W.S.Tarot - The Fool
Life in this world contains within in it the possibility of Awakening. The way of The Fool, for whom the art of life is unfamiliar, leads to oblivion. The Fool represents humanity: Humanity that is in a state of slumber, without awareness and without any understanding. The Fool lacks any awareness as to what happened to him, his dream is the imagination and the identification, in which he is immersed for his entire life. He represents the man who cannot act, has no willpower and is ruled by the law of chance. For his whole life, The Fool tries to escape from coping with life, with hardships, with friction and with suffering, all of which are symbolized by the dog. Instead of coping with life and its hardships, The Fool is constantly preoccupied with escaping them. He calls this escape “freedom,” and that is the way he imagines himself, as a free man.
But in reality, he cannot escape from life and suffering, and all he can do is to dream of escaping. The Fool’s escape or lack of coping with life keeps him further and further away from his path, towards the inevitable; towards the fall off the cliff. The flower in his left hand represents the past, and his dreamy gaze forward represents the future.
Indeed The Fool constantly finds himself in the past and the future, but never in the here and now at present. He dreams about his future and submerged in his past, which is a state of sleep, he cannot see that his escape from life led him to the end of the road, and on his next step, he will fall. The Fool carries a bag, which contains the 4 elements: Pentacles, Wands, Cups, and Swords, which symbolize the 4 energy centers. The Fool knows nothing about his existence, he does not understand and does not know their powers and their secrets.
In various decks, one may see at the bottom of the abyss an image of a crocodile with an open mouth waiting for The Fool. The Fool will be devoured by the crocodile if he doesn’t open his eyes and see the abyss ahead of him. The crocodile is from Egyptian mythology, who is the creature/demon/god named Ammut whose head is of a crocodile, his upper body is a lion or a cheetah and lower body of a hippopotamus.
Ammut resides in the Hall of Justice, where the departed come with the guidance of Anubis to be judged. On a pair of scales, the departed’s heart was weighed against a feather, and if the heart of the departed were heavier than the feather, it was a sign of a sinful heart. In that case, the departed was unworthy of residing in the Hall and was devoured by Ammut.