The fool....

firecatpickles

A cat's energy spins counter-clockwise rather than our clockwise. (Hmmm, I wonder if this is reversed "down under?")

Maybe this is to keep the Fool well-balanced enough?

K:spade:K
 

Lady Orchard

I thought it was usually a dog too, which I have always assumed meant a faithful companion to accompany you on what could be a dangerous journey....basically something familiar to balance out the unknown and give you the confidence to continue.

but a cat I would say would represent independence. when I have got the fool in a reading I have often seen it as a time as independence, not needing others, making your own decisions without anybody else's advice. they might be reckless decisions, but like a cat, made independently.

somebody mentioned animal instincts and I think that is very true too.
 

star-lover

just wanted to say i think the fool - if i made my own deck one day - ok never gonna happen but i would rename it

faith!!

xx
 

rl4ever

Oh, that is good, star-lover. I think I shall open my Adobe and put a new keyword on my Fool card for my personal deck. And BTW; the Fool in that deck has no pets.
 

Lady Orchard

the fool in mine has no pets either. he is like a foetus, curled up, smiling. I like thinking of the fool as a baby - almost like his fate hasn't been decided yet, he can take any road he chooses.

As a foetus I also think of reincarnation - he is the end of one life and the beginning of another, just as the fool links the majors together. the way he is positioned is also like his number, 0. I think it's a very clever illustration and better than the traditional representation.
 

Willa

According to some mystics, we are not the victims of some ridiculous set of circumstances. We choose to be who we are. We choose to be with the people who bring us into this life and they choose to be a part of our lives. We choose to be born. We enter into an act of creation and spend the rest of our lives creating who and what we are. We choose the time and place where we will be by the choices we make in our lives. We choose who we become by the choices we make in our lives. This is how we grow spiritually and this is the Journey of a Lifetime, the Journey of the Fool.

We prepare to incarnate in the physical world of matter. This preparation is represented by the Fool. We dress in a physical body and carry our baggage with us. We step off into the unknown and forget who we are. We've made a willful decision to experience physical reality in this physical universe...and so we shall.
We are the Fool. We go forth to learn and to experience...We forget who and what we truly are and we live in darkness, in ignorance, until we suspect the truth. We move from darkness to light, from ignorance to partial truth, and from partial truth to absolute truth.

We do this over and over again until we become the perfected One.
Then we go forth no more. We go home from whence we came. We have become everything we could be.
 

dangerdork

In sketching out ideas for my own deck, I've substituted a wolf for a dog.

I've done this because one metaphor I think is useful for the Fool is the Feral Child - an infant who was abandoned and raised by animals. Think Mowgli or Tarzan - a character who is thrust into human society, fully grown and at the end of adolescence but completely naive to life's lessons and mores which the rest of us take for granted.
 

willowfox

Some decks show a cat probably because the cat is independent and agile like the fool, it is an animal that can survive by using its natural instincts if need be, some considered the cat to be like a seer, and think that it knows about hidden things that we can't see. So, with its special abilities it can see the hidden dangers that lie ahead and I suppose warn the Fool everytime, that's how the Fool safely makes the journey to card 21.
 

Mellifluous

I've only ever seen dogs on the card, but they represent innocence, enthusiasm, playfulness and unaffected joy, and trust of instincts. Also, there is the connotation of a loyal companion - whether that's your true self or someone else.
 

kwaw

dangerdork said:
In sketching out ideas for my own deck, I've substituted a wolf for a dog.

I've done this because one metaphor I think is useful for the Fool is the Feral Child - an infant who was abandoned and raised by animals. Think Mowgli or Tarzan - a character who is thrust into human society, fully grown and at the end of adolescence but completely naive to life's lessons and mores which the rest of us take for granted.

The GD has a boy with a wolf:

“Instead of showing a man in motley, striding along, heedless of the dog that is yapping at his heels, we have revealed a naked child standing beneath a rosetree bearing yellow roses. They represent the golden Rose of Joy as well as the Rose of Silence. While reaching up to the Roses, he yet holds in leash a grey wolf, wordly_ wisdom held in check by perfect innocence and the divine nature.”

Israel Regardie Complete Golden Dawn System of Magicp.133.


Also among other references the child/wolf plays on Ben as son and the tribe of benjamin (re: benjamins description as a wolf).

Kwaw