The Minor Arcana Storyline |
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The Fool, the unmolded potential, has gotten his tools from the Magician. Now he must explore the lessons that each of them has to teach. With the Aces, we have the first glimpse of the potential: the first stirrings of emotion and intuition of the Cups, the first foundations of the material world with the Coins, the first wispy tendrils of ideas with the Swords, and the first spark of creativity with the Wands. The Fool recognizes that this is only potential; there is still serious work to be done to turn this potential into a reality. Making the conscious decision to begin, The Fool sets in to work. During his study and practice with the potential presented to him, he discovers the duality of the potential. Depending on the work he puts in and the choices that he makes along the way, the potential could grow into something positive or something negative; only time will tell if The Fool will learn the lessons and make the choices necessary to succeed.
The next lesson The Fool must learn is balance, which is presented to him by the Twos. Relationships, partnerships, ideas, groups; all of them must have balance in order to survive. The creative force of the Wands maintains a balance under its own direction as it sends it energy to the task assigned by The Fool. Thinking this lesson is easy; he turns his attention to the Swords. Conflicting ideas and states of mind are harder to work through, especially when neither side wants to back down. The situation is at a stalemate, and careful discussion is necessary to maintain the balance of power. Understanding the depths of emotion that can run alongside and underneath these ideas leads The Fool next to the Cups. The realm of emotions are even harder to balance; learning how to compromise, give, and take without hurting or being hurt leads him to discover his Soul Mate, the one heart that can match his own. Balancing his creativity, thoughts, the study he is undergoing, the work that he must do, and this new relationship leaves him feeling much like a juggler. This feeling leads him to the Coins, which teaches him that maintaining the balance may mean letting go of one of the balls he has in the air. After all, it is better to let one fall and keep juggling than to lose them all and have to stop.
The third lesson facing The Fool has two sides: teamwork and the spirit of community on the one hand, leadership and the control of that community on the other. With the first stirrings of community spirit, The Fool discovers the lesson of the Cups: togetherness can heighten our enjoyment of happy times and lighten the burdens of dark times. With this new feeling, The Fool begins to crave a closer connection with his family and friends. With their support on his side, he discovers that work can be both financially and emotionally fulfilling. Working toward a goal, seeing that goal come into focus, and realizing all that he has accomplished thus far leads him to the lesson of the Coins: hard work and service are rewards unto themselves. The satisfaction that The Fool feels as he sees how far he has come can never be taken away. With this knowledge, he can now face the necessary teamwork of creatively finishing a project with a team of his peers and learn the dynamics of the group with the power of the Wands. This rush of creative energy empowers The Fool and, with his ideas flowing, he takes charge of the group to give them direction so that the creative energy will not be wasted and scattered. However, in managing the group, The Fool runs face to face with the lesson of the Swords: careless, cold, merely logical words can so easily wound the hearts of those under his charge. The Fool has had to learn to temper his words with kindness, getting the ideas across without cutting emotions to the core with the sword's double-edged blade. It is a humbling lesson, but The Fool learns quickly.
After the hard lessons he has learned, things have reached a point of stasis with the fours. His creative energy exhausted for now, The Fool can take a well-deserved rest as the power of the Wands manifests in the first stage of completion in the project he has been building. The satisfaction that he feels at the progress he has made leads him to want to settle into marriage with his newly found love. The struggles and competition are over for the moment and the Swords' energy tells him that a truce has been declared. He can rest for a while before beginning the fight again. Maintaining a home with his wife, he settles quickly into a routine and, just as quickly, begins to notice that both he and his wife are becoming bored. The lesson of the Cups is all too clear; the relationship, in this routine, has lapsed into stagnation. Unsure of how to fix this problem without hurting his wife or himself, The Fool plunges himself into work. He struggles to maintain all that he has built, turning down new opportunities that seem too risky. The Fool is terrified of losing all that he has already built. The feelings of dissatisfaction at home lead him to see that nothing in his life is changing or growing at the moment; he has been so afraid of losing what he has already that he has neglected to try for something new in the hopes of expanding his business. With the lesson of the Coins, The Fool suddenly realizes that maintaining in order to keep from losing also means that he can never gain. Surprisingly enough, this lesson leads him to the same conclusion with his marriage; the relationship with his wife has to grow and change if it is to survive. With this new revelation, The Fool begins making subtle changes to this time of stasis, renewing his heart, his ideas, his courage and convictions. The Fool has a new lease on all areas of his life.
With the lesson of the fives, The Fool comes face to face with struggles, conflicts, and loss. His creative energy, fueled by the Wands, is helping him to expand his enterprises further into the world, but it is also breeding conflicts with his competitors. The struggles he is facing here, only aggravated by the inner turmoil he is feeling as his heart and mind battle one another over the correct choices for him to make, begin to take their toll on his courage. The Fool begins to second-guess himself. His competitors see this and take advantage of this opportunity to strike. The lesson of the Swords is now made; a wily, cunning opponent has taken advantage of his moment of weakness and cheated him out of a victory. As The Fool is humbled by this loss, he notices the arrogance and pride displayed by the victor and vows never to behave this way when he is on the other side of this situation. Why make a loss even worse by making the person involved feel they are worthless? It seems so cruel to him.
Unfortunately, this loss means major damage to his business as all that he has built now seems to crumble before his eyes. He feels that he has lost everything. In despair, he walks around the empty building looking at all the empty shelves that once held so many beautiful things. How will he tell his wife? He has to face her sooner or later, so The Fool returns home and explains what has happened. Feeling lost and helpless, he breaks down. His wife, in true loving fashion, teaches him the lesson of the Cups; he may have lost some of what he has built, but not all. He still has his home, his wife, his family, and he does still own the business. The Fool has been letting the pain of a loss blind him to what he still has in his life. Together, the two of them return to the empty building that once held a thriving business and begin to make plans. All is not lost; he simply has to find a new opportunity and begin again. With this revelation, The Fool learns the lesson of the Coins. After the dark period of the soul that these losses brought, he has found new hope and support. He has opened his eyes and found his way out of the mess. With renewed determination, The Fool sets in to work.
While trying to recover from this period of loss, The Fool understands that now is the time to rebalance his life again: the lesson of the sixes. He begins to think back on his past and remember all the happy times that he has experienced. He remembers the hard times as well, and all of the lessons that he has learned from each of them. He realizes that even out of struggles he has learned something that has made him stronger or made his life better. He begins to see all that he has already survived and all of the wonderful blessings that those struggles also brought along with them. This is the lesson of the Cups. Knowing what he is capable of doing and what he already endured, and realizing that the love and support of his family will always be there for him, leads him to a feeling of genuine concern for all of those people in the world who do not have the blessings or the opportunities that he has had. He senses a feeling of shame that he has forgotten to think of others, those still struggling and those who have been beaten down to the point that they have lost all hope. These feelings lead him to the lesson of the Coins: it is time to give back, to show generosity to others. After all, it was the generosity shown to him that allowed him to start his own business in the first place.
The stirring of an idea enters his mind. The power of the Swords tells him that a change of scene might be necessary to solve his problems. He decides to sell the empty building that he had originally housed his business in, a small, closed-in building in an upscale neighborhood, and reinvests this money in an old, but serviceable warehouse in the less prosperous part of town, what some people may call the slums. Where other people look at the area with distaste, The Fool sees an opportunity; one that will expand his business and help others at the same time. It is the poor and downtrodden of the world that is most in need of a new job, one that he could offer. The new warehouse, though old and rundown, is huge, its opportunities endless. The Fool and his wife make the rounds of the neighborhood, calling on the local families and describing their ideas. With the help of the villagers, The Fool now has a prospering new business that offers new jobs and help to the people who needed it the most. Being close to the docks, The Fool has expanded his business into shipping and brought even greater rewards to the business and the people it serves. With the power of the Wands, The Fool sees that this new venture has taken off on the right foot, everything is going well and he can enjoy a well-deserved victory. The pride he feels in what he has accomplished here only makes him want to try that much harder, to keep striving forever forward.
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