Margarete Petersen Tarot - 0 - The Fool

firemaiden

Translation
  • You are young - far from home --
    A glittering crevice--
    Heaven -- Sun -- Clouds --
    foaming, effervescent water.
    The elements at play.
    Blue breath.
    Risk the path for its own sake.
    There, where Chaos begins, engage.
    Where you face life alone, without the help of convention, engage.


Link to image: Der Narr


I confess, I love this image. I love the transparent gryffin and the Fool's red dress. I love the radiating sun and the jagged mountain range that looks like ice, I love the snow-globe microcosm -the Fool's world, bound by slivers of moon and sun, balanced - as though floating - in the center of a foaming sea and a churning sky ("the elements at play")


Return to MP Index
 

lark

firemaiden, did you notice the face of an old man on the cliff right below his foot?
Like he's stepping out into a word of ancient knowlege.
 

firemaiden

Oooooooh! Thank you Lark, that's wonderful! Yes indeed, an old man, with closed eyes and a beard, he looks like he is made of ice. Cool. I love your interpretation, that he is stepping into a world of ancient knowledge.
 

Moongold

Tonight I received this deck from America. It's hard to know where to begin. This deck is simply stunning.

If you the Fool's line of vision you can see a face in the clouds and over to the right I can see two more faces. It is as though the Gods have sent someone to watch over Fool as he steps over the cliff.

And the immediate world where the Fool is present is crystal clear. It is as if to say that when he engages with the chaos it becomes something calm , beautiful, contained. It is still mysterious. full of archetypal symbols and a lovely energy but it is no longer chaotic.

By embarking on the journey, we engage with the world, changing it with our passage. We too become like the elements but what we bring is our experience and vision of humanity, ever seeking. We become alchemists, changing the world with our presence and actions. Each moment that we live is significant.

For some reason, this thought reminds me of laura borealis's wonderful vision of the cosmos in a thumb.
 

firemaiden

Moongold said:
For some reason, this thought reminds me of laura borealis's wonderful vision of the cosmos in a thumb.

I'm so glad you're on board, Moongold. I'm also thrilled to have been reminded of Laura borealis's vision of the cosmos in a thumb. There is divine synchronicity in this which will all become apparent... soon...

I am most interested in how you made this connection with the Fool Card. Perhaps allow these thoughts to simmer a bit and then give them voice when they crystallise.
 

Moongold

For me it is something about the power and consciousness held in one small world - the thumbnail of a child, although I know laura was saying more than this - see the world of the Fool in this image? To think of millions of these worlds in smaller or greater measure is too much for one person. Some are much more vast and active than others. It all defies imagination.

I spin at the thought of it. Only the Fool can think of it. But the world of present consciousness is available to us all. This was so in my Fournier reading last week: the infinity, beauty and creativity inherent in the present moment. I can see it again in this image.

Children live more present in the moment, often, than adults. And children have the freshness of vision and understanding to cut right to the essentials.
 

Moongold

I know I sound ungrounded but living in the present is being truly grounded and opens up many possibilities. In the Fool’s world we see the Sun and the huge vista of mountain ranges. Below the crest of the cliff face is wisdom – an old man. As above, so below. The Fool is on the cusp of this awareness.

There is an infinite variety of possibilities in the present moment.

Marguerite Petersen says Engage yourself where chaos begins. Where you stand alone and without help, facing life

I went back and looked at the artist's description of her creative process and this perception seems to be congruent. She allowed herself to enter chaos and out of that chaos a new space or form was created.

She allowed herself to enter the world of the microcosm and spent hours painting dots until her ego began to dissolve. Then, slowly, inexorably, new forms emerged. In this image she seems to represent the Fool's moment of faith in a microcosm which we ca se so clearly in the swirly clouds.

Meditating and living in the present moment allows a stillness where new forms can emerge, new ideas. These actions create a moment of stillness in the swirly chaos of everyday life
 

CompassRose

You know, the more I look at this card, the more I find it sinking to become my least favourite of the deck.

The image is beautiful, yes... there is much there, yes, yes... and yet.

Petersen says she began with this card, and I don't think she went back to it. Somehow, as I study the deck, the less this card seems to fit. It's a stray, a sole representative, I feel, of what she originally thought the deck might become.

It might have been better to both start and finish with the Fool -- to take everything learned from the rest of the deck at the end of the journey, and let the Fool be reborn.
 

Moongold

Hi CompassRose :)

Why do you think this? It is different at first glance from the others.

I have only had the deck for two days and can't imagine using it before I look at every single card in detail.

I am trying to match each card with some Rilke poetry or something from the psalms or a text like this.

I am doing my own reflection before reading what others say, at least so far.

Regards -

Moongold
 

CompassRose

The whole style of the card is different. It's much more structured, less intuitive, more deliberate. The figure is smaller, does not have the same power as most of the others.

I do not feel "part" of this card, drawn into it as the other cards can draw me; there is a sort of invisible wall between me and it. I do not feel that this card came out of the same "trance" or half-dream that MP describes as her working process.

But of course I was not there, so really I don't know! ;)

Oh, and of course something else... it does not do the magic trick the others do (another reason why I feel it is not really part of the deck) -- my favourite magic trick, the upside-down trick. No, the Fool is inarguably oriented, right-way-up only. And of all cards, in my opinion, it should not be!