It takes a lot of courage to act The Fool. The innocent spirit that dives headfirst into fresh beginnings is an intrepid one. On the Lumina, the Fool has open arms and her body speaks of a dance of trust with the Universe, of throwing herself out into the wind with full confidence that the journey ahead is a necessary one, come what may. For most of us, that is something that does not come naturally. By the very fact that we are adults and have grown up, our pure being is surrounded by a network of scaffolds that don’t lend themselves that easily to change. Family ties, personal constructs, job responsibilities, beliefs about reality, among many other things, work together to provide our actions and thoughts with a certain rigidity. Bound and restricted thus, an unfettered attitude towards life seems unnatural, going against our instinctual and social need to protect our stability and that of our relations and creations. Our spirit finds itself split between its inherent freedom and its contractual bounds.

The fawn on the image is a symbol of original innocence, the one that The Fool here is in touch with, but that we lose as we navigate through life. Remember that song by Enigma, “Return to Innocence?” I know, it’s super cheesy. I love it, though. The message there is solid. It sings that returning to your original innocence is in fact returning to yourself. Of not being afraid to be weak, to return to that vulnerability of the fawn, that in its fragility contains the seed for great things. Truth be told, this is a precarious state. The Fool is not all sunshine. There may be dangers lurking in the grass. But being born in itself is a risk that the spirit chooses to undertake.

And it is to this primordial state of precariousness yet potential that The Fool beckons us to return to if we want to grow in life. This will naturally bring uncertainties to some areas of our lives. But as out of the seeming chaos of the ancient cosmic hydrogen clouds there arose structure, stars, and life; when we get back in touch with the primordial nature of our spirit is when we have great potential to generate new beauty, new creations, new growth, new being.