Be Cool April Fool — The Willow Path Tarot

Yesterday was April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool’s Day. It’s a day to play practical jokes on people and generally get others to look foolish. Ugh, why?

This is not a holiday I celebrate. I live with one serious 11 year old dog and one rather practical 38 year old man. Any practical joke I played would have to be explicitly spelled out so that no one would miss the joke. Not that I had any urge to play a joke. I am one 42 year old woman who does not like to look like a fool. So there’s that.

Well, actually, there are actually plenty of times when I can see the benefit of looking foolish and will do my best to put aside my pride and get something done that requires a little bit of a sheepish grin. It’s the joke part that gets to me. It feels cruel and unnecessary.

I will ask for directions when I am lost. I will will do a snowplow down a slope that is too difficult for my skiing skills. I will guess a verb conjugation or vocabulary word when speaking a foreign language. I will admit that I’m hungover. I will try new things.

That is the most beautiful aspect of The Fool card in my opinion- trying new things even when we aren’t good at them and will look like a big goof. There is something mortifying about looking incompetent that needs to be rooted out and eradicated from our culture. Why do we feel this sense of shame and embarrassment about not being able to do something we have never tried? It makes perfect sense that we would flub a new task we have never tried before, so why does looking foolish feel so bad?

Well, there is a lot of cultural scorn flung upon the Fool. When we play a practical joke for April Fool’s Day, it does feel like a schadenfreude kind of moment. We try to bring a person down a level, make them look stupid, gullible, or incompetent. I can’t shake the feeling that April Fool’s jokes are mean-spirited in some way. They aren’t the kind of jokes that make the person laugh when they find out about the joke, but rather, feel a little bad about themselves.

I think I am just revealing how un-fun I am. Ha!

It is commonly believed that the origin of April Fool’s Day comes from around 500 years ago when the pope changed the calendar from the Julian calendar which celebrated the first day of the year on April 1st, to the Gregorian calendar, which celebrated the first day of the year on January 1st. Anyone who wasn’t in the know and continued to celebrated the new year on April 1st was considered to be ignorant or foolish. Now we play pranks on anyone unassuming enough to not realize it is April 1st when they wake up in the morning, otherwise known as the best time to play pranks on April Fool’s Day.

In the calendar sense I do like celebrating April Fool’s Day and may even want to be a Fool myself. I like the idea that the year starts on April 1st. It makes perfect sense in terms of the Wheel of the Year. Of course the year would start on the first day of Spring! As I wrote about last week, this is the beginning of the zodiac year and overall, it just feels like the start of something now. January 1st just feels like winter, more like an ending or a hibernation, not the first steps into the new year.

And those first steps can be foolish and awkward and unpracticed. The thing I love about the Fool card in the tarot is that it reminds me to have a beginner’s mind, otherwise known as a growth mindset. A mind that is open and willing to learn and explore sounds like a wonderful thing to me. I don’t want to get stuck or fixed in a mindset and not be able to try new things just because I will look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I won’t know what I’m doing! That’s the beauty of trying something new!

The Fool tarot card from the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck.

So, I like to go out of my way to find new experiences, new hobbies, new places to explore so that I can feel that uncertainty and unsteadiness that comes from growing. As I already stated, I hate to look like a fool, but I’m doing my best to get over it. Because the Fool is awesome. Look at the image from the card in the Rider Waite Smith deck. This person has some serious joie de vivre! I want to feel that alive and joyous. I want to hold a single with such purpose. I want to set off on a journey with just a small bundle of possessions. I want to take my dog on a walk some place adventurous and revel in the sunshine on my face. I want to step off a cliff into a new life, knowing that the Universe has my back.

What wild and wonderful things could happen if you weren’t afraid to try, to look foolish in the trying, and to not give a damn and go onward anyway? And I do think it’s important to not give a damn, that’s what I’m striving for. It’s one thing to do something hard and endure the japes and laughs of those around you, but I don’t want you to need endless endurance. I want you to totally not give a shit. And that is possible. I don’t think you have to power through and put energy into ignoring people around you forever. You can reach a point when you really don’t care one way or another what other people think, because you are doing what you love and that is the only thing in your mind. This is possible for each of us.

That’s the power of the Fool, and it is a power worth cultivating. Think of all of the adventures you could have. Think of all the new things you could try. Think of the choices you would make if you weren’t constantly worried about what other people think of you. Put aside the judgment and expectations of your family and friends, and your former self, and let the possibility of what you actually want to take center stage.

Put on a costume if you need to step into this role. Get yourself a bouquet or a single flower to bring the freshness of a new year into your environment. Go skipping down the street with your dog, heedless of where you’re trying to get or how you’re trying to get there (ya know, just don’t get hit by a car, though).

It’s April. It’s the start of a new year. It’s time to be who you want to be. Not all at once, but one step at a time in the direction that calls to you. And who cares if you look foolish doing it. It just might be fun!