This is the Zero Post
I swore I would leap into this blog. No “this is my first post” posts. I’ve spent days trying to make that leap into the heady topic I chose for my first entry.
I also swore that first heady topic needed no explanation. No long back stories of why it was on my mind. Just quick, intelligent, sharp and witty analysis leaping like Athena from Zeus’ head.
After several disappointing days without much wisdom or clarity, I decided any first post was better than no first post. If I started at the beginning, with card number one, The Magician, I could write how having a laptop and Wordpress was like The Magician’s Tools and now I had to find my intent so something could actually happen here in this space. The idea seemed brilliant in the car, but sitting down to type I found it both goofy and inaccurate.
The Magician is card number one, but there’s debate over whether the Major Arcana begins with The Magician or The Fool, the zero card. When clarifying the connections between the Kabbalah, a system of Judaic mysticism, and the Tarot, scholars disagreed on which letter of the Hebrew alphabet matched which card. One system moves The Fool card from the beginning to a place between the last two cards, Judgement and The World, creating different correspondences.
The Fool’s movement suggests a function of The Fool. The Fool can appear anywhere at anytime. The Fool is the leap of faith, the unexpected, the unpredictable. The Fool is the wise man in King Lear who can say what no one else dares. And The Fool is the fart of the trickster, Coyote. In most mythos, no matter how badly or stupidly The Fool behaves, no matter how dire the tale, something new and interesting is created out of whatever mess or tragedy occurs in the meantime.
When my students ask me if The Fool’s Leap of Faith is wise or foolish, I tell them that The Fool is neutral like Zero itself. It is not the result of the leap, but the experience of the leap that defines The Fool. To locate the wisdom or folly of the act, then other cards must be considered, what comes before The Fool and what comes after.
Consider today, that I am The Fool and this is my post, the Zero Post.