I was reading Helen Luke this morning and came across a little essay on the Fool. This is a trump in the Tarot that has to do with that state of consciousness before birth and after death, a sort of nowhere and everywhere, like atoms and energy. There is no singular location and no place where it doesn’t exist. From this stance it’s only natural to begin thinking of the Divine.
The unknown asks an essential question that begs to be answered as we make our way through life. Once we begin thinking about the ramifications of this eternal mystery, it spreads out in greater ripples of densely unfamiliar territory. This is the place where all our rationalizing and sincere understanding fails us because this energy can’t ever be completely understood and once grasped it vanishes taking with it the powerful feeling of the numinous and the tremendous pull it has on our life. It is a mystery after all, and mysteries can’t be codified and controlled, all we can do is join in the dance.
In this way we are asked to live our lives from this same stance of nowhere and everywhere. We are firmly planted in the everyday, living the dry bones of life that must be lived if we are to survive and thrive. But then there is another piece of our self we glimpse now and then that is more than our frail imagining. A vision of what our life really is, resting at the depths of the mysterious waters that reside within. This is a part of ourselves that’s not easy to live. It demands space to be and move in, rather than carefully planning what’s next.
In this space of nowhere and everywhere an idea may grab us, a deep feeling overwhelms us, or we are compelled to do something unusual or unexpected, certainly unplanned and unknown before the present moment. We don’t know the why or the how, only that we must. This is the numinous making its presence known in our life. We can choose to follow it or not. But in following a path we don’t quite understand or know where it leads is a bit like playing the Fool, we are pulled along without understanding the details or having the course charted. This shadowy territory of nowhere and everywhere wants to be a part of our lives.
In truth it is always there whether we acknowledge it or not, but following this lightening bolt of feeling leads us to a reality that brings us home to the deepest sense of ourselves. We have to be willing to accept we may never fully understand and that it’s not knowing, but trusting, where all the energy and transformation lives.
Opening to the possibility of hosting the mystery without having it figured out is the gift of living in the presence of the everyday Divine.
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