You know, I’ve had an issue with The Fool in the Tarot being labeled 0 (zero) since I was seven years old. I guess, that 46 years is enough time for an idea to steep.
“I’ve never seen a wild thing sorry for itself. ~ D.H. Lawrence
I do not think the O in the middle of the top of the card is a zero. I don‘t think it is a number at all or the concept of zero. One, all the other numbers are at the bottom. Certainly, a number 0 at the top could be a telling anomaly, like the head of the ouroboros’ (uroburos) potentiality to bite its tail prior to the tail forming, a “nothing about the caterpillar tells it about the butterfly“ kind of thing, though, I grimace at that with a pretty hefty ‘Nope.’
So, what do I feel from an artist’s perspective? Well, Pamela Coleman-Smith designed the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) Tarot cards. And, I feel the O at the top of The Fool in the RWS is a Day Sky Full Moon. I think that goes a long way to include everything in the card like a whole oak tree in an acorn. The Sun. The Day Sky Full Moon. The elements. The Archetypes all in an unseen place beyond much like the Buddhist Concept of the Disappearing Path indicated by the cliff’s edge right in front of the Fool. Then, all of the unseen things are seen, and the whole oak tree of the deck is in the acorn of The Fool.
How does the O in the top middle of this card image land for you as a Day Sky Full Moon? No need to research this. You won‘t find any attributions as the idea is mine, a personal, Tarot acorn so to speak. My Fool sees the world from the moon, so the earth is what waxes and wanes and is New and is Full through cycles for the Mystereum Fool. How does the O as a Day Sky Full Moon land for you?
Blog (c) 2021 Jordan Hoggard
Tarot in the Land of Mystereum Fool card (c) 2010 Jordan Hoggard
The Fool images from the Rider Waite Smith deck (c) US Games, Inc.