Major Arcana and Astrology — 0. The Fool
A couple of months ago I hit a complete block in my tarot reading. Even though I was only reading on a personal level, I felt stuck and trapped by the conventional meanings. It was not until I slowed down and started looking more deeply at the cards that I eventually made a breakthrough.
This breakthrough was astrology. I had known for a while that there could be connections between astrology and the cards but when I looked at this properly I was stunned to see how deep it went and how it could be applied to the entire deck, whether rider waite, marseilles, or the numerous indie decks these are based off. As a result, I decided to embark on a personal challenge to look at the astrological associations with each of the major arcana cards and eventually the minor arcana too.
First Up — The Fool
Strong will — ability, spirit of initiative, will power, free of prejudice, diplomacy.
Also a card of joyful naiveté, new beginnings, journeys, and the grest unknown.
The fool and his dog are pictured as embarking on a journey. The trouble is, any given card and it’s meaning can come with so many interpretations that it can be hard to choose the right angle in a given spread or reading. Depending on who you’re doing the reading for, the meaning, even simply with an upright card, can be both positive or negative. This is where astrology came in — at least for me. As I went through the major arcana, I began to associate the cards with different concepts in astrology and this began to help me read more clearly and fine tune my interpretations of the cards. In fact, after some quick investigation on the Internet, I realised I wasn’t the only reader who had discovered this.
The fool, then, can roughly correspond to the sun in astrology and particularly the querent’s sun sign, as this symbolises the will and initiative with which a person goes through life. However, the quick, flighty qualities and independent mind of the fool also correspond well to mercury, and the sense of the beginning of a journey also works with jupiter, the great expander.
So what does this mean in a reading?
Well, for starters, I now always ask for and take into account the querent’s star sign. If lots of cards come up which correspond to that sign, it could indicate how personal or targeted a spread is for the querent, as opposed to whether it’s just the general energy as a whole. In addition, the position of the planets at that given moment is also important.
A great example is mercury retrograde. A time of missed communications, the appearance of the fool with both it’s gemini exuberance and it’s hastiness could serve as a warning to listen more deeply to others and pause before speaking. Ruled by mercury, gemini has a childlike and indecisive nature which is entirely consistent with the characteristics of the fool — and like anything, this can be a double edged sword.
The Fool: An Astrological Summary
Star signs: gemini, aries, virgo
Planets: the sun, mercury, uranus (will and initiative), jupiter (expansion, new journeys)
Astrological phenomena: mercury retrograde, lunar return, new moon, void of course
Liked this? Check out my tumblr where I’m planning to go a bit deeper and blog my progress as I use astrology to relearn the major and minor arcana and take a deeper look at them:
https://suurfbluue.tumblr.com/
I also share my progress on Instagram where I take readings by direct message as well as on twitter.
