From the Touchstone Tarot, the Fool; from the John Waterhouse Oracle, Juliet:
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
This Fool has paused from playing his flute and appears to be listening. Is he listening to something outside of himself or the music in his own head? Hopefully before he walks off that cliff he's done both. It never hurts to hear from those who have some life lived behind them. Yet the young can lack discernment and prudence, such as Waterhouse's Juliet shows. But did she believe she had no other choice but to take such great a risk? When she refused to marry the man her father chose for her, Lord Capulet threatened to let her become a street urchin, says he will allow her to rot in prison, and states that he and his wife had one too many children. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?" People who have their backs shoved to the wall often take uncalculated risks.
Throughout life we can make a series of missteps. Some of those 'falls' lead to a much better outcome than the path we were on.
ReplyDeleteI think that describes the Fool well; he is naive and without experience. But at least he learns on his journey, which is more than some people do!
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