In the cards this week: Beginner's Mind
And some sound reasoning
This week's Minoan Tarot cards:
The Fool: This is the card of Beginner's Mind. This week it reminds us to trust in the universe to provide what we need - let it happen and don't fight against it.
Ace of Labryses: Put on your thinking cap and puzzle out the solution to your problems. Be sure to make room for new ideas and allow for change.
This deck is my creation, my art. Details and lots more card pix here.
It’s interesting how any two Tarot cards might connect with each other. Each card has multiple layers of meaning. How are we to know which one(s) apply to a given reading? In a two-card reading like this, I like to find the places where the cards connect or overlap, where they speak to each other, if you will.
It took me a few moments of contemplation to realize the connection between the Fool and the Ace of Labryses. The connection point: allowing new things into our lives.
The Fool is obviously the ultimate New Things card, the proverbial blank slate, Zen Beginner’s Mind, and so on. But there’s another aspect as well, that of circularity: The card is both the first and last one in the deck, number zero and number 22.
Life isn’t a straight line.
We circle back around all the time, working our way through cycles of being. But a circle is a flat, two-dimensional shape.
Life is really more like a spiral.
When you circle back around, you’re not the same person you were when you reached that point the last time around. Time has moved on, and you have changed. Grown.
The Fool allows themselves to slide forward around that spiral instead of clinging to the flat, 2D space of the original circle.
Moving forward can be scary, sure. We’ve all experienced the desire to cling to the doorframe like a cartoon character who doesn’t want to be pushed through into the next space.
The Fool assures us that we can trust the universe (deity, higher self, True Nature, the Ground of All Being, however you view it) and be open to what comes next, even if our lizard brains are telling us to be scared.
Let go of that doorframe.
The Ace of Labryses also points to new ideas, to opening our minds to whatever might come instead of clinging to old ways of thinking. This card speaks to our thought processes and problem-solving abilities, the practice of reasoning our way to useful solutions, even if they’re new and different and maybe kind of weird.
Outside the box. Box? What box?
It’s like the saying (which may or may not have come from Albert Einstein) that we can’t solve our problems using the same level of thinking that created them.
The Ace of Labryses tells us to level up our thinking. The Fool reminds us that to do that, we have to drop our biases and pre-conceived notions.
That’s no easy task.
But I think it’s one worth working on, both within our individual lives and the issues the Big World is facing right now.
What do you think?
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About Laura Perry
I'm the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, a worldwide inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. I'm also an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. My spiritual practice includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write pagan / polytheist / magical non-fiction and fiction across several different subjects and genres. My book of modern Minoan myths is now available in paperback and hardcover, ebook coming soon. My Minoan title in the Moon Books Pantheons series is now available for pre-order and will be released on 26 August 2025. I’m also an avid herb and vegetable gardener and living history demonstrator (just in case you thought all I ever did was write books and create art).
Reading this gave me a mental picture, Dutch artist Maurits Escher-style: The Fool climbing a never-ending Spiral, until that Spiral (magically) becomes something different. A flock of birds flying off. The illusion has broken, nothing is what it seems. Time to grow wings...
This is the motto of our times, but we need to be mindful that this may include re-visiting old(fashioned) values and ways of living that served our ancestors and that would be helpful to pass on to the next generation.