Tarot Life Lessons – The Fool
The Fool card begins with the number zero, representing nothingness and an absolute beginning. He is at a starting point.
Tarot Life Lessons
By Julia Gordon-Bramer
I grew up with the Bohemian surname of Svolba. However, my childhood did not resemble the itinerant traveler pictured on the Fool tarot card, with his traveler’s satchel and a little white dog at his heels. No, even with my central European roots reaching back to those mystic drifters, tinkers, and tramps, becoming a professional tarot card reader had never been a part of my life plan. Maybe Fate decides these things for us. Whatever the reason, somehow, this oddball career of mine evolved, possibly due to spiritual energy, God, or karmic debt.
The Fool card begins with the number zero, representing nothingness and an absolute beginning. The Fool has no value and represents both the outsider and the Everyman (or woman or person). He is at a starting point. I started when I picked up my first tarot deck at age sixteen. I was a hippie kid in the 1970s, not a true hippie of the ’60s, but a copycat, preferring Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin when disco was the rage. A ragamuffin, as my British Nana referred to me, my looks being part of my adolescent rebellion. So there I was, a long-haired stoner who had blindly wandered into a magic shop, looking for nothing in particular, wasting time one hot Maryland summer afternoon in an air-conditioned mall. This was not a New Age shop—those places weren’t around in the 1970s. No, this store was a Houdini-type place with tables full of gags and tricks and novelty items. And there, in the glass case beside all of the fake wands, sponge balls, and flies in plastic ice cubes, was the first tarot deck I would ever see.
As the Fool makes his route west through the snow-covered Alps, his head, like mine was then, is happily in the clouds. His card embodies air, that number zero, and also the Cosmic Egg, which birthed what scientists today call the Big Bang. He is the first breath of life and the last dying breath. In some illustrations, the Fool follows a butterfly, another creature of air and wind. Like the teenage me, the Fool has no plan or destination as he steps forward. His feet are on the ground for now. He does not see that he is about to step off a cliff. No one knows if this is just a small step or a drop that will swallow him up forever . . . the way that tarot swallowed me.
“Do you want to take a closer look?” the saleswoman asked me. I say “woman” here, but she was maybe twenty years old, tops. Still a girl, but grown-up to me back then. Until that time, my concept of a fortune teller was strictly from the movies: the haggard old sorceress in a caravan casting a long, bony finger over her oracular crystal ball. Yet here was a lovely, hip mentor, with her shoulder-length golden hair, her bangs in a trendy feathered cut, brushed away from almond-shaped eyes, and a gauzy Indian blouse as loose and flowery as the Fool’s garb. The young woman seemed to be serene, or whatever I might have conceived serenity to be at that age, and she appeared to have all the knowledge of the universe within that finger-smudged plexiglass counter.
I suddenly became aware of my drab, straight hair, parted in the middle and brown as dirt. Anyone could see that I clearly lacked mysticism, wearing an orange t-shirt with a Paul McCartney and Wings decal, an iron-on from a family trip to the Ocean City boardwalk. I wondered if I was fit to own tarot cards. What does someone who buys tarot cards look like? Do they carry a magic wand? Wear a flowing gown? A crown of stars? Did other tarot card owners look as average as me?
She had asked if I wanted to hold them. Had I heard her correctly? After a long pause, I said, “Sure.” I hardly believed that I would be allowed to touch something so fantastic.
My shopgirl mentor slid the cards out of the box and thumbed through them, and she told me that the tarot is used not only to read people’s fortunes but also as a way to understand ourselves. She said that, unlike all the rest of the merchandise in the store, tarot is not a trick. Tarot is a kind of magic that is real.
Real magic? Sign me up! I bought them on the spot, maxing out my paltry babysitter’s budget. Following the young woman’s directions, I wrapped my deck in a silk cloth, which the store also conveniently happened to sell, as magicians go through loads of scarves. She recommended that I store them in a wooden box, and I knew just the one—an old container my mother once used for flour in our kitchen. I had swiped it years earlier as a coffer for things precious to me: newspaper clippings soaked in tears over the Beatles breaking up, hard candies, favorite jewelry, and a postcard of Big Ben from Nana in Great Britain. I knew on a deep level that this particular box was infused with my personality, although I would never have used such words back then. Operating from sheer instinct and practically no history of my own yet, I knew that this box fit the precise requirements of Real Magic.
The Fool has no knowledge or experience. Everything is play. That’s where I was when I had to figure out how I was supposed to use these things. The lexicon of tarot readers made it all the more confusing. What was divination? How did one get direction and insight? I started with the little white paper instruction booklet that came in the package. We call these LWBs in tarot circles, and there is respect for them as each deck has its own. Looking back, I think that learning by the LWB was a great way to start. It was not laden with a description or intimidating to read, and it gave my intuition space to grow.
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About the Author
Julia Gordon-Bramer is a professional tarot card reader, award-winning writer and poet, Sylvia Plath scholar, former professor for the Graduate Writing Program at Lindenwood University, and host of the radio show, videocast, and podcast Mystic Fix. She has appeared on MTV, Nickelodeon, and many television and radio shows to share her tarot talents and scholarship. Recognized as one of St. Louis’ Top Ten Psychics (Psychic St. Louis) and St. Louis’ Best Fortune-Teller (CBS Radio), she is the author of several books, including Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri. https://www.juliagordonbramer.com/
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