earlier this year I posted my goals for 2005. I entitled the post "out with the tiger, in with the spider". I don't know if my dear readers understood what I meant. It is a remark that reminds me of a scene in my life. Simply, a spider letting itself down from my chandelier on it's one thread. Stopping on the mint green tablecloth and walking to the edge only to let itself down onto the floor and walk across the floor in the same direction.
Another time I was participating in a ritual theatre group run by Antero Alli, called Paratheatrical Ritual Work. It was interesting. We went through this series of warm-up to turn on the body. Then we did various authentic improv interactions within an esoteric setting. Interacting with ourselves, our preconceptions of themes, emotions, feelings, and sometimes with others or objects. One such ritual I will not forget. The room had been taped off into a sunburst with four sections with a 5th place that two of the sections opened on. This was what you could call the Void. From the void was section 1, then section 2, then section 3 and finally 4 which then lead back into the void as well as section 1. When you crossed that line from void into section 1, that was birth: into this world with any and all conceptions. You passed through section 1 and as you went into section 2, puberty strikes, Section 2 to 3 transition was into ripe middle age, section 3 into 4: into later years and advanced age, and as you returned to the void, you experienced your death. Each person in the group entered and we started to progress through the sections. I felt very light, I could not get identified with each of the sections fully. I felt them and experienced them as authentically as I could, but I still felt I was missing. And as I went from each section to the other, it was the transition that most interested me. It was the line I crossed (an actual line was taped on the floor). I was interested in the role of the line and once you went across, could you go back. I became obsessed with the transitions and lines on the floor. I had to really slow myself down and authentically feel what each of the sections were because I could not wait to be finished with them. As I finished the cycle... and was about to step back into the void, my foot was instead drawn to be placed on the line separating section 4 from section 1. And I made my next pass around the sections walking on the lines. Watching my colleagues authentically act their experiences in the full blown section. I saw a relationship bloom and saw the pain when one was ready to move on and had to tear away from the other. I saw mothering. I saw lovers. I saw families. I saw friends that went together their entire life. I saw people trying to cheat the cycle and attempt to return. My participation changed - I was no longer an active participant in the sections. I was the spider on the webs. I was the watcher. I was the keeper of the sections. There were laws that I upheld. I refused to let someone return to a previous section. I made someone break their promise of return with the placement of my palm on his forehead. I did not feel power in this. I knew of his promise. I had made no decision to let pass or refrain. But at the moment he attempted to cross, I was there, and my hand also. I watched while all participants completed the sections and then I danced. I danced on the webs. It was so beautiful. I cleaned the threads. I prepared them for their next dance.
A quick search via google bring me:
It's the Trickster who points out the flaws in our carefully managed societies. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates complex schemes and generally plays with the Laws of the Universe. He constantly questions the rules, and causes us to question these same rules. The Trickster appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded, when old ways need to be changed.
The Trickster is a creator, a joker, a truth teller, a story teller, a transformer. We are most accessible to the gifts of the Trickster when we ourselves are at, or near, boundaries - when we are experiencing transition states. As an archetype, the Trickster, the boundary dweller, finds expression through human imagination and experience.
Quite interesting, hmmm?
In my business life I define my role as the glue that dries clear. This is perhaps another way of saying, I'm the one that builds the web that catches the pieces. As the pieces come together the hold by way of their own gravity and the web falls away. And thus my role as gentle rebel falls away and like Cain, I walk the earth in search of the next boundary to blow. (In the meantime my own worldview is re-molded and shaped and shattered and changed).
So 2005 - the year of being authentic to myself. Myself as the trickster rebel fool. Dancing with the laws of the Universe, bending them, twisting them into a new revelations for the Universe. Universal wild card.
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