The trickster is an
alchemist, a magician, creating realities in the duality of time and illusion.
In mythology, and in the
study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man,
woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal
rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen (2001) that the term
"Trickster" was probably first used in this context by Daniel G.
Brinton in 1885.
The trickster deity breaks
the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but
usually with ultimately positive effects. Often, the rule-breaking takes the
form of tricks (eg. Eris) or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or
both; they are often very funny even when considered sacred or performing
important cultural tasks. In many cultures, (as may be seen in Greek, Norse or
Slavic folktales, along with Native American/First Nations lore), the trickster
and the culture hero are often combined. To illustrate: Prometheus, in Greek mythology,
stole fire from the gods to give it to humans.
He is more of a culture hero
than a trickster. In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the
coyote (Southwestern United States) or raven (Pacific Northwest and coastal
British Columbia) stole fire from the gods (stars or sun) and are more
tricksters than culture heroes. This is primarily because of other stories
involving these spirits: Prometheus was a Titan, whereas coyote and raven are
usually seen as jokesters and pranksters.
Frequently the Trickster
figure exhibits gender variability, changing gender roles and engaging in
same-sex practices. Such figures appear in Native American and First Nations
mythologies, where they are said to have a two-spirit nature. Loki, the Norse
trickster, also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming
pregnant; interestingly, he shares the ability to change genders with Odin, who
despite being nominally the chief Norse deity also possesses many
characteristics of the Trickster.
The Trickster is an example
of a Jungian Archetype. The Fool survives in modern playing cards as the Joker.
In modern literature the trickster survivors as a character archetype, not
necessarily supernatural or divine, therefore better described as a stock
character.
In later folklore, the
trickster is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to
survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a
defense. For example many typical fairy tales have the King who wants to find
the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and
valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant
comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, he evades
or fools monsters and villains and dangers with unorthodox manners. Therefore
the most unlikely candidate passes the trials receives the reward. More modern
and obvious examples of that type are Bugs Bunny and The Tramp (Charlie
Chaplin).
The trickster is an important
archetype in the history of man. He is a god, yet he is not. He is the
wise-fool. It is he, through his creations that destroy, points out the flaws
in carefully constructed societies of man. He rebels against authority, pokes
fun at the overly serious, creates convoluted schemes, that may or may not
work, plays with the Laws of the Universe and is sometimes his own worst enemy.
He exists to question, to cause us to question not accept things blindly. He
appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded needs to be torn down built
anew. He is the Destroyer of Worlds at the same time the savior of us all.
The Trickster lives inside
and outside of Time. He is of our world, yet not of our world, so our laws will
not always apply. Other symbols, associated with him include keys, clock,
masks, infinity among other mythological images
Trickster is a creator, a
joker, a truth teller, a story teller, a transformer linked to the spiritual
frequency changes humanity is experiencing at this time.
We seem most accessible to
the synchronistic gifts of the Trickster when we ourselves are at or near
boundaries or are experiencing transition states, periods of major life
transitions seem to be occasioned by an abundance of meaningful coincidence.
Personal growth sees not only to facilitate synchronicity, but in turn to be
facilitated by it. As an archetype, the Trickster, the boundary dweller, finds
expression through human imagination and experience.
The Trickster as an Alchemist
Shamanic aspect that
transforms or evolves
We live in a dual reality,
opposite polarities, yin /yang, male/female, good/ evil, God/Devil or
Trickster. Our reality is created by electromagnetic energy fields, the poles
(North and South), positive and negative energy. This is much like a game. In
order to win the game you must create balance. You can beat the trickster if
you ignore that which he brings as challenges.
Our soul spirals its
consciousness into a physical body to experience different roles and emotions.
The trickster 'stirs the pot' and creates the drama, to that end.
When you abuse someone, that
is the trickster in you, showing itself. When you allow yourself to be abused,
playing the victim, and remain stagnant in your life, the trickster aspect of
you is in control.
The trickster seems to have
supernatural powers which help him perform his tricks. He lives, dies, comes
back, shape shifts, all sorts of magic as our reality is nothing more than an
illusion. It is the mythology of our reality, birth, death, and rebirth from
the ashes, the flame of creation.
There are times the Trickster
brings lessons that we came into this experience. Trickster is almost always
portrayed as male. In the duality he represents the lower emotions, lower
chakras, that which gets us into mischief. This represents the aggressive side
that deals with the lower frequency emotions, fate, jealousy, anger, self
destruction, rage, depression and goes to mental illness.
Trickster is the emotional
body, our Inner Child or wounded soul, who evolves in our lifetimes as it spirals
back to higher light.
The concept of the Trickster
is as much a part of humanity's history as the concept of God. All creational
myths deal with polarity, good god vs. bad god, the duality of our nature and
with each of us. To be emotionally challenged, is to listen to the voice of the
trickster and live in a space of drama and negative emotions. To create balance
is to live in the so-called 'god aspect' of who we are.
Physical reality is a game in
which the Trickster challenges us at every turn. That is his role in the
duality of this bio-genetic experiment in liner tome and emotion.
Trickster is the teacher,
when you attract lessons into one's life. With his lessons, he awakens us to
who we are and allows us to explore the true purpose of our soul's journey in
the holographic experience through which we experience consciously at this
level of awareness.
His energy allows us to break
out of old stereotypes, whether they've been imposed by ourselves, our
families, our culture, or circumstance. This is the energy that opens the world
of limitless possibilities and it behooves us all to work with it before it
destroys us, to touch the Trickster as he touches us.
Trickster is a teacher,
survivor, hero, always traveling, outrageous and cunning, foolish and wise,
mischievous and often doing good despite himself. He is a metaphor for the
evolution of consciousness in the alchemy of time.
Trickster Roles
Eshu
African people have tales
about tricksters (hare, spider, tortoise, etc.), which slaves brought to the
New World.
In Yoruba mythology, Eshu is
an Orisha, and one of the most respected deities of the tradition. He has a
wide range of responsibilities: the protector of travelers, god of roads,
particularly crossroads, the deity with the power over fortune and misfortune,
and the personification of death, a psycho pomp.
Every magical ceremony or
ritual began with an offering to Eshu; failure to do so guarantees failure in
the intent of the ceremony. Within the Orisa'Ifa, Santeria/Lukumi religion
developed by the descendents of enslaved West African, Eshu was identified with
Saint Anthony or Saint Michael, depending on the situation.
He is identified by the
Colours red and black, or black and white and his caminos, or paths (compare:
avatar) are often represented carrying a cane, shepherd's crook, as well as a
pipe.
Eshu is a trickster-god, and
plays frequently tempting choices for the purpose of causing maturation. He is
a difficult teacher, but a good one. As an example, Eshu was walking down the
road one day, wearing a hat that was red on one side and blue on the other.
Sometime after he departed, the villagers who had seen him began arguing about
whether the stranger's hat was blue or red. The villagers on one side of the
road had only been capable of seeing the blue side, and the villagers on the
other side had only been capable of seeing the red half. They nearly fought
over the argument, until Eshu came back and cleared the mystery, teaching the
villagers about how one's perspective can alter one's perception of reality,
and can be easily fooled.
(In many versions of this
tale, the two tribes were not stopped short of violence; they actually
annihilated each other, and Eshu laughed at the result, saying "Bringing
strife is my greatest joy". Eshu is thus a prototype of the atheistic view
of God's nature.)
Amaguq
In Inuit mythology Amaguq is
a trickster and wolf god.
Japanese Culture
Kitsune
In Japanese folklore, the
kitsune are often presented as tricksters, sometimes very malevolent ones. The
trickster kitsune employ their magical powers to play tricks on people; those
portrayed in a favorable light tend to choose as targets overly-proud samurai,
greedy merchants, and boastful commoners, while the more cruel kitsune tend to
abuse poor tradesmen and farmers or Buddhist monks.
Susanoo
Nezha
Nezha is a deity, the enfant
terrible Trickster of Chinese mythology. Nezha is often depicted flying in the
sky with a wheel of fire under each foot, a golden hoop, The Cosmic Ring around
his shoulder, and a spear in his hands. Nezha is usually depicted as youth and
rarely as an adult. As the third son of a military commander called Li Jing, a
military leader in Chentangguan Fortress, his birth was peculiar. When his
mother got pregnant, she waited for three years to deliver the boy, but
unfortunately a meat ball was born. His father got so angry that he split it
with sword, thus finally Nezha jumped out with full figure and grew rapidly,
even though his mind and temperament were that of a child. He flayed and
disemboweled himself after committing several crimes in the eyes of the
Heavenly Court but was brought back to life by a Taoist priest who used lotus
blossoms to reconstruct a body for his soul to inhabit. Some traced his origins
to the Vedic god Nalakuvara, and the legend goes that he was born in the Shang
dynasty, and he is also identified with the Japanese god Nataku.
Krishna
The World Magician, tricking
all men and gods by his playful ruses as an incarnation of Vishnu, Lord of the
World.
Loki Norse Mythology
Greek Mythology
Eris, Prometheus, Hephaestos,
Hermes -- Hermes Trismegistus -- Odysseus (example of a human trickster, who
manages to evade dangers thanks to his wits. The Cyclops Polyphemus is an
example of this)
Reynard The Fox
Reynard the Fox, also known
as Renard, Renart, Reinard, Reinecke, Reinhardus, and by many other spelling
variations, is a trickster figure whose tale is told in a number of
anthropomorphic fables from medieval Europe.
He seems to have originated
in French folklore. An extensive treatment of the character is the Old French
Le Roman de Renart from around 1175, which sets the typical setting. Reynard
has been summoned to the court of king Noble, or Leo, the Lion, to answer
charges brought against him by Isengrim the Wolf. Other anthropomorphic
animals, including Bruin the Bear, Baldwin the Ass, Tibert (Tybalt) the Cat,
and Hirsent the She-wolf, appear to give testimony against him, which Reynard
always proves false by one stratagem or another. The stories typically involve
satire whose usual butts are the aristocracy and the clergy, making Reynard a
peasant-hero character. Reynart's principal castle, Maleperduys, is available
to him whenever he needs to hide away from his enemies. Some of the tales
feature Reynard's funeral, where his enemies gather to deliver maudlin elegies
full of insincere piety, and which features Reynard's posthumous revenge.
Till Eulenspiegel
Character who originated in
Middle Low German oral tradition. In the folk story, he is presented as a trickster
who played practical jokes on his contemporaries. Although craftsmen are
featured as the main victims of his pranks, neither the nobility nor the pope
are exempt from being fooled by him.
Br-er Rabbit, Tar Baby
The tar baby was a trap made
of tar used to capture Br'er Rabbit in a story which is part of American
plantation folklore. Br'er Fox played on Br'er Rabbit's vanity and gullibility
to goad Br'er Rabbit into attacking the fake and becoming stuck. A similar tale
from African folklore has the trickster god Anansi in the role of Br'er Rabbit.
The story was originally published in Harper's Weekly by Robert Roosevelt of
Sayville, New York. Years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the tar baby in
his Uncle Remus stories.
Coyote
The trickster is teacher,
survivor and fool, coyote has inhabited this land we call America much longer
than the later arriving humans from Asia, who have only been here about 10,000
years or so. The European refugees who started showing up around 500 years ago
and who now act as if they own the place, do not pay as much attention to
Coyote as do their indigenous predecessors. The small prairie wolf known as
coyote mostly attracts their interest in a long standing, unsuccessful effort
at extermination; but this creature with a perpetual bounty on its hide
resembling a medium-size dog with a narrow face, tawny fur and a bushy tail, is
only one aspect of what native American peoples have called Coyote, Coyote Man
and Old Man Coyote.
In some Native American
traditions, Coyote impersonates the Creator, making humans out of mud and
bringing into being the buffalo, elk, deer, antelope and bear. In these myths,
Coyote-Creator is never mentioned as an animal, though he can and does meet his
animal counterpart, coyote; and they walk and talk together, addressing the
other as "elder brother" and "younger brother." In these
traditions the spiritual and corporeal are brothers who always walk and talk
together.
While coyotes (the animal)
are certainly responsible for destroying some domestic livestock, they are
important to the larger environment as scavengers and destroyers of rodents.
They are omnivorous feeders; they prey on small animals, eat plant matter,
carrion and garbage, and they sometimes though not regularly team up to hunt
larger animals. They are an invaluable part of a healthy ecology and
environment, which sustains all life, including that of domestic livestock.
That the livestock industry
has waged a brutal, unrelenting and environmentally irresponsible slaughter
(most of it at taxpayer, not industry, expense) of coyote for more than 100
years is as shameful and scandalous as it is unsuccessful, unnecessary and
expensive. That coyote has persisted, prospered and expanded, both in numbers
and range, since the livestock industry put a price on his head is an
indication of why Old Man Coyote continues to live in the mythology and dreams
of native America and in the literature and imagination of its more recent
arrivals. Coyote Man is the primordial trickster/teacher of American lore.
Carl Jung, The Trickster
Archetype, Coyote
A primitive cosmic being of
divine-animal nature, on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman
qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unreason and
unconsciousness. The more civilized we become, the more we will blame a
"shadow" for our misfortunes. Like the trickster of old, the shadow
represents a quality that isn't accepted into the awareness. It can 'pester' us
unmercifully but always has a gift for us, a missing quality, an attitude
needed to cope, or self-realization.
Kokopelli
Kokopelli is a fertility
deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with a huge phallus
and antenna-like protrusions on his head), who is worshipped by many Native
American tribes in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities,
Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster
god. Because of his influence over human sexuality, Kokopelli is often depicted
with an inhumanly large phallus. Among the Ho-Chunk, this penis is detachable,
and he sometimes leaves it in a river in order to have sex with girls who bathe
there. Among the Hopi, Kokopelli carries unborn children on his back and
distributes them to women (for this reason, young girls are often deathly
afraid of him). He often takes part in rituals relating to marriage, and
Kokopelli himself is sometimes depicted with a consort, a woman called
Kokopelli-mana by the Hohokam and Hopi.
Manabozho or Hare of the
Algonkian peoples
His father was Earthmaker,
who sent Hare to be born of a virgin as a human being in order to destroy evils
threatening mankind.
Cin-an-ev
The Ute are a tribe of Native
Americans from the western United States. Siats is a cannibalistic clown monster.
Cin-an-ev is a wolf trickster and culture hero. The Ute especially venerated a
bear spirit, who occasionally went on killing sprees. Sunuwavi, a Ute hero,
once rescued his people from this by finding the qumu, the bear's fire medicine
(spiritual power), and covering it with water, thus ending the spirit's power.
Mannegishi
The Mannegishi (singular the
same) are a race of trickster people in Cree folklore. They are described as
semi-humanoid, being sexdactylous humans with very thin and lanky arms and legs
and big heads minus a nose. According to one Cree schema of the mythology,
there are two humanoid races, one being the familiar human species and the
other being the "little people", i.e. Mannegishi. These people are
said to live between rocks in the rapids. One of their biggest delights -- a
completely non-heroic form of trickster behavior -- is to crawl out of the
rocks and capsize the canoes of people canoeing through the rapids, spinning
them to their death. The Mannegishi is also known as the gahonga. The
Mannegishi has gained interest in recent years due to its possible
cryptozoological connections. It is believed by some that the Dover Demon is
what the Cree saw when they told stories of the Mannegishi.
Raven
Raven is famous among the
Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Raven assumed the divine trickster
role, similar to Coyote in other parts of the country. The divine trickster
could play the fool and the joker, but the intent of doing so was to teach.
Raven is also credited with sheltering the first humans, and with placing the
sun, moon, and stars in the proper places in the sky. He was an expert in
magic, and brought revelations from the spirit world to those who needed them.
Tonenili
Navajo trickster rain god
whose name means 'water sprinkler'.
Bamapana
In Australian Aboriginal
mythology (specifically: Murngin), Bamapana is a trickster hero who causes
discord. He is obscene and profane and once committed incest, thus breaking a
strict taboo.
Tezcatlipoca
In Nahuatl mythology,
Tezcatlipoca ("smoking mirror") was the god of the night, the north
and temptation. He owned a mirror (Itlachiayaque, "Place From Which He
Watches") that gave off smoke, killing his enemies. He was the antithesis
and rival, and eventually, the twin of Quetzalcoatl. He was a god of beauty and
war.
Attributes of Tezcatlipoca
and Quetzalcoatl originally came from older traditions than the Aztecs: the
Olmecs and the Toltecs. The Aztecs assimilated them in their religion, and the
two deities were equated and considered twin gods. They were both equal and
opposed.
Thus Tezcatlipoca was called
"Black Tezcatlipoca", and Quetzalcoatl "White
Tezcatlipoca".
In one of the Aztec accounts
of the creation of the world, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca joined forces to create
the world. There was only the sea, and the monster of earth Cipactli. To
attract her, Tezcatlipoca used his foot as bait, and Cipactli ate it. The two
gods then captured her, and distorted her to make the land from her body. After
that, they created the people, and people had to offer sacrifices to comfort
Cipactli of her sufferings. Because of this, Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a
missing foot, and the bone of his leg exposed. There are several nahuas
accounts of how gods made self sacrifices to help humanity.
Tezcatlipoca kidnapped
Xochiquetzal, the goddess of flowers, because he felt that he deserved her more
than her husband, Tlaloc. He was also said to be married to Xilonen.As
Mixcoatl, Tezcatlipoca invented fire by rotating the heavens on its axis as a
drill. Omacatl and Titlacahuan, Tezcatlanextia, were also aspects of
Tezcatlipoca.
Saci
The Saci (pr. sah-SEE) is the
most popular and bizarre character of Brazilian folklore. He is a one-legged
dwarf, with holes through the palms of his hands, who smokes a pipe and wears a
magical red cap which enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes.
Considered an irritating prankster in some parts of the country, and a
dangerous and malicious creature in others, he will nevertheless grant wishes
to anyone who manages to steal his magic cap. There are actually three types of
Saci: the best-known Saci Perere is black as coal, the Saci Trique is mulatto
and more benign, and the Saci Sacura has red eyes.
An incorrigible prankster,
the Saci will not cause major harm, but there is no little harm that he won't
do. He will hide children's toys, set farm animals loose, torment dogs, and
prevent chicken eggs from hatching. He may suck the blood of horses, like a
vampire bat, and tie knots in their manes.
In the kitchen, the Saci may
spill the salt, sour the milk, burn the bean stew, or drop flies into the soup.
If a popcorn kernel fails to pop, it is because the Saci put a spell on it.
Given half a chance, he will dull the seamstressÕs needles, hide her thimbles,
and tangle her sewing threads. If he sees a nail lying on the ground, he will
turn it with the point up. In short, anything that goes wrong, in the house, or
outside it, may be confidently blamed on the Saci.
Besides disappearing or
becoming invisible (often with only his red cap and the red glow of his pipe
still showing), the Saci can transform itself into a Matiapere, an elusive bird
whose melancholic song seems to come from nowhere. A Saci will not cross water
streams, lest it will lose all his powers, a fact that will be undoubtedly
useful to people who find themselves being pursued by one. If that happens, the
victim should drop ropes full of knots; the Saci will then be compelled to stop
and undo the knots, thus allowing his victim to escape. One can also try to
appease him by leaving behind some cachaa, or some tobacco for his pipe.
He is fond of juggling live
coals or other small objects and letting them fall through the holes on his
palms. An exceedingly nimble fellow, the lack of his right leg does not prevent
him from bareback-riding a horse, and sitting cross-legged while he puffs on
his pipe. Every dust devil, says the legend, is caused by the spin-dance of an
invisible Saci. One can capture him by throwing into the dust devil a rosary
made of rosary bead plant seeds, or by pouncing on it with a sieve, reinforced
by two crossed bamboo strips. With proper care, the captured Saci can be
coached to enter a dark glass bottle, where he can be imprisoned by a stopper
with a cross marked on it.
Kappa, Maui God of One
Thousand Tricks
An ugly, excitable, but
quick-witted half-divine, half-mortal trickster who was covered in tattoos. If
he didn't like the ways things were, he changed them. And there were many
things Maui didn't like. For example, the sun.
Every day, Maui watched human
beings scramble to work, or plant, or cook, or make bark cloth in the few
precious hours between sunrise and sunset. There was never enough time, the sun
moved too fast, the people suffered. They had no choice but to eat their food
raw.
Maui grabbed his rope and his
grandmother's magic jawbone. With a quick flick of the rope, he lassoed the sun
and beat the sun-god with the jawbone, until the golden one agreed to move more
slowly across the sky. Then Maui looked closely at the sky itself. It hung way
too low. With a mighty heave, Maui shoved the firmament up higher.
The Maui went fishing. His
brother wouldn't share their bait, so Maui punched his own nose and used his
blood to fish. He hauled in catches so big they became the Polynesian islands.
In mythology the pranks of
the trickster seemed almost a compulsion, something they could not control. The
trickster was usually blessed with a curiosity that led them into trouble, but
also had a cunning wit to get them out of trouble. He played the Game! Humans
would forgive the trickster, knowing that when the gods were plagued by the
trickster's wit and arrogance, with the side effects sometimes beneficial to
humans. We recognized that at the heart of the trickster was a savior. So even
if Coyote caused a great flood because of a theft, he did lead the human race
to a better world.
In oral traditions worldwide,
a story of deceit, magic, and violence perpetrated by a mythical animal-human
trickster. The trickster-hero is both creator god and innocent fool, evil
destroyer and childlike prankster.
Trickster is at the same
time, creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is
always duped himself. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy
of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into
being. Many of the Trickster's traits were perpetuated in the medieval jester,
and have survived in the Punch-and-Judy plays and in the clown.
Few mythological figures have
such a remote origin in time and broad distribution among cultures as the one
called Trickster. This character has long puzzled its commentators, largely
because Trickster defies any purely rational or intellectual analysis. In fact,
anyone who has studied any particular trickster story can testify to its
disturbing undertones of perplexity and provocation.
Trickster contains a
transcendent nature whose epic qualities are truly awesome. We can think, for
example, of when Maui, the Polynesian Trickster, snares nothing less than the
sun. Yet with all his enormous power he is enormously stupid, the fool of the
ages, the epitome or personification of human absurdity.
In world mythologies
Trickster's guises are legion; so much so that Joseph Campbell, has called him
The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
This outlandish, yet
remarkable being in human form, learns, grows in understanding, changes, and at
a certain point in his adventuresome blunders, is transformed. Until that
moment, however, Trickster keeps changing shape and experimenting with a
thousand identities, including shifts in sex, in a seemingly never-ending
search for himself.
During all this he inflicts
great damage on those around him and also suffers innumerable blows, defeats,
indignities, and dangers resulting from his thoughtless, reckless forays. On
entering upon existence he is first seen as a blurred, chaotic, hardly unified
being, having no self-knowledge or life-knowledge, despite his divine
parenthood. It is only later on in his travels that Trickster emerges as a
culture hero, demigod, and savior of peoples. But this occurs only after his
transformation or self-integration takes place, and brings to the fore the
great and epic qualities initially given him by his divine progenitor.
The unity of Trickster with
Hero-Benefactor is clear in a great number of the mythoi. The hero must trick
the gods of their wealth, steal it, and in some manner make it available to
humankind. This heavenly treasure usually is "fire" or is related to
it. Raven steals the gods' fire sticks. Maui goes against Mahu-ika, the
guardian of fire, to get it and bring it back to the people. In Greek myth it
is Prometheus who does this. The many references to the sun-snaring feat of
Trickster-turned-Hero extend illustration of this development (Katharine
Luomala, Oceanic, American Indian, and African Myths of Snaring the Sun,
Bernice P Bishop Museum Bulletin 168, Honolulu, 1940; reprinted by Kraus
Reprint Company, N.Y, 1971). The hero who deceives, slays, or by his "wiles"
appeases the gods, is honored as a savior of the world.
Trickster's hero qualities
were present from the very beginning. But they lay dormant, in seed, until he
decided to exercise them, which he did only after a long and painful process of
trial and error, growth and metamorphosis. For in all of his manifestations
Trickster remains a primordial being of the same order as the gods, despite his
prolonged sojourn in the human condition.
No matter how often scholars
have analyzed this myth in the attempt to reduce it to any strictly rational
value, it endures in all of its polyfaceted and multileveled grandeur. To
restrict understanding of it merely to one or two of its features would be to
rob us of its unusually important meaning. For serious reflection upon the myth
in all of its world variety brings a conviction that it can refer only to the
evolution of human consciousness and the full range of phases and multiple
colorations which this implies. Yes, the evolution of our consciousness, but
from a gigantic perspective and nothing less, one which carries us back to the
fabulous illo tempore: into the night of time millions of years ago to the
magic moment of first creation, that, dawn time "when first the world was
born" and we "walked with the gods."
From the initial dimness of a
consciousness newly-born, lacking any real integration of its components, and
having forgotten his divine mission, we follow Trickster as his awareness
steadily comes forth in ever greater measure. We watch as the self-knowledge of
this inchoate entity develops, bringing with it strength, remembrance, and a
firmer sense of identity, all this until, at a certain point, by capturing the
fire of inner illumination from the gods, he gains a full measure of
self-consciousness or self-recollection, and can act to benefit mankind. To use
Jungian terms, the Unconscious within himself has been transmuted into the
Conscious, bringing lucidity of spiritual vision of self and the universe.
Planet Saturn and the
Trickster
Saturn, the grim reaper,
rules responsibilities, restrictions, limitations, and the lessons you must
learn in life. He does not deny or diminish imagination, inspiration,
spirituality, or good fortune, but he does demand that these things be given
structure and meaning. The karmic lessons we have come to experience and
overcome in this lifetime are expressed by Saturn. Saturn is a great teacher if
you allow it to be so. If you resist, then you feel like you have been dealing
with the Trickster. It takes spiritual maturity to move beyond the challenges
of the Trickster and to embrace Saturn the Teacher.
Trickster Gods
Trickster Goddesses
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