World Spirit Study Group - The Fool (0)

the_surfacer

I did a visualisation exercise in which I "entered" this card back in November and journaled the results, which I'll reproduce here, with apologies for its length, in hopes it might be helpful to the discussion:

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Bless her, she's such a trip. I sat down on the tile roof, trying to ignore the fingernails-on-chalkboard sensation my tense grip on the reddish terracotta was creating. The rooftop couldn't have been wider than a balance beam, but there she was, The Fool herself, dancing along it so delicately she put Nadia Comaneci to shame. Naturally, she lacked any of Nadia's intense concentration; rather, she seemed to be almost ignoring her feet while she fed the birds, who swooped low to nibble delicacies from her hand. She managed all this, amazingly enough, with a blue-eyed dog nipping at her skirt, its tattered state a testament to previous displays of either the animal's obvious affection for her, or its attempts to keep her on the actual roof. Given all this activity, I doubted speaking to her would disturb her and so called out, "Hello!"

She turned to me, looking only slightly surprised to see someone else sharing her rooftop. "Good day," she replied cheerfully, pulling a ball from a pocket somewhere in her skirt and bouncing it on the rooftop. The little brown dog sprang eagerly into action -- perhaps this game was what its tugs on her hem were attempting to start. As nimble as its owner, it chased the ball almost to the roof's edge before catching up with it and returning it to its owner. "Would you like to throw for a while?" she asked me.

What could I say? I took the red rubber ball and tried to keep my tosses high enough to maintain the dog's interest, but not long enough to send the poor thing leaping off the roof after it; having seen the dog's clear enthusiasm for fetch, I thought this sort of death-plunge a distinct possibility.

As if to echo my worries, The Fool was nonchalantly edging closer to the other edge of the rooftop, cheerfully chatting up the birds. I felt I should say something.

"Ah, um, you're headed straight off the roof."

She cocked her head quizzically at me, shrugged, and then on her very next step, one of her broad, bare feet touched down on empty air. I gave a cry and automatically looked to the ground, where ... she wasn't. Lifting my gaze again, I found her standing in midair. She took a few more steps -- four, I think -- into empty space directly above her garden, then turned and skipped back onto the roof, sticking her tongue out at me.

I was flabbergasted, but skipped the obvious "How did you do that?" in favour of something that, looking back, seems an incredibly silly question. "Don't you ever worry about falling?"

One of her blonde curls fell forward onto her forehead, the shadow it created accenting the cloud of confusion that had settled onto her face. "What's 'worry'?"

Despite myself, I laughed and shook my head. "Never mind," I replied, never for a moment expecting that to be the end of the matter.

It was. She went cooing to the birds again, and the dog pulled at my pants leg. I threw for it a few more times, and then returned the ball to its mistress, bidding her a good day and patting the dog's scruffy coat, before I carefully clambered down the side of the house, leaving her, the birds, and the dog to their little midair world.
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I realise now, looking back on this piece of writing, that The Fool might be a little sharper than I thought -- she's found a way to distract the dog, her common-sense warning system, so that she can go dance in midair. Whether this is wise is up to the situation. ;)

Anyway, if this is too long, or inappropriate to the thread, let me know and I'll edit it down or something.
 

Talisman

"One of her blonde curls fell forward onto her forehead, the shadow it created accenting the cloud of confusion that had settled onto her face. "What's 'worry'?" " -- the_surfacer

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A nice story, a fun look at the beginning of The Fool's journey, a la The World Spirit. Thanks for posting this.

Talisman