September 13-15, 2011: 0 - The Fool
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http://itsybitsysteps.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Aleph.jpeg
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THE FOOL
(Air)MEDITATION COLOR: Yellow (infused with white.)
HEBREW LETTER: Aleph, bull or ox; also, “to learn.” The vital motive power in an agricultural community, that which makes the crops grow. Aleph is the sound of free breath, silent, unstructured, unconditioned.
CARD NAME: Latin follies, “a bag or sack, a large inflated ball (balloon), a pair of bellows.” Users of the word in Late Latin saw a resemblance between a bellows or inflated ball and a person who was what we would call “windbag” or “airhead.” Fool is first recorded in English in a work written around the beginning of the 13th Century with the sense “a foolish, stupid, or ignorant person.” (This was near the origin date of Tarot.) From the Indo-European root bhel-, “to blow, swell”; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity (bowl, bull, ball, phallus, full; cf. A = Ox). Contrast this name to “wisdom” (= Chokmah).
ESOTERIC MEANING: The Scintillating (or Fiery) Consciousness. It is the essence of the veil that is placed before the ordered arrangement of the Powers. Who walks this way acquires a special dignity: he can stand face to face before the Cause of Causes.
TREE of LIFE: Chokmah to Kether. (Links ‘Wisdom’ and ‘the Crown’; or Infinite Will with Unconditional Being, Chiah with Yechidah; or ‘the Father’ with ‘the Ancient of Days.’ Wisdom (which is Folly) stepping off into Nothing.)
ESOTERIC TITLE: The Spirit of Æther
TANTRIC & ALCHEMICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Alchemical Mercury (Sattva). Kundalini, Life Force.
DIVINATION: In spiritual matters, The Fool means idea, thought, spirituality, that which endeavors to transcend Earth, originality, audacity. In material matters, it means (if badly dignified) folly, stupidity, inconsideration, eccentricity, or even mania.
http://www.advisorandreader.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/FoolCrowleyThothTarot.jpg
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from Liber Theta
(Appendix B )CORRECT DESIGNS OF THE GREATER ARCANA
(Traditional Designs)0. THE FOOL. A bearded Ancient seen in profile. He laughs; bearing a sphere containing
Illusion in his left hand, but over his right shoulder, and a staff 463 lines long in his right. A lion
and a dragon are at his feet, but he seems unaware of their attacks or caresses.Jim, i'd appreciate if you could, when/if you get a spare minute - expand on the following:
Why lion and dragon?
Why is the stuff exactly 463 lines long?
Thanks in advance!
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What is the intended way to use these threads? I notice that Liber Theta is more intuitive/meditative, and less intellectual.
Do we post the little notes on our meditation? For each day, or at the end of 3 days? Here are my brief notes from Day 1.
"Bacchus, green man, nothing=air=aleph=0, immeasurable essence of life itself, 3.5 coils, golden triangle, atavism.
A life-current flows through all living things. Humans have the ability to align themselves with this current, or against it. Against it, we are manic fools, driven between the elements. With it, we are open to the momentum of evolution, and are crowned with the fruits of nature.
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@magictortoise said
"
0. THE FOOL. A bearded Ancient seen in profile. He laughs; bearing a sphere containing
Illusion in his left hand, but over his right shoulder, and a staff 463 lines long in his right. A lion
and a dragon are at his feet, but he seems unaware of their attacks or caresses.Jim, i'd appreciate if you could, when/if you get a spare minute - expand on the following:
Why lion and dragon?
Why is the stuff exactly 463 lines long?
Thanks in advance!"
I don't take these designs completely serious, but they are traditional and often hide some valuable information. (Not often. I might suggest you skip them. But sometimes it's valuable.)
463 is the value of the Middle Pillar of the Tree of Life: Tav, Samekh, Gimel. I could write a whole paper on that number - in fact, I did for my 3=8 essay - but (to oversimplify) they all boil down to ideas of sacred phallus, kundalini, etc.
Lion and dragon... not sure... obviously alchemical... could make something up...
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Ok, so I was a good girl and did what I was told. I followed the meditation, ect....the fore ground to the front and loosely holding the attributes I thought I understood for this car.
Well, well, well, ya know what I saw, every single image on that card spoke to me in a language that clearly understood!
It was like that silly saying
" wham bam thank you Mamme"
All of my life I have had vivid dream of crocodiles.....
Tigers are my animal of choice, I was even given a totem name based upon that fact by a soul who didn't know that.
My family nick name is Love Dove
I practice healing arts and use the symbology of the Cadecus, as well as being a student of the DNA / rna double helix
Won't devulge the personal association to a horny god form
Love the breasts and ass of the hermhroditr as well as the lips! Probably would make a good bisexual......
Those eyes! OMG that is the childlike awe and wonder of the world that I have!
I will do just about anything to sink my teeth into pig flesh.......seriously, I can't cook it worth a hoot, but my ancestors were made on boar...which is also my Chinese zodiac sign.
The butterfly is a constant companion of mine as well, that little cattiplilar eating up the leaves, and then transmuting the sunlight, changing and becoming.....food for that bird right behind it....didn't see that before....Here I am at the core of everything it seems, I have the whole galaxy in my bag of tricks, I can do, be anything, and yet it can also just be nothing. Like my maiden name, Mee. I am me, that's it just little ol V Me..... but not only that I am Me, all that and a bag of chips.
This card makes me feel like all is going well, that I am doing what I should be, my true will is in accord....and harmony and synergy create a beautiful whole personThis is the beginning, the start, but it is also the end.
The laughter, that original sound, the air, rushing over matter......causing everything, anything, nothing.....And that was just a little bit of whAtI am able to articulate....
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93 everyone,
Sorry for the late post. I just got in from work.
"What is the intended way to use these threads? I notice that Liber Theta is more intuitive/meditative, and less intellectual."
I should have made this clear in the initial post.
The purpose of the threads is for us to share the insights we get from our meditations. You can share daily or you can share after you've worked with a card for a couple of days.
You don't have to share all of your insights either, just what you feel is worth sharing with everyone.
Do the meditations as outlined in the instructions and then post whatever you feel is provocative, insightful, helpful, interesting etc.
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"Well, well, well, ya know what I saw, every single image on that card spoke to me in a language that clearly understood! "
I had a similar experience Veronica! I found the more curiosity I was able to generate, the "louder" the symbols spoke.
A couple symbols threw me for a loop though. The 3 petaled flower and the twin babies embracing each other to be specific.The yellow background with the white flecks that look like little Alchemical Sulphur symbols brought to mind the time of the year when the warm weather starts setting in and people begin to talk about the spring. It's usually a happy time we're just about tired of the cold weather and the winter and we start to look foward to the warm weather and all the cool things we're gonna do as it gets warmer.
I felt the rainbow sphere at the top of the card was like some sort of vortex shooting out 'Spring' energy everywhere, with everyone starting to feel gay as in giddy and playful. The overall mood starts to lighten. No one wants to do any work. All we wanna do is play and...
....go day drinking on a rooftop bar...which is what the grapes brought to my mind, the seed idea being "intoxication". Liquid lunches, rooftop happy hours, Dionysian type shit.
The girls start showing more skin. The guys hit the gym more and everyone's struttin' their stuff like the peacock on the left-hand side of the card. Lookin' for love...maybe a lil spring fling...
.....we shed the parkas and the pea-coats like a butterfly sheds it cocoon after its metamorphosis. Everyone's flirting, scheming and playing "the game"...for some reason the Caduceus brought to mind the type of trickery we indulge in when we're on the hunt to get laid.
In fact that's what the tiger brought to my mind during this round of meditating. I used to think it was danger, but in this context, it's lust. Hit it and quit it lust.
The central figure, the Green man is the most intriguing piece of the picture to me. He is ZONED OUT and I want what he's on.
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It takes me a moment to adjust to the Fool of this deck. Hir face is curious. I was really drawn to the eyes.
The pupils are focused apart. Usually you can tell at about what distance the eyes in a picture are focused. These spread apart instead, as if under some circumstance, the eyes move apart to take in the broadest view possible of some vast panorama. It's a look of utter wonderment and reminds me most of the wondering eyes of an amazed baby.
I got an image I enjoyed. It was an old Lama in robes, holding up a finger, mouth opened to speak, grinning because he's remembering a funny one.
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I feel sucked up into the Fool's world, upset and disturbed and enraged; its as if some some irresistible, magnetic force has pulled me in, into the middle of its vortex of madness.
I feel power - immense, raw, unstoppable, unforgiving power; the strength to move and overcome everything that's in my way, the desire to turn around everything and shake it all and turn everything upside down... and i laugh, the depth of my being laughs and that laughter is echoing in the empty space.
There is no mercy.
The tiger bits me and i feel his teeth entering my flesh, but the pain i don't feel...And then Aleph breaks through the sky above me, it tears away the darkness and i climb up and out of myself and i reach out to the light and suddenly...
I feel humbled, beyond words. I feel peace and acceptance and forgiveness and i start crying and the warm tears, as they are rolling down my face, are sweeping away the shame.
I am out of myself, out of the vortex, standing on its edge, looking at the light that shines through the letter and feeling it suffusing me...
I want to stand there for much longer, but the sky starts closing and i must decide, quickly whether to jump through that opening, into the letter Aleph, or go down, back where from i raised...
I feel i am not ready yet, i want to, but i can not move, i can not jump and squeeze myself into the opening that's becoming smaller and smaller... i simply can not.
So i start walking, the darkness behind me , the sky that is closing above me... The surroundings and the landscape are threatening , but i am willfully transforming them by imbuing them with the yellow color of the sun and the field flowers start coming out where once only only ashes laid...(That's yesterday's notes that i felt i must intellectualize to digest.
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This one felt really, really powerful to me... and i feel the urge to back it up by conducting an extensive academic research of what could it all possibly mean, by comparing as many as possible of the available resources, which - in the best interest of the experiment itself - would be recorded meticulously and with due references... but i shall resist.
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My usual entry points to this card: Coalescing ideas flowing from several directions and out... showing the life-power itself flowing in its own seemingly mindless way... Flowing always occurs to me with this card, like air in particular, but just as much like water... like the patterns in the bark of an old tree... like nature's sand-paintings in the desert or on an ancient cliff-side.
Zero... going in circles... going no place in particular (it wrongly seems)... no seeming choice (because no conscious selection).
Fool... folly... air... thriving everywhere, but never actually seen except in its containment or by the traces of where it has been... just like life.
Aleph... such open flow of breath that it has no distinct sound. (It's sound is caused by restrictions to it. Every thought, like every sound in nature, is a scream of its pain against its innate silence.) Numerically, ALP = 111, one of the Great Numbers of the Sun; yet as 831 is is the same value as phallus in Greek. There it is: solar and phallic, "the Creative Light." (Yet the card itself is ungendered... an instruction, for another time, on what is normally meant by "solar-phallic.")
The Sun is at the very center of it, the central point of focus of every idea here... and it's at his crotch.
The background field is sunlight saturated with the light of the Crown, except... except it's impossible not to see this as the showering of incessant globules of semen. Kether, the Crown, is here the crown of the phallus, Chokmah. Sunlight filled with drops of semen, constantly fertilizing the earth, fertilizing our imaginations in this practice, seeding the field of subconsciousness just as sunlight seeds the most intimate life-seed (life-egg?) in each of us. As the eye moves from background to foreground, this seems to show torential rain falling (not limiting the sunlight above and behind the rain), more intimate to our momentary experience, saturating the air with fertility.
His hands bear sources of water and fire (like Binah and Chokmah, their roots), cascading like pillars of each. The patterns are circles, circulation, life in circulation, like blood pumping, air circulating, prana wending its way through the body.
Jumping-jack flash, springing at us, eyes wide open, Uranus-like unfiltered to what is before him.
In short, it's life... streaming, leaping, flowing, finding its specific and exacting way by having no particular way. doing what life does.
Or something like that.
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Here's my day 2
"Vitruvian man, 5 leaves on grape leaf, microcosm.
A golden morning, early but bright, as the sun shines down on pasture land, and bathes the air in a palpable yellow, and warms the rich, dry earth. The land teams with life, and all living things are on the point of release. The Fool pushes his hips forward and unclenches his buttocks, smiling, and relaxed. The Ox stamps at the ground and lets out a smooth, vital bellow. The air is fecund with dust and life.
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Here's my day 2 every
"Golden background - Life and the source of it
White specks - Seeds / sunrays
Rainbow - the plenitude of Life, as in, the One expressing itself as the Many
Peacock - Life preparing to replicate itself as 1-1-1
Aleph - the sound of breath streaming outward, expressing the emptiness of Life.
The bag of disks - secret patterns waiting to be unveiled at their proper time and proper place
Grapes - the ecstasy of living
Left hand with fire - The Will of Life
Right Hand with chalice - The Understanding and fertilization of The Will
Butterfly - Life expressed as perpetual, never ending transformation and metamorphosis
Caduceus - the Will of Life and the Love that drives it...love under will.
The Sun / Phallus - The organ that allows Life to express itself as 1-1-1"
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Today I see someone simply amazed at all the incredible phenomena around him.
"Just look at all of this...! Just look...!"
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@magictortoise said
"Why lion and dragon?"
The lion could be Leo, the Dragon, Scorpio. The Fire and Water Kerubs, Could be Father and Mother? Attacks or caresses. Could the Fool be their child? Just some brain droppings.
Dan
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"Today I see someone simply amazed at all the incredible phenomena around him.
"Just look at all of this...! Just look...!""
When I reflect on the facial expression of the Green Man I get reminded of those moments I find something new and amazing I've never encountered before. Those "Holy shit I wanna do that!!!!" moments
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Only because you mentioned it...
I have this stock wall-art, engraved "H" that someone gave us as a wedding present (H being the initial of my last name). Around, and apparently behind the H, there are flowing curves and shapes. When viewed with even just a little imagination, it appears as if the Green Man's face is just behind the H, his eyes covered by the crossbar. The Green Man's "forehead" could also look like a dove, seemingly descending to touch the crossbar of the H with its beak, or it could look like a flame over the GM's 3rd eye.
There are many thoughts that come to mind when I let my mind drift over the image for a bit. It's such an interesting concept to me as a symbol. But my favorite...?
I like to think of him as about to Peek-A-Boo the holy **** out of somebody...!
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Day 3 on the Fool...shit got interesting tonight
"Hidden fire hexagram denoting the heat and expansiveness of Air.
There's also a golden lake...or perhaps a lake that's reflecting the light of the Sun blazing on the Green Man's crotch.
Fire, Water and Air are all present in this card. The gunas maybe? Purusa perhaps?The Horns and The diamond - the shape kinda brings to mind the trident of Neptune. That diamond is receiving the light coming from the rainbow. It's like the Sahasrara has been activated and The Green Man likey. Him mesmerized. Him see something majestic, or stunning.
The zodiac curtain...he sees behind it...or maybe not so much sees but perceives what's behind it...
The Dove is the inspiration....
That crocodile is like sebek dwelling in the waters, waiting to eat yo' ass up...the devourer....if the chalice at the top of the card can serve to represent Binah then the croc at the bottom could serve to represent Hod...and the Tiger Netzach...
The babes embracing each other remind me of the twins, Heru-Ra-Ha and Hoor-Paar-Kraat.
This card has everything from the highest to the lowest in it. Everything and Nothing."