Dreth
that is a good idea. that it represents our subcouncius.
jmd said:Could it have the same significance as saying 'keep your legs crossed'?
Oh man, you have just answered a great big question mark in my mind about a reading I did for someone recently.firemaiden said:Fascinating thread. I think the dog is there to reinforce the outsider status of the fool. It gives the fool dog-status similar to a postman - the one who appears and leaves but does not belong. It makes him shunned by society, on the margins, even the dogs chase him away.. If the dog bites the man with the torn pants (cool expression tmgrl!) isn't it because the dog, like many predators, knows you attack the one who is already down? The tear in the pants is the tear in the protective covering, a symbolic psychic wound. It is both wound and opening - someone who has suffered a great blow, like the loss of a loved one, will feel "ripped open" in spirit and psyche for a while. Maybe the tear represents that state of spiritual ripped-open-ness, that both attracts both predators to complete the killing off of the old self, and allows tremendous new growth. Unprotected by defense mechanisms, (that would keep dogs and other entitities away) beginner status, beginner mind, allows for rapid transformation.
The path of the Fool, maybe? Isn't he the one who always Goes Astray? Yet without this crazed wandering, how could he - we! - ever find what we are looking for? Dogs seldom take the straight path either. Mostly, what we are really looking for lies between the cracks, and GPS systems won't get us there. They simply aren't that natural. And yet, when we do stumble on the simple truth - as you say, it seems utterly natural. Could we have recognised it, though, without first having gone astray?trismegistus said:the way you present this makes it seem so obvious and natural, like a simple truth that stares you in the face but you're unable to recognize it because you insist on taking the more difficult path that ultimately leads you astray.