The Fool's Journey

Pentangle: Lady of Carlisle

According to Q-Jo,
the whole tarot deck,
or at least the twenty-two
trump cards of the Major Arcana,
may be read as the Fool's journey.
On one important level,
she explained,
the major cards are chapters
in the story of a quest.
I'm talking the universal
human quest for understanding
and divine reunion.
And it doesn't matter whether
the quest starts with the Fool
or ends with him,
because it's a loop anyhow,
a cycle endlessly repeated.
When the naive young Fool
finally tumbles over the precipice,
he falls into
the world of experience.
Now his journey has really begun.
Along the way, he'll meet

all the teachers and tempters -
the tempters are teachers, too -
and challenging situations
that a person is likely to meet
in the task of his or her growing.
The Fool is potentially everybody,
but not everybody has the wisdom
or the guts to play the fool.
A lot of folks don't know
what's in that bag they're carrying.
And they're all too willing
to trade it for cash.
Inside the bag, they have
every tool they need
to facilitate their life's journey,
but they won't even
open it up and glance inside.
Subconsciously, the goal
of all of us out-of-control primates
is essentially the same,
but let me assure you of this:
the only ones who'll
ever reach that goal are
the ones who have the courage
to make fools of themselves along the way.
-- Tom Robbins
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Grateful Dead: Terrapin...3/18/77