Tarot 101: The Fool's Journey
Photo by Viva Luna Studios on Unsplash
We are so excited to be starting this blog series, Tarot 101! With the release of two Tarot candles this year and the true start of our Tarot collection, we thought now would be the perfect time to begin. We are going to delve into every aspect of Tarot reading, hitting a new topic each month. For our first entry, we are going to discuss one of the most important parts of really learning the art of Tarot which is familiarizing yourself with the Fool’s Journey.
There are 22 Major Arcana cards in a standard Tarot deck. Card 0 is also known as The Fool, this the beginning of the story of Tarot, and card 21 is The World, which is the end of the story. These 22 cards show the peaks and valleys of the Fool’s Journey from beginning to end. It’s important to understand the story so when you pull cards in a reading you have a better understanding of what that card represents. Depending on its place within the journey will change the impact and meaning and thus can change the message of the reading. This is also important in the minor arcana because the minor arcana is essentially a simplified version of the fool’s journey, 1-10 instead of 0-21.
The Fool’s Journey can be broken up into three stages: personal (1-7), the world (8-14), and the universe (15-21)!
In each of these stages the fool has challenges and revelations about themselves or the world around them. Understanding in which stage each card falls will help to have a deeper understanding of the card itself, not just some keywords.
The journey technically begins with The Fool themselves!
An everyman is the protagonist of the story and more often than not it also represents whomever the reading is for. The Fool usually stands for new beginnings, journeys, and intentions, and sets the stage for the entire tale! When you draw this card, for yourself or for others, it means something grand is about to start. After The Fool the journey begins with The Magician and this phase lasts until The Chariot. Along the way we meet the personal cards, which include who you are and the people in your life. These cards are about power, relationships, structure, and intuition among other things.
Next, you start to see beyond yourself and into the broader world around you. Starting with Strength until Temperance you will tackle much bigger issues than before and ones that extend beyond your sphere.
Seclusion, change, sacrifice, and mortality are some of the themes in this stage of the journey. All of this is seen through the lens of the Fool after experiencing the more personal cards at the beginning, thus they are not black-and-white issues. These roadblocks are complex and cause the Fool to wonder and decide what his ideals are.
The final leg of the journey is full of cosmic wonderings.
From The Devil, all the way to the World the end is all about finding where you fit in the universe! It sounds intense and it is. We are dealing with ultimate judgment, misery, contentment, danger, and hope. It is much more abstract than the other phases and deals with our greater purpose. It also uses the scope of the first two phases so at this point the Fool has a better understanding of who they are and what they stand for but now they want to know where they fit in the grand universe.
It all ends with The World which is more of an end of a cycle.
The true beauty of the Fool’s Journey lies in the beginning and end… and then a new beginning and new end… and so on. Just like real life journeys, there is no true end because there is always another on the horizon! The Fool learns and adapts but after all is said and done, there is always room to grow and new things to explore!