I wrote and recorded this story before leaving for our Europe trip. I am so grateful for Eunice to help me put together the video footage to go along with the audio narration. If you prefer reading the story, the audio transcript is below.
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Right now, I am sinking into the closest to what a “coming full circle” experience might look and feel like if there is such a thing. Right around a year ago, I was talking to my mentor about the possibility of relocating away from Los Angeles. I wasn’t even sure which way we were going yet, but I felt the strong pull to leave. During our conversation, she pulled a tarot card for me, and it was “#0 - The Fool”, the very first Major Arcana card. Back then, I wasn’t as aware of the meanings of tarot cards as I am now (I'm still just a beginner, but I did learn a little more in a year). A year ago, after talking to my mentor, I did a quick Google search and stumbled upon the general description - something like below.
In tarot, "The Fool" card, the first card in the Major Arcana, symbolizes new beginnings, spontaneity, and a willingness to embrace the unknown, encouraging you to trust your intuition and take a leap of faith.
I knew it was pretty serendipitous to pull “The Fool” when making a major life decision, but I didn’t read much further than the surface-level definition. Being an optimist and not having to know the depth of the tarot cards, I took the reading as a nudge to see how things unfold.
Recently, I investigated the meaning behind the card a little more; I found a few more interesting bits of information.
Pamela Coleman-Smith's artful rendition of The Fool in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck is often used to represent Tarot in general. Early classical versions of The Fool card, however, portray quite a different character -- a person driven by base needs and urges, who has fallen into a state of poverty and deprivation.
Modern decks usually borrow from the Rider-Waite imagery. Most Fool cards copy the bucolic mountainside scene, the butterfly, and the potential misplaced step that will send The Fool tumbling into the unknown. Don't forget, though, that the earlier versions of this card represented already-fallen humanity, over-identified with the material plane of existence, and beginning a pilgrimage toward self-knowledge and, eventually, wisdom. The Fool reminds us to recognize the path of personal development within ourselves -- and the stage upon that path where we find ourselves -- in order to energize our movement toward deeper self-realization.
(from this website)
Now that I have had some space to look back to all that was unearthed in the last journey around the sun, I’ve asked myself, “What was that all about??”
If, geographically, I am back to where I started (about only two miles from where we used to live), why did my deep intuition point to stepping away from LA? It seems so… inefficient… if I look at the last twelve months from a logical point of view.
But you know, life’s journey is neither logic-based nor leads you through the easiest and the most convenient path.
I feel today that we were probably bound to hit rock bottom sooner or later whether we stayed or left the canyon last summer. I think my heart knew that our family and I were growing out of the old construct we built and felt comfortable - homeschooling and sharing our adventures at home and BK. But deep down, I think we were ready for a change. So I chose the path to step off the cliff like the fool in the number zero card to shake off and deconstruct everything we knew as a family.
The journey ahead was neither utopian nor photo-perfect. Instead, it was a raw and brutal hit that shook our reality so much that I could not “not” see the world around me through a new lens. But what I recently realized is that even if we were still at our old house in the canyon and stayed in LA, we would probably still face the same dilemma, possibly at the slower and longer version of it, but still with the major collision impact. In some ways, I am grateful that we invited the situation that pushed us because we reached what could have been the worst-case scenario fast and hard. As a result, the experience opened up a way to see things outside the box and allowed us to take actions that would have been unimaginable if we were in normal circumstances.
Moving from our old canyon house to the current one (still in the same canyon) and from homeschooling to kids attending a full-time school. They both feel like simple shifts on the surface when I type them out, but both aspects of our lives required deconstructing our lifestyles and choices and constructing an entirely new orientation. And the ripples of the impact go deep into so many different aspects of our lives, not just where we live and our kids’ education.
Now that I am here, another interpretation of the Major Arcana cards I found very insightful is that these cards portray life’s journey, starting with “The Fool”—the number zero card—followed by the rest of the 21 cards. I don’t want to narrate everything we went through in the last twelve months in this story, but I am pretty sure I touched upon many aspects of the remaining 21 cards as I navigated multiple cross-country relocations, two major natural disasters, complex family dynamics, and so much more. Since then, I have pulled many tarot cards on different occasions but have not encountered another reading with The Fool.
I wanted to ink this story today, not necessarily to say that we have to find the silver lining in every challenging situation, but to remind myself to trust my deep intuition even though the path seems outside of what I can wrap my head around. The outcome might not be what I expected…, but it’s comforting to know that the particular experience might present itself as part of a larger picture, eventually.
Thank you so much for being here and reading this story. I hope there was something that felt resonant to you in this, and I look forward to seeing you again.
Until next time:)
p.s. If I ever pull another Fool Card at life’s shifting moment, I will probably jump off the cliff again. Just thought I would put that on the record.
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