The Rising Sun

The Fool card was the hardest one in the deck for me to paint. For years I painted design after design, always with high hopes, but they were never quite right. To me, this was the most important card in the deck and the deck would never really be complete or right without the perfect Fool.

The final Fool you see is the second time I painted this particular image. I nearly didn’t give it another shot and discarded the image, like so many before it. But it felt right and in the end it was. I am very happy with how it turned out and I think it illustrates my feelings about the Fool perfectly.

This Fool image began with a dream. I saw a beautiful landscape with a giant mountain looming in the background. It gave away, in an early morning mist, to a flat plain that started out brown and dusty and became greener as it got closer to me. There was a river flowing through the landscape, straight at me, and as it reached the cliff the waters spilled over the edge and down into the unknown. On one side of the river’s shore there was a tower made of pearl with pillars and spires reaching toward the sky. On the other shore was a red dragon. Part of him was coiled up on the ground and the other part of him was standing tall, still, and watchful, on guard perhaps.

Just out of my range of vision, but still known to me, there was someone flying in the air. He was coming from the direction of the landscape and going right over my head and at some point I caught a glimpse of his colorful slippered feet just like you see in the painting.

The finished painting deviates only a little from the dream. Some of the images have shifted or doubled themselves in their symbolic form. The pearly tower is also the white ribbons emanating from the Fool like rays of light, the red dragon, which may still be on the ground obscured by our vision, is also twisting around the Fool along with a blue dragon who could almost lay down on the earth and look like a winding river. The Sun, which in the dream was obscured by the hazy morning air, but was still obviously there because of its light, has been duplicated on the Fools chest. The colorful slippers going over my head were the seed for all of the butterflies that travel with the Fool in the final painting.

I think this painting could have been done without the Fool at all. All of the elements were there even before his inclusion, but it feels so comforting, transcendent even, to see him, the personified landscape.

Let me break down the image into parts.

The Mountain

The mountain is the Cosmic Mountain, a giant structure that connects heaven and earth. Mystics, shamans, and those seeking enlightenment have climbed this mountain for untold ages. Upon reaching the top, enlightenment, or union with the Godhead, is achieved. The mountain is all of creation. The apex is the singularity that is God, undivided, undefined, unexplored, and unexploded. As manifestation occurs and God expands and grows, the mountain eventually covers the entire landscape and is each individual thing of the manifested material universe including you, me, a deck of cards, a rock, a galaxy.

To my feeble human mind, the most perfect representation of the cosmic mountain would be a pyramid. Its base would, of course, cover everything. Its apex would be so small it would disappear into nothing. It would have 4 sides to represent the quaternary, the 4 elements, 4 worlds, etc. The 4 sides while flat and defined on their outer threshold, move together and intermingle in the center of the pyramid, blending and becoming each other. The closer to the base you get, the more vast is the area of mixing.

Something that is very important to know is that what is found at the apex is exactly what is found at the base, it is just a matter of manifestation, or even observation. Everything already exists; we have but to experience it all. Also, as there is no separation between what is at the base and what is at the apex, there is nothing in that vast middle of the pyramid that isn’t part of either extreme. The apex is God and would correspond to Kether on the tree of life, the center is the spirit and would correspond to sephiroth 2 through 9, and the base is the manifested physical universe, Malkuth. There is an old saying that Malkuth equals Kether and Kether equals Malkuth. I believe this to be true. I also believe this describes the nature of the soul, individual and dense at its base and non-distinct and all encompassing at its apex.

The Flat Landscape

The middle landscape is repeating what has already been shown in the mountain, only more defined. The flat landscape is the element of Earth as it unfolds from the mists becoming more solid, discernable and full of life as it moves closer to the observer.

The Tower

The tower is the element of Air as it stretches and pearlesces its rainbow of colors achieved by the careful layering over a seed in an oyster. The tower, in my mind, which is the one who generated this dream and decided on the symbology, is strongly associated with lightning. Air is like the lightning strike down the tree of life, the path of creation and of re-uniting with our source.

The River

The river is the element of Water, gently shaping and nourishing the landscape with its persistent and ever flowing current.

The Red Dragon

The red dragon is Fire. Alert, active, aggressive and protective, he stands out in the landscape as an imposing, positive force.

The Abyss

The precipice is a threshold to the great unknown. The void and the abyss, the dark mother and the womb, in which everything grows. In Kabbalistic lore God created the universe because he wanted to see himself. He had trouble, however, because he was already everywhere. To remedy the problem God created a space where he was not. He created a vacuum or a void into which he poured himself, as other, and thus began creation. The creation, Adam Kadmon, was as you would expect, the image of God.

The third layer of this painting is the Fool himself and his entourage of dragon and butterfly.

The Fool is a representation of the soul and the element Air. As he flies through the sky he is criss-crossed by two dragons that symbolize Air and Water that gave him birth and also the chaos, void, unknown and abyss, which also gave him birth.

The Dragons

On each dragon you will see a symbol etched into a palm of their hand. These are the I Ching trigrams named Ch’ien and K’un. They mean Heaven and Earth and stand for the masculine creative force and the feminine creative force found on the Taoist Yin and Yang symbol. They shift and merge into each other throughout eternity allowing everything to be created from their union.

In the West we see dragons as a personalization of evil, darkness, the subconscious, and the unknown. The Western dragon is a creature of the abyss, a force of chaos that must be conquered so that order and consciousness may prevail.

As far back as 5000 B.C. the Sumerians were equating dragons with the concept of Chaos, of the dragon rising from the abyss to steal Order from the Gods and men. The same concept has been carried forward in many societies, personifying that which we cannot control, which is in our subconscious and lives in the unknown, or gives rise to the prime dual nature of the universe, an ultimate evil or negative or void, symbolized as dark water, in which positive creation can occur. To the Sumerians it was dragons, to the Egyptians it was crocodiles and to Christians it was the devil or powers of evil in the body of a dragon. There are many Christian paintings throughout the ages depicting St. Michael or St. George slaying the dragon, ridding us of his evil powers.

In the East dragons are much more benevolent. They are a symbol of good fortune, protection, abundance and prosperity. They are wise and beautiful and are loved by the people. Their breath is said to be sheng chi or balanced life force energy. They figure prominently in creation myths, art, architecture, literature and the day-to-day lives of the people.

The dragons live in oceans and waterways and they control the wind and the rain. They protect treasure, people, emperors, and even the Gods. They are made up of 9 distinct parts (compare to the 9 spheres on the tree of life, or the numerology of 9): Head of a camel, eyes of a demon, ears of a cow, horns of a stag, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, claws of an eagle, soles of the feet that of a tiger, and covering the dragons body is 117 scales of a carp. They are capable of shapeshifting and can become as large as the universe or as small as a silkworm.

As balanced creatures, the dragons in the Fool card have characteristics of both East and West. They are leviathans from the abyss that the Fool is flying over, and they are also his mother and father, dragons of Fire and Water. They protect him like a treasure, a pearl.

Crocodiles

The crocodile on Fool in the Thoth tarot was part of the inspiration for the dragons in the Mary-el Fool. Each dragon is one open jaw of the crocodile. The symbolism is very similar between crocodile and dragon, and etched into the Fool’s wrist is a stylized crocodile/2 dragons, a spiral that culminates in a forked line. It looks like a crocodile and it looks like 2 dragons emerging from the spirals of the abyss.

Sobek was the Egyptian God of crocodiles, fertility, rebirth, protection, and power. He was depicted as a crocodile headed man or a full crocodile. The Egyptians depended so heavily on the Nile, that it was natural for them to want to appease Sobek and his powers. He was both respected and feared.

The crocodile laid his eggs on the shore of the Nile, an act that resembled the Nile depositing its rich life giving silt on its shores during the yearly flood, associating Sobek with fertility. He also protected souls as they traveled in the land of the dead, as would be natural for a powerful creature of water, a potent symbol for the unknown. That and the way the crocodile cared for its young, carrying them gently in its mouth, helped Sobek become a god of protection. There are many statues depicting a young Horus, God of the rising Sun, standing on the back of two crocodiles. These were believed to be charms for protection over children.

Horus

There are many links between Sobek and Horus. In Kom Ombo, Egypt, there is a rare double temple dedicated to Sobek and Haroeris (Horus the elder, the aspect of Horus that battled Set). Sobek is often depicted wearing the atef, or crown with two plumes and a sun disk, that Horus wears. He was said to have participated in the birth of Horus and also saved the 4 children of Horus by fishing them out of the water with a net.

In common with Horus, the Fool is also the rising Sun/son and also enjoys the protection of the dragons and crocodile.

Raphael

Another influence on the character of the Fool is the archangel Raphael. There are many illustrations of Raphael both iconographic and illustrating a story about Tobias, the son of Tobit, in the Old Testament Apocrypha. Raphael resembles the Fool very much carrying his staff with sack on end, traveling, and even a little dog nipping at his heels.

In the story Raphael, disguised as a human named Azarias, is sent by Tobit to accompany his son Tobias, and his dog, on a business trip. Raphael helps Tobias win the hand of his wife Sarah, drives off a demon, cures Tobit of his blindness and eventually reveals himself as the angel.

As would be expected, Raphael is associated with the East, direction of the rising Sun and the element of Air. To Catholics he is the patron saint of travelers and of good health. All are attributes consistent with the Fool.

Monarch Butterfly

Occasionally a butterfly makes an appearance on a Fool card. The Fool, oblivious to the danger ahead of him, playfully chases a butterfly over the edge of a cliff. This is similar to many myths in which a Hero unthinkingly follows a wild animal into the dark forest and thus begins a great adventure. The forest is symbolic of the unknown. Fantastical, unmapped and completely new, it is a place that lies outside the normal experience of the Hero. It will serve to mature and transform him.

The butterfly emerging from its chrysalis symbolizes transformation, resurrection, and life after death, eternal life, a soul unencumbered by material mass or worries, evolution, and changes. It is also a symbol for all that is good, beauty in nature, freedom, good luck, and creative thinking. The butterfly is a classic symbol for the human soul.

The Monarch butterfly has the additional behavior of migration. Every fall Monarchs from all over North America begin a long journey to wintering spots in the mountains of Mexico and coasts of California. Even though a Monarch will only make the round trip once in its lifetime, it will mysteriously know exactly how to get there and will even go to very precise spots. Often there will be hundreds of thousands of butterflies fluttering in a single tree.

This Fool is not only moving with the butterflies, he is also wearing a Monarch mask and slippers. He is a spark of divinity masquerading as a monarch butterfly and embarking on its symbolic journey, a migration through the experience of life. He will also mysteriously know exactly where he is going and may end up in very precise spots.

Caduceus

It is easy to see the similarity between the caduceus and the Mary-el Fool. The caduceus is the symbol most commonly seen in modern times used by medical professionals. It is a winged staff criss-crossed by two serpents. The Fool himself is the staff; his head with the butterfly mask, the wings, and the two dragons are the winding serpents. This symbol permeates the belief systems of the world. It is the staff of Hermes, the three pillars of the Tree of Life, the rising Kundalini from the root of the spine to the crown chakra on top of the head, the rod of Moses, the Sumerian Axis Mundi, the Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge of biblical lore, Yggdrasil with the eagle at the top and the serpent at its roots, the Minoan Labrys which is sometimes depicted as a simple vertical line topped by a lemniscate, and the double helix of DNA.

To separate any or all of the elements in this image would cause imbalance and the elements would appear to oppose one another, but together as they are here, they create a complete living system and a divine trinity.

The Body of the Fool

The nudity of the Fool is a metaphor saying that he is not covered by flesh; he is a creature of spirit. He is male to represent the masculine nature of the element of Air as opposed to the feminine nature of Earth. The Sun that is usually very prominent in the Fool card has been placed in his chest, as he is the Sun/son, the center, which is rising and migrating across the sky, the child of Fire and Water. The white ribbons radiate out from him like rays of light.

The Fool is the first card to be described, not because he is the start of the deck, which is circular and has no beginning, but because it reflects the life cycles we are all so familiar with, beginning our awareness at birth, our day in the morning, our patterns of growth in springtime. None of these are really the beginning any more than death or winter or nighttime is the end. The Fool is not the beginning either, but it is a start of our awareness in this cycle. I find it fitting that we should choose our entry point into the cycle of a tarot deck at the point of the rising Sun/son.

Keywords for the Fool:

Innocence, newness, purity, naïveté, child-like. Journey, new beginnings, life, migration, adventure. Leap of faith, trust, optimism, without fear, carefree. Enthusiasm, spontaneity, curiosity, happiness, bliss. Unconditional love. Freedom, soul, spirit. Foolishness, folly, unorthodox, unconventional, frivolous, oblivious, divine madness. Protection, good health, renewal, resurrection, life after death. Soul.