Free Spirit
Spirit Self’s take on Card 0
I’ve designated 2026 as my year of learning to experience things more from the perspective of my Spirit Self—or, at least, bringing that perspective into my daily life and responses.
Reading Tarot (or employing any divinatory system) goes next level when you open the door to your Spirit Self doing the reading. And, this morning, mine stepped up smartly to start things off with The Fool, the first symbol in Tarot’s Major Arcana.
I can’t guarantee how often this will happen here for Substack or if these Tarot séances will go in strict order, but I’m here for it all, ready to do my part as scribe.
Here’s what I’ve learned about The Fool so far:
To my Spirit Self, the card we’ve always called The Fool is called The Free Spirit. I love this.
The number assigned to The Free Spirit—0—perfectly expresses the quality of liminality. The Free Spirit is here but also not quite here. The Free Spirit is frequently in between states of being or is out there somewhere on the way.
The Free Spirit’s lightness of being is also suggested in Pamela Colman Smith’s depiction of this character as moving forward while carrying just a small pouch on a stick and a white rose (purity, fresh beginnings) in the opposite hand.
My Spirit Self surprised me with observations that The Free Spirit is all about movement. The Free Spirit is a dancer—specifically, a ballet dancer, a leaper, elegant and buoyant. I had not thought of that before and was delighted when I then searched Pinterest and laid eyes on this striking image by Talon Abraxas:
I’ll never be able to think of The Fool/Free Spirit again without visualizing this gorgeous, archetypal character rising on pointe to tippy-toes. But, if you look back at the Camila Coria image at the top of this post, the masked and elaborately-costumed Fool has goat legs—a sign of being surefooted and adaptable in any terrain, especially a rough, mountainous one.
The next surprise Spirit Self had for me was an association between The Free Spirit and death. Not Tarot’s Death card, but death, itself, and the deceased.
Apparently, then, within certain contexts, The Free Spirit can be an indicator of dying, the process of dying, death—especially a peaceful, easeful, even welcomed death—and the deceased, especially the recently deceased. Look again at that white rose which, to a medium, might signal a message from a lost loved one.
The particular question, concern, and surrounding cards and other intuitive signs will seal the interpretation of The Fool/Free Spirit. Let me emphasize, again, that an interpretation of The Free Spirit will always be contextual and might treat other matters aside from death and dying.
From Spirit Self’s point of view, of course, death is freedom, release from material manifestation. The spirit has been liberated. Free Spirit!
In my search for relevant Fool images, I ran across one card, not depicted here, showing a small shower of coins/pentacles dropping away from a colorful jester. Like the lightweight pouch, I think this speaks to The Fool/Free Spirit not being weighed down by things (coins/pentacles = the earth element and the material world with its ten-thousand things). Of course, that doubles back to the idea of death as a shedding of the thingy-ness of one aspect of what we are in this life.
I love Megan Wyreweden’s sweet, foxy Fool that offers the traditional white rose! Amazingly, after drafting much of this post, I received and read “Brushes with the red fox,” a Substack post by author Robert Moss that began with the following words:
“When the fox is around, the message for me is always Pay attention. The fox is a liminal animal, and its appearances suggest that we are entering an edgy time. I feel a Trickster energy in play when the fox is about.”
Wow!
Now, what’s your take on The Free Spirit? And what do you think about stepping aside so your Spirit Self can teach you a more expansive, sometimes unusual, view of these symbols?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
My next Friday Office Hours Day will be Friday, February 13 (1pm to 3pm Eastern). Reach out for details and to reserve your time.
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