According to the tradition of Tarot and the Tree of Life, the universe is alive. It’s a being, not a mechanism. That’s what the word life in Tree of Life indicates.
Of course, the universe is not an organic being. It is alive in another way. To understand this, we need to consider that being alive means having consciousness.
Consciousness doesn’t depend on bodies. In fact, it was around a long time before the physical universe came into being.
According to the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, consciousness is the mysterious one thing of which all things are made by adaptation.
Everything is a form of spirit. The major arcana are the twenty-two primary variations of the spirit. But the spirit’s variations are endless, like fractals, and no two things in the universe, however infinitesimal, are identical.
We are little spirits that separated from the Grand Spirit and took on a soul. The spirited figure in the picture represents our eternal spark of life.
Much of the spirit remains ineffable, but there are a few traits by which we can identify the spirit. The picture shows the Spirit is youthful, adventurous, and playful. It is always on the lookout for new and greater experiences.
The traditional title of the Spirit card is The Fool. Of course, the spirit ain’t no fool, but it can appear foolish to materialistic minds. For instance, it appears foolish to rely on the guidance of an invisible spirit instead of banking on money, power, and weapons. But since the spirit is the power of powers, it can turn things around when all odds are against you. Like a joker in a card game.
Many great human enterprises looked foolish in the beginning, like finding the Western route to India, inventing an airplane, and mapping the human genome. This takes us to an important truth: the difference between a fool and a genius is just success.
An auspicious Spirit card calls for relying on the spirit and paying attention to our spiritual being, our soul’s eternal career, and the purpose of our incarnation.
An inauspicious Spirit card may indicate that a lack of life power has caused the adversity or resistance in question. It may also indicate materialism, that the querent is stuck in a meaningless rut, or the hazardous reliance on the ever-shifting circumstances of the material world.
When our spirit is done with its current incarnation, it will withdraw from its body. Hence, an inauspicious Spirit card may indicate the approach of the end of an incarnation. Surrounding cards need to validate this. Mind that the Transformation card won’t confirm this, since it signifies immortality and transformation. Transformations keep us alive.
On the Tree of Life, the path of the Spirit card connects the spheres Intention (Aces) and Wisdom (2’s). The white sun in the right upper corner symbolizes the Aces. The spirit gives life to the white sun’s intentions, which turn into intentional seed ideas (Chokmah) that are eager to grow into trees of life. The fruits of these trees are experiences.
The titles and the five core meanings of the Spirit card are:
Enlightenment Tarot title: Spirit
Traditional title: Fool
Power of consciousness: Life power
Constructive use: Spirituality
Unconstructive use: None
Auspicious state of mind: Adventurousness, playfulness
Inauspicious state of mind: None
On the spiritual-intentional level, the life power manifests as spirituality.
On the creative-feely level, the life power manifests as adventurousness.
On the intellectual level, the life power manifests as curiosity.
On the bodily-practical level, the life power manifests as youthfulness.
More Attributions:
Number: 0
Letter: Aleph, meaning bull (the means of cultivation)
Astrology: Uranus
Color: Yellow