The Fool sat at the foot of a woman with bird feet and wings perched on a two-headed lion and between two screech owls. The woman was below two apple trees that were sagging from so many apples.
I have been here longer than any man, the woman said, I have never needed any of them and I find that I can be a mother without offspring.
I was made by the Priestess, she continued, to show that duality doesn’t mean soul mates exist. I am fine alone with my angels and demons.
An apple fell to the ground and rolled in a semi-circle before settling on the earth to rot.
The psychics, the oracles, and the fortune-tellers pray to me, the woman said, I am the guiding force behind what is known of the future. I see the strings and the possibilities. I always see the harder way that gives one a bigger success than the easier ways.
The lion’s left head began licking his paw while the other sat his head down and began sleeping. The owls screeched at the Fool as he sat there looking up at the woman with the bird legs and wings. She was very maternal to him. He felt like she was closer to the Empress in a mother figure than the Priestess, but he could see the Priestess’s arcane esoteric touch.
I am the quietest of your intuitions, she said, I am the last resort when you feel like you are diving into a decision. I’m the reason it works out. You have to have the ability to listen very hard to the silence to hear me.
He knew who she was then. He had listened for her voice many times when he stood at a fork in the road and didn’t have any strong feeling in any direction, but when he closed his eyes and listened to the breeze rustle the leaves he always felt a very slight inspiration to go one way over the other. It was so slight that it would be easy to ignore.
He has ignored it before. It always seemed like it wasn’t the best direction to go or that the other way was easier, but in retrospect, the times he ignored that quiet voice led him to disaster.
I still represent a duality, the woman said, but it is within yourself and not matching the opposite. My lions show that there needs to be a balance. My owls show that one must know when to work hard and when to rest.
I was created by the same clay as man, she continued, but wasn’t meant to stand by his side. I was meant to find my own purpose and that purpose is being the guardian of those that seek.
The Fool noticed paths that grew out from beneath the lions that created a spider web design. The paths spiraled out and branched out, and seemed infinite in choices. The Fool was overwhelmed by the choices that were laid out before him. Which path does he take?
You won’t have to make that decision, Fool, she said, that will be up to the card reader. Maybe this is the final place, so you can rest here and not have to go anywhere, but if it isn’t, the next card will show you which path to take to get there. Maybe I’m the beginning, so remember that this is where you started when you end somewhere.
The Fool felt better that maybe something or someone else was in charge of the next move.