More Thoughts on The Fool

Key 0 - The Fool

Fools Rush In

“...it is the abyss which becomes visible in the gaps of existence.” - Gershom Scholem

We’re constantly blinking in and blinking out of existence in a perpetual feedback loop. This flashing in and out recurs so rapidly that we’re generally unaware of this process. But the key word here is flashing, which conjures to mind the idea of a strobe light.

To flash is to blow or to strike--like a gust of whirling wind, a stormy surge of lightning, or a fiery explosion. To flash also brings to mind the idea of a flood, of a gushing forth or welling up from an underlying and invisible source. It also suggests a flaring up or an emission, much like we see radiating outward from the sun. We can, likewise, relate this emission to the releasing of a seed. Or, to put it more crudely, a steaming stream of ejaculation.

To strobe is to wind, to turn, and to twist. This introduces the concept of a spiraling whirlpool. Of primal motion and initiation, which is the main idea. And what is the goal of any start-up or initiation? Change. The Fool is here to upset the status quo, to start a revolution, to stir the pot, and to incite a little chaos in the name of progressive change.

The Fool is a representative of eternal, or changeless, change. Change being the constant, and yet all change essentially remaining the same. All garments of manifestation having been woven, unraveled, and then refashioned anew from that same backdrop. We are all, indeed, cut from the same cloth. That being said, we can see how The Fool might present itself to us as the Green Man: With the cycling, recycling, and upcycling of each moment as it fractals into infinity. Green being the color of vegetation, of what’s unripened, what awaits assimilation, death, and rebirth. This is, in part, why The Fool is commonly depicted clad in a green tunic.

The Fool is the life force, hungering for and feeding upon itself in order to self-gratify and self-sustain. This brings to mind the term, ‘autopoiesis’. It’s a term that’s translated to mean self-production or self-creation.

The Fool is the the undifferentiated or the uncreated, which is always on the verge of differentiation or creation. And this is happening NOW 0 NOW 0 NOW, with nowhere to go! The Fool, as the life power, represents all that is nascent or latent. The Fool symbolizes the cosmic egg of pure potential, the all-begetting and all-destroying panspermia of immortality. A neutral Wild Card sitting on the fence of uncertainty, with the possibility of going either way and in every which direction. The Fool is the big question mark: XX or XY? This hermaphrodite is an androgynous Jack of All Trades and Master of None. The Fool stands for no-thing, forever falling into the abyss of manifestation to become every-thing.

We see our little spring chicken standing on a precipice, oblivious to the dangers afoot. This platinum blonde bombshell looks upward and onward. With this we get the sense of a sunny disposition, of light-heartedness, and unwavering optimism. Carefree, the nebulous future always looks bright and full of promise for our youth. How often is it that we say that the children are our future?

The Fool is the ultimate Tabula rasa, a blank slate, a new beginning, and another chance to do it all over again. Bursting onto the scene to press that reset button and refresh the page. A page as white as the rose and the canine companion our gender-fluid pilgrim travels with. This whiteness represents virginity, purity, and the unadulterated truth which descends from above, or within, to below, or without.

The Fool is the unfiltered essence of the higher self, the super-consciousness, involving into and onto the phenomenal plane. Embodied, it’s temporarily blinded by worldly distraction, falling prey to forgetfulness. This is how incarnation begins for vast majority of us--entirely oblivious of our extraterrestrial origin. Extraterrestrial, in this context to mean, ‘beyond the earth’; and ‘earth’ is used to imply our ‘physical vehicle’. The macrocosm and the microcosm.

The truth, like a pearl, lies within a lie. Spirit entombed in a meaty shell. And yet it can only clothe itself within itself, thus reconciling the paradox. The exterior being a crystallized simulacrum of its inner counterpart. An inner radiance that’s dulled and dumbed down so that it may appear solid. This watering down slows its rate(s) of vibration, providing the resistance that is required to take on form.

The all-potential of uncertainty must descend into certainty to become something. From the egg, outcomes the chicken. This outcome can be absolutely anything: From a person to an event, an idea, an emotion, a task, a formula, an object, or something that’s, as of yet, entirely inconceivable.

It’s the expecting, like a pregnancy, of the unexpected. The Fool is like a Jack in the Box, ready to pop out and surprise us at every twist and turn. The box used in this context to mean our Cube of Space; with our flapjack flip-flopping to and fro from within the center. This, however, will be something worth elaborating upon in our lesson on 21^st Key, The World.

To put it another way: When a situation is questionable or uncertain, it’s said to be ‘up in the air’. Before one can arrive at any conclusion, answer, or tangible result, one must wait for the ‘dust to settle’.

We can liken this to a Magic 8 ball. When we wish to know something, we ask the question. The Fool sets out on a quest, into matter, to realize its own potentials. We shake the ball. The Fool temporarily upsets the balance, shaking things up in the hopes of experiencing something new. This foreign impulse introduces a revitalized sense of purpose into an otherwise closed-off system. Without this instinctual drive--this insatiable curiosity to seek, to know, and to grow--Saturnian rigidity sets in. One is rendered inert. So, like Uranus, we do a flip-flop and turn that magic ball on its head. From that murky substratum, which was seemingly and originally at the top, an answer arises. And, while our answer may not show up in the way that we’d wanted or anticipated, it’s still exactly what we’d asked for: Change, for better or worse. But, even if for the worse, ultimately serving our overall evolution; and that inevitable (fully-conscious) reunion of self with Self.

Super-consciousness resides within our personal subconscious, which is within the greater collective unconscious. All of our desires, drives, and motives are rooted within the sub-conscious. Each decision we make is fueled by emotion. The marriage of reason (self-consciousness) and instinct (sub-consciousness) gives birth to intuition (super-consciousness). Intuition is seeing with, listening to, and following our hearts.

Some might call this blind faith, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But this kind of foolish blind faith differs from the folly of ignorance and naivete. It’s a fundamental shift in perspective; from seeing only the outer forms, to going within to apprehend the true essence of things. Blind to things as they seem, with eyes wide open to things as they are. No-thing is hidden, in plain sight. And there’s that shift: That reversal, that seeing things from another angle, that breaking through to the other side. From a blindness brought on by being encumbered in matter to a blindness to the merely surface-level, ‘one way only’ interpretation.

And though we may still meet with much suffering, even after heeding the call of intuition, we’re spared greater pain in the long run. This interior illumination broadens our perception, allowing us to actually grok that bigger picture. This happens through a cyclical purification of the sub-conscious, of its misunderstandings, its traumas, and its false opinions of reality. A purification brought on by that super-conscious influence. Break down (counter that clockwise motion) for a break through (forward march for the clockwise).

Little-by-little, we release personal bias, grudge, opinion, and preference for that broader vision. Although, not entirely. Only those which, at present, keep us closed off and inflexible. Just enough to keep us plastic, enough to continually reconcile opposites (aka complements).

Our timeless traveler is, evermore, traversing through time. The evergreen Sun of the Sea is always in season, always in its heyday. An April Fool perpetually on the verge of becoming, polarized: This OR That. The Fool is the Trickster, fooling only him-or-herself. Without proper suggestion (Please see: Strength) or guidance (Please see: Adjustment), The Fool is carried by the fates whichever way the wind blows. The Fool is the working power behind all manifestations and can be wielded for our betterment or our bereavement. We can be fooled into expecting things to turn out one way, only to find that we’ve been taken in an entirely different direction.

On one had, we can see The Fool as a representative of the super-conscious influx of energy working its way through the subjective mind, bubbling up into our objective awareness. On the other hand, we return to this idea of blindness and ignorance. This primal instinct is a blind force that requires direction. Due to the neutral and uncertain nature of this primal power, as it falls into form (or, as it is polarized--+electro-magnetism), there is a grave danger of it being overruled by base desires. As always is the case with power, when placed into the wrong hands, it can be degraded and abused. This all depends on the intention of the user, and even then, without proper education, it can be misused.

So many of us have good intentions, but because we haven’t yet grasped the larger picture, we stumble into sorrow. But it’s this very struggle that triggers our incessant awakening out of unconsciousness (Please see: Death and The Tower). Through suffering, loss, and eventual sacrifice, The Fool gains pearls of wisdom along the way. (Please see: The Hanged Man.) As a result, our abilities to discern and discriminate are fine-tuned, which gradually modifies our habits, behaviors, and choices.

The Fool is neo, or new, but when we insert the “M” of the Hebrew Mother Letter “Mem” (The Root of Water), neo becomes nemo. Nemo means nobody. Hence, a no-body arising out of the dark womb of the unconscious into a new body within the matrix of matter--the lunar cocoon.

Upon arrival within the physical dimension, nemo is given a name. The unknown becomes known; the nobody becomes somebody. And that somebody takes on a whole host of roles: From genesis to nemesis, zero to hero, and victim to victor. A nexus of shifting identities. The destination is the journey and the beginning is the end. Womb to tomb, tomb to womb. This is reminiscent of the Ring-Pass-Not, where anabolism becomes catabolism becomes anabolism. Om nom nom! Om = Aum, which is The Word (Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh), or the soundless sound of golden silence; and nom = nomen, which means name (YHVH). Self feeding on self feeding on Self. Round and round we go!

“’To exist’ means ‘to be set apart from,’ and this fluid verb-action of creation cannot be set apart from itself. There is nowhere to go. If there were such a ‘where’ to go, all we would find would be the same process--’itself’ all over again.” - The Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think by Joseph Chilton Pearce

Fool comes from follis, which means bellows, or a bag of wind. To bellow is to blow, to roar, or to cry out loudly--just like what follows when a newborn takes its first breath. The renowned image of Wheeler, Thorne, and Meisner’s model of the big bang comes to mind. The figure depicts a man blowing into what looks like a balloon, which represents the expansion of the universe. We can equate the contraction of the lungs, or the inhale, to the negative pole of space. This negative pole (Salt) is the uncreated potential, awakened through (Mercury) the activity of the positive pole (Sulphur). The exhale being the manifested universe, the creation.

In many versions of this Key, we see our divine hermaphrodite casually toting a yellow bag that’s tethered to the end of a staff. The staff rests upon our patron’s shoulder, with the bagged end angled toward the sun.

Probing deeper into the contents of the personal subconscious, one finds themselves within the unfathomable ocean of the collective unconscious. The super-implicate order is breached via the implicate order.

How deep do you want to go? How much do you thirst to know? Look to your value system, which is related to the Venusian archetype and the imagination (Copper). One must create space to bring forth this knowledge and wisdom, which is a costly exchange (please see, again: Death, as the Imaginative Intelligence). One’s personal currency (current-sea), or frequency, must rise to the level of that which they seek to know, through embodiment--all comprehension being an embodiment.

The higher, or the deeper, one wishes to immerse themselves in the dark, fertile waters of the collective unconscious, the more personal baggage must be flushed out. This personal baggage is really a metaphor for the complexes and belief systems (Tin) that keep us closed down to the admittance of higher grades of truth. This is, in part, what is meant by the sacrifice and surrender of The Hanged Man, which is ruled by the oceanic Neptune.

Uranus Keywords: Origin, shiny, new, newcomer, outsider, alien, foreigner, traveler, tourist, idiot, Bacchus, Dionysus, genius, genie, genesis, genes, generation, generator, anarchy, primal, power, instinct, wild, impulse, electricity, eccentricity, electromagnetic, astral light, limitless light, no limit, nothing, potential, possibility, everything, beget, seed, ace, jester, joker, trickster, involution, evolution, revolution, summit, peak, beginning, before, after, changeless, youth, children, baby, immature, irresponsible, innocence, inexperience, mania, leap of faith, wild card, aces, trick, expect the unexpected, surprise, gift, out of the blue, out of nowhere, shock, shock to the system, PTSD, parasympathetic nervous system, neuroplasticity, flexibility, upheaval, disruption, confusion, diffusion, nebulous, future, hope, unwritten, blank, open, freedom, faith, guest, reversal, flip-flop, glitch, change, change of heart, metanoia, chance, fortune, fate, risk, gamble, bet, imbalance, neutrality, blindness, drunkenness, inebriation, spirit, flight, air, sky high, uncertainty, dare devil, extremes, life breath, love, heart, central, zero point, Hadit, chaos, gold, solar, light, lux, alpha, working power, prima materia, purity, pure imagination, ultra, super-consciousness, negation, aha!, Eureka, et cetera.