20170301_GLR CARDS E_BOOK

THE FOOL
JOURNEY / THE CARD WITHOUT NUMBER
That the FOOL has no number makes him the person that is not entirely part of the
game. Like the joker of traditional card games, he has got some strange power, or
rather the power of the stranger. As such he can see better than anybody else, for he
has gotthe benefit of insight. But he is awarethat hewill remain the stranger.
The GLR FOOL is a hunter, busy with a hare. In the distance is the city. Does he
protect it with his shotgun or is he solely far from it, hunting? Between the two
places, there is a way, a difficult one (followed by Lot and his daughters, by Dürer).
Above the hunter in the blue sky stands a protective wing. Mary appears on it, da
Messina’s Virgin Annunciate, whose hands here seem to warn the man against
some danger. Our hunter is Velasquez’s Philip IV of Spain. King Philip considered
the inheritance of a large empire an inevitable condition. Historians still debate on
him being or not a good king. Did our Philip the hunter feel a stranger to his people
or was he a strong protector, like the lion on his gun, of his empire? Trump FOOLS
might not be those to be trusted, this is not their role, but they possess a knowledge
that nobody has.
Do the readers feel that they are the FOOL themselves, in a retirement of some sort
and from which they could learn by benefiting from a privileged point of view on a
distant situation? Do they think they have to deal with a FOOL and recognize
him/heras such? Is there some FOOL in them, craving from freedom or trying to be
protective? From Mary in the sky, to the king in the front, Lot and his daughters on
the way, to the people in the valley, the FOOL reminds us that distance puts things
into perspective but alsothat the unconscious is full of dark shadows.
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