The Fool starts his Journey

The Fool and Chess

In the French medieval pack, the Fool is called Le Mat. This word has the same root than the famous checkmate move in the chess game. By analyzing the origin of checkmate, we may be able to understand this archetypal character better :

In Persian, the King and the game of chess bear the same name: Sah, that we translate as check or chess. Mat, translated into mate, means desperate. Thus, literally, checkmate means King desperate.

Description of the Trump

The Fool in the card seems to be running away from something or leaving a place. He carries a small bundle on his shoulder and looks straight ahead. A domesticated dog seems to try to remind him of something, maybe trying to bring him back home. As dogs are a symbol of faithfulness, he is the representation of home, family, material goods and of attachment. The Fool, however, ignores this bestial reminder, who even tears his pants. The stick in his right hand indicates he is going for a long trip, but what trip?

Is he really a fool, an idiot, acting without reason and judgment? This card doubtlessly interrogates us about reason and passion. Passion ethymologically means "disease" in Greek and was regarded as one by the Socratian philosophers.

The Fool may be interpreted as an "unreasonable" character leaving without analyzing the consequences of his act. But what is the limit between passion and instinct, instinct and intuition, intuition and mysticism, mysticism and wisdom?

In vernacular tribal organizations, folly and insanity are often connected to the world of Gods. This characteristic is somehow seen as a divine capacity. In these societies, fools and mentally impaired individuals were not cloistered into hospitals because they were the carriers of a divine message.

A symbol of renewal

This card may remind you of a very special and mysterious event of the year: April's fool, in fact marking the beginning of spring, the renewal of the year.
This comparison leads us to think of the Green Man, the popular personification of the natural phenomenon of spring.

It hasn't yet been a hundred years that the winter is no more a period of hard times. Winter is after all not that hard with nuclear energy to heat our homes, give us light and keep the pace in the production and distribution of goods. Before this era, winter was an every year challenge meaning cold, obscurity, food shortages and freezing.

So now, imagine spring coming, flowers blossom, trees recover their foliage. The Green Man does his miracle once again. For human beings strongly depending on seasonal changes, it is a pure time of happiness, freshness, the return of plenty. The flow of life is back around you and inside of you bringing you happiness and foolishness.