Foolish Wisdom of the Tarot: The Journey from Separation to Reconnection

The symbols of the Tarot are universal, common to the world's spiritual and cultural traditions. Ancient, yet ageless, they point toward wisdom alluded to by visionaries, mystics, and shamans. These archetypal images are mirrors which give us insights into ourselves and the world--and reflect our journey to rediscover a lost unity and interconnectedness. Our ancestors knew that direct experience and wisdom could more easily be communicated by symbols and myths than by explanation. To understand the symbolic language of these cards, intuitive perception is called for more than rational thought. The universal symbols of the Tarot (in the major arcana) can best be known through the eyes of the child, the mind of the Fool who looks out upon the universe in an attitude of wonder. "For attention grows by wonder and knowledge by attention. The mind therefore rises up like the dawn, for from wonder at the vision, it passes into increase of knowledge." Richard of St. Victor This book also draws from the perspectives of pre-patriarchal traditions, eco-psychologists and modern physicists. Like mystics and shamans, they remind us that everything in the universe is connected. "On the archaic level of cultures, being and the sacred are one. It is the experience of the sacred that founds the world." Mircea Eliade.