The tarot deck is comprised of 78 cards. Twenty-two form the Major Arcana. The remaining 66 form the Minor Arcana, represented by 14 cards in four suits: Pentacles, Swords, Cups, and Wands.
Fool (0)
The first card in the Major Arcana, The Fool depicts a young man dancing on the edge of a mountain cliff, his face tilted with reverence toward the sun. Notice the attention to detail: the small white dog leaping with abandon by his right foot, the boy’s wavy golden hair topped with a small cap sporting a flowing purple feather—we will see the same feather on the child in the nineteenth card, The Sun—the jewel-toned flowered tunic over a white long-sleeved shirt, the bright yellow calf-length boots, the single white rose in one hand, the long stick slung over his shoulder, a small brown bag tied to the end of it. Some believe the bag contains his life experiences, others his memories of past lives; whatever the case, he carries it lightly, without any sense of burden.
The imagery evokes a sense of freedom, of a journey ready to begin. Even the card’s number is meaningful: an egg-shaped zero, from which new life will begin. Only one other card in tarot features someone dancing—number 21, The World, the final card in the Major Arcana. Signifying the end, it features a woman centered inside an egg-shaped wreath, the journey coming full circle.
A Fool’s Journey, the third book in my Marketville Mystery series, tells the story of Brandon Colbeck, a young college dropout who leaves home in 2000 to “find himself” on a self-proclaimed fool’s journey. Fast forward almost 20 years, and no one—not friends or family—have seen or heard from him since. The only clue? A week before leaving, Brandon gets a half-finished tattoo of The Fool, the first card in the Major Arcana in tarot.
Many believe the Major Arcana is The Fool’s Journey as he travels through life, making discoveries and learning along the way, until his journey is complete. Some believe the concept was first embraced by Eden Gray in her 1969 book, The Tarot Revealed, which delved into the meaning of tarot cards as they relate to fortunetelling, and played an integral part in the creation of the contemporary interest in tarot in general, and her interpretation of The Fool’s Journey in particular. However, A.E. Waite, the designer of the card, wrote, some eighty years earlier, “he is a prince of the other world in his travels through this one.”