9/6/11—Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread

Today's Draw: The Fool from the Quantum Tarot. Do you feel like you're at the beginning or end of a life cycle? Is something new calling to you, but you're afraid to dive in? Have you ever just taken a leap without considering the consequences? How did it work out for you?

A tarot deck is made up of 78 cards—22 "major arcana" cards and 56 cards in the "minor arcana" that are numbered like a pack of playing cards, except there is one more "court card" or royal card in each suit. The 56 minor arcana cards represent our day-to-day life triumphs and losses. The 22 major arcana cards are the over-arching life lessons that we come here to learn on earth. 

Those cards begin with the Fool and end with The World. The Fool is the guy who leaps into the unknown with complete trust because he doesn't know enough not to. He is pure potential. And instead of him being numbered "1", he is numbered "0". Part of the reason he is number 0 is because of this pure potential. But another part of the reason, for some, is because he resides neither at the end nor the beginning of the tarot, but in a place between. 

The major arcana of the tarot is often called The Fool's Journey, because he starts as a blank slate and acquires strengths and weaknesses and lessons as he moves through life. The final card, The World, is often thought of as completion because, upon reaching this phase, the Fool has come full circle and reached a place of totality and attainment. Then the cycle starts back over again at the Fool. Knowing this, you can see why he occupies such an unusual place in the tarot...at the beginning and end of every cycle. We've spoken before of life being more like a spiral than a circle...the Fool is that state of moving to a higher level on the spiral.

The Quantum Tarot relates the Fool to the Big Bang and the creation of an ever-expanding universe. It also speaks of the moment a butterfly emerges from its pupa, changed in form and greeting the universe in its new body for the first time...flapping its wings for the first time. It is the page yet unwritten. It is devoid of ego or motive. 

Somewhere around the beginning of summer I lept into the unknown a couple of times, with the professional tarot reading and the book I'm writing. I really hadn't intended either of those things in the form in which I found them. None of it was thought through, really. It was more like these things had presented themselves to me time and again and then, finally, something kicked me in the rear and I just kept moving forward in innocence without thinking of any risks or consequences. Now a few months into those processes, I'm glad I lept. 

Now the universe is calling on you...or me...or both of us...to take another leap forward. No fear. No forethought. Just do it. Is there an opportunity presenting itself to you? Is there some sort of life change that keeps showing itself to you over and over again? Have you received your engraved invitation and still haven't taken it? What will it take to throw caution to the wind?