
his torn, ragged clothes for the garb of the Magician!
This card is normally placed at the beginning
or at the end of the Major Arcana. It completes the cycle, bringing
us back, each time, to height and Light.
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* Translation is tricky business, especially
when it's being done by someone with admittedly limited skill with
Italian. This is not intended to be a textbook, ver batim
translation of the original; instead, it attempts to capture the
spirit and impact of that document. The process is admittedly
imperfect, and is more an effort to share what I could gleam from the
LWB with the rest of the CompTarot community than a formal
translation.
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Mark McElroy (mark@hismailbox.com)
