The Fool of the Tarot

I chose an oracle card for class today out of Sonia Choquette's deck The Fool's Wisdom.  The word fool refers to the main character in a deck of tarot cards.  In a deck of tarot cards, the fool is depicted as a beggar or vagabond. He is walking without watching where he is headed and where he is headed is off a cliff! He carries a beggars sack attached to a stick or staff (danda in sanskrit) that dangles over his shoulder carrying all of his worldly possessions. There is usually a small dog nipping at his feet, representing the real world and its distractions.  

The tarot cards tell the story of this Fool and his journey through life as he meets many different human archetypes.   This card is labeled with a number zero representing his unlimited potential.  Tarot cards actually used to be used as a game where tricks were taken and the Fool card is a wild card in the original game. Apropos, as the Fool meanders through life with the wildness of a child's perspective.  At one time or another, we all have been and will be, again, represented by the Fool.

So with that history, I spread out the cards and set my intention to draw the perfect card for my yoga class. Laughingly, I write (without judgment) that I pulled the card labeled the drunken fool!

" If you are not intoxicated by your life, you have not yet found the place prepared for you—your unique fit, which will be an authentic expression of who you are in your essence.  And if this is the case, are you okay with it? In which case, you are in the place you need to be presently." Are You Intoxicated by Life?

To be intoxicated means to be affected by.  It does not necessarily refer to alcohol! What are you affected by? What makes you happy? If you are not happy, what intoxicants are getting in your way?  Anger, regret, sadness, jealousy...?

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire wrote:

“You must always be intoxicated. That sums it all up: it’s the only question. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time which breaks your back and bends you down to earth, you must be unremittingly intoxicated. But on what? Wine? Poetry? Virtue? As you please. But never be sober. And if it should chance that sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you wake up and your intoxication has already diminished or disappeared, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans, everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them what time it is, and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, will reply: It’s time to be intoxicated! If you do not wish to be one of the tortured slaves of Time, never be sober; never be sober!  Use wine, poetry, or virtue as you please.”

It is time to release that which affects you that does not make you happy. It is that simple. If the time is not now, your acknowledgement of your intoxicants is a perfect start.  Make your mantra today "I am happy!"

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