0 - Fool/ Baby Maui
0 - The Fool
… at the End, at the Center, at the Beginning, so we begin … again
Traditional Tarot decks picture the Fool as the mystic, the wanderer or traveler, the dreamer inside all of us. A Tarot deck contains, normally, 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana ones. We begin with number Zero for the Fool because the number zero has represented nothing, void, emptiness for different cultures around the world and it is that state of nothingness that the Fool finds him or herself each time; beginning on a new journey, a new turn in the cycle, a new way of looking at the world.
In the Rider-Waite deck, the Fool is seen as a slapdash, happy youth about to step off a cliff and into an abyss. At his heels a little dog yaps, attempting to warn the youth of the dangers ahead. When I examine the card, the first thing I notice is a sense of joy, happiness, euphoria; the wild abandonment, the carefree humor that infuses the drawing. It's a good day; the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the youth is beginning something new. Here we have unbeaten curiosity at its most basic. The words that come to mind when contemplating the Fool are optimistic, guileless, child-like wonder and a fearless passion. Tradition says the two words carved on Apollo's temple for The Oracle at Delphi, Greece, are: "Know Thyself." This is quest that the Fool sets out to do every time it comes up in a reading.
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The Card
In this very rough sketch I have chosen Baby Maui taking his first step into the ocean as the Fool for this deck. Waiting for him off shore is his spirit guide, an irresistible shark.
The Great Maui is a Maori myth, though variations have been found throughout the Polynesian Pacific. Every adventure begins with the Fool taking his or her first big step into the unknown. Here we begin with the mythic infant, the embodiment of innocence and curiosity, taking his first steps away from dry land and into the water. As the abyss or void in the Rider-Waite Deck represents the unknown, the puzzling, esoteric, unrevealed part of our unconsciousness that we've yet to discover, here the ocean personifies the same and more. We turn to the ocean for the source of all life on this planet and marvel at its strength. The word oceanic brings forth images of terrible power; waves of such size that nothing can stop them. As Dante's narrator wakes one morning to find, "I had strayed from the path," so the ocean blows us as it wills, far off our chosen journey.
Since the ocean is the beginning and thus a leap for us into the unknown, we see it is formlessness, the unfathomable, in other words, primal chaos. Maui, the Polynesian Ulysses, was born from his mother, Taranga, in such a state of chaos, formless and incomplete:
One day Taranga was walking along the seashore when suddenly Maui was born prematurely, an unformed child. She took some of her hair, wrapped the body in it and put the bundle in the waves. The sea-fairies found the child and cared for him. (Knappert, 185)
Tama-Rangi, "Son of Heaven," discovers Maui and teaches him the songs and tales of his people. However, before he can gain this knowledge Maui must step away from his natal comfort, all the safety and ease he has surrounded himself with and go into the unknown. The ancient Chinese classic, The Tao, says: "the journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step." The Fool's path of "knowing thyself" begins with the same step.
Once Maui steps into the sacred, physical world, in this case the ocean, he sees his guide, a ghost-shark, waiting for him. We all need guides in one form or another, someone who will help us on our journey. While in the Rider-Waite deck the Fool takes with him a little, yapping dog, symbolizing the ego and our desire to control the forces around us. Here, in whatever this deck will end-up being called, Maui's guide is a protector, a mentor, a teacher, not inner stress, a nuisance, our own exasperation with ourselves. I have never been happy that the dog chases after the Fool, warning him of the danger ahead, so here the spirit-guide waits for Maui to join her so they can travel together.
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The Fool/ Baby Maui in a Reading
The first thing to know about Tarot is there is no hard and fast signification, definition or meaning for any reading. A question can be asked. The cards drawn from the deck are placed in a spread, that is, laying the cards out in a certain pattern that will help the reader with the question. The answer and the strength of Tarot comes in the reader's ability to interpret, translate, decode the cards as to the question being asked. And since there are a thousand different ways to look at a reading, it all depends on the flavor of the reader.
For example, to take a page from Jungian psychology, The Fool/ Baby Maui, might represents "the archetype of the Divine Child (the myth of the deity sending an infant to enlighten human kind)" (Louis, 46) while the ocean would be our "collective unconsciousness" (Sterling, 10). To complicate all this is the fact that the reader must take into consideration all the other cards' impact where that card is in the spread.
While Maui of The Thousand Names is seen in many cultures as a trickster, here he is a newborn filled with amazement, a risk-taker spellbound at each new thing that he comes upon. The world amazes him, everything is miraculous, wonderful, phenomenal. He knows nothing of the cynical world; for him innocence can never be truly lost since his curiosity keeps it alive. And what better way to explore the world than with two? A friend and guide waits for him to over come his initial hesitation in stepping away from the shore. "The water is safe," the shark sings to him, "adventure awaits us, come!" If Baby Maui shows up in your reading, consider the spontaneous aspects of your life. What is stopping you from being as carefree as you want to be? Joyful excitement is our right, yet how many of us are still fascinated with the world by the time we reach adulthood?
Now, as to the issue of finding Baby Maui reversed in your reading; my opinion of reversed cards is that I read them more or less as the opposite of what the card normally world be. In the case of Maui, our fascination turns into rattlebrained, foolish behavior. We place blind trust in people that could lead to grief; and while it is true life is full of many lessons we have already become jaded to the splendor of the world. We must follow Maui into the ocean to rediscover our long-forgotten childhood awe with life.
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I love all this sand. Then I saw you, finned,
ghostly, outlined briefly in the whitecaps.
You are better than sand! Songs on the wind
to greet me. I love the wind, too. Perhaps
before I was formed, wrapped in kelp scraps
and tossed to the waves, before I was named
Maui The Last Born, Maui Who Kidnaps
the Sun, Maui Topknot; before I tamed
the sky, you and I went jaunting? Marred, maimed
me? It's a song; I love jaunty songs! You
sang for me! As we started out, you claimed
the waves would not hurt. I love the waves, too.
I love all of me, marred Maui, tadpole.
I love all of you, O shark of my soul.
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Works Cited
Knappert, Jan. Pacific Mythology. Hammersmith, London: Diamond Books (1995)
Louis, Anthony. Tarot: Plain and Simple. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn (2001)
Sterling, Stephen Walter. Tarot Awareness. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn (2000)