Part One

I guess that I first came across Tarot in any meaningful way during my early days in the commune. I soon bought a pack of the cards, the classic Rider-Waite Tarot: there was not too much choice in those days.

I took to Tarot immediately; it seemed to speak to me, and I felt at home with it. I used it for divination purposes, both for myself and for some of my closer friends. I would also sometimes just pick out a few cards, to see what showed up and what might be revealed as a result.

As a tool, Tarot is multifunctional. It can be used for things like "Should I speak to the pretty girl at the bus-stop?" or "How can I make loads of money without trying very hard?" I preferred to use it in the context of the spiritual path of the individual.

While all the cards are rich and multi-faceted, the card of cards has to be the Fool, the original Joker. 

Nowadays there exists an abundance of different Tarots. Some are extremely evocative and rich in associations. There are beautiful Tarots, sensuous Tarots, hard-feeling Tarots. Profound Tarots, rather silly Tarots (though even these can throw up surprising results). The classic Rider-Waite Tarot is not generally among my favourites. It does not, as the modern saying goes, especially work for me. Having said that, the Rider-Waite Fool is something of an exception; he is the benchmark for Fools....

The Rider-Waite Fool sets off on a journey beneath the bright morning sun. He heads northwards, into the unknown, travelling light, all his belongings tied in a bundle on a stick carried on his shoulder. He has his head on the clouds, or rather directed upwards in the clear morning sky, unaware that he is about to step off the edge of a cliff, either to his doom or into a great new life adventure.

A dog barks at his feet, attempting to keep our Fool grounded, and aware of what's going on around him, the precipitous fate that he is walking into.

The optimism, hope, the youthful and carefree energy of the Fool are infectious. Setting out on the Great Adventure, sun on his back, destination unknown. The Fool was really the Patron Saint of the counterculture of the 1970s in general, and of our commune enterprise in particular. That we didn't completely realise this is by-the-by. He was beside us as we strode above the north Devon cliffs towards Trentishoe in search of high adventure; he was the invisible overseer while we set about organising our first cooking and washing-up rotas in the new-formed commune. He was even there as we disbanded the entire project, each of us preparing for a new phase in our great journey of life.

Having sung his praises so fulsomely, I feel obliged to point out one thing about our Rider-Waite Fool: he has a problem. It is, in fact, a big problem. That he is about to walk off the edge of a precipice to an untimely, unpremeditated, and not very pretty end, is evidence of my claim! Should he continue as he is, he will never complete his quest, he will never reach the end of the journey he has set himself to walk.

Put simply, this Fool is naive. He walks with his head in the clouds, unaware of the many pitfalls and dangers that will obstruct his route. In terms of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, he is all innocence. ('Little lamb, who made thee?' 'Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old.')

In psychological terms, he is incomplete, not whole. He will remain in the ding-dong battle of opposites for all eternity; and that eternity will eventually feel like an inferno. Our Fool needs to undergo what Jung calls 'integration', particularly of 'shadow' and 'anima'. In alchemical terms, he is required to submit to the processes of nigredo (darkening) and rubedo (reddening). 

Part Two

Whether consciously or not, a number of 'darker' Tarots have honoured these alchemical processes, and come up with Fools that incorporate these deeper qualities.

Check out the Fool of the Royo Dark Tarot. It's a sexy nineteen-year old. She seems to be Hamlet's beautiful and troublesome daughter, gazing on the skull held outstretched in her hand. This Fool is a wise fool, having acknowledged the realities of mortality and death, thus overcoming naivety about life. She is no longer intoxicated with the brightness of the morning sun. She is sobered by the cautionary agent of the knowledge of life and death. And she is the more darkly beautiful for it.

Her body has a quality of upward motion, but her gaze is directed downwards; there is balance in attitude.

She is masked. The meaning here: don't show yourself to everyone. Act with discrimination. Remove the mask of persona only when you judge it to be safe and appropriate. No more pearls before swine.

The Fool is no longer a naive adolescent; she has come of age.   

'O Rose thou art sick'...... 'The mind-forg'd manacles I listen' (Songs of Experience)

Part Three

Alone among the Tarot cards, the Fool has no number. While he or she may be seen as part of a journey, more profoundly the Fool stands outside any sequence. He is an ever-present, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end all together. More correctly, he is outside time completely.

In the case of my Tarot experiences during my commune days, in the end it all had to go. It's a funny thing, really. I sailed the waves of psychedelic voyages with a variety of entheogenic substances kind-of comfortably enough. But it was Tarot that did for me. Too many spreads throwing up hanged men, skeletons of death on horseback, and towers collapsing in a fiery inferno. It started to freak me out. I don't know what I did with my pack. You don't just throw away a pack of Tarot cards; but I probably did. 

Tarot never went away, however. Nearly forty years later I returned to its imagery, its magic, and it took centre-stage in the warm-up period prior to full kundalini awakening nearly five years ago. It speaks eloquently of the many shades of life of the individual, as well as mapping the entire workings of the universe. As a tool for discovery as well as for manifesting, Tarot is unique.    

The Fool is ubiquitous. It is his fate to suffer repeated efforts at gagging, handcuffing, incarceration, silencing and subjugating by any means. It cannot be done. The alternative tradition, in its countless guises throughout space and time, has been his sponsor, advocate, protector. The counterculture of my own little tale can take its place in line. We stand proud....