What a great term my poet friend Bill used to describe my last blog and the Lorna Crozier poem I had excerpted: “Packing for the Future: Instructions.” I think the sacred complexity of the trickster has a lot to do with those “blessed contradictions” as he/she shows up at thresholds and boundaries as the mischief-maker of in-between. I’m going to call the trickster “they” as in all their forms, the trickster is a boundary-dweller and a boundary-crosser and I’ll bet is transgender, defying all prounouns.
At the boundary between here and there, pre-treatment and post-treatment, cancerous and cancer-free, I’m already realizing unexpected opportunities and gifts. The journal I usually write in has become more far-reaching with this blog. A virtual circle is occurring, full of mindfulness, compassion and wisdom thanks to the comments people are leaving and the emails they are sending me.
The gifts continue to come my way in the form of “kick ass care packages” as my friend Birdie calls them. Sarah has given me chocolate, tea and new books to take with me to Victoria. She leaves me love notes spelled out with Scrabble tiles on the dining room table.
There will be other gifts and opportunities in the days ahead as my friend Andrea Mathieson pointed out in a phone conversation we had recently. I’ll be away from home for radiation treatments, away from the usual routine. It’s an opportunity to recalibrate she says.
Andrea has honed her intuitive skills through a connection to Nature and a love of her own garden in Maple, Ontario. I started offering women’s writing circles in my Toronto living room in 1997 about the time Andrea started co-creating vibrational flower essences and began her business called Raven Essences. She became a friend and mentor and I’m pleased and grateful to say, all these years later, we have a loving, soul-full connection. Here’s a link to Andrea’s late-July blog entitled “Crossing the Threshold to Commune with Nature.”
The time I’ll be spending in Victoria and perhaps meandering through Oak Bay will be time to catch up with myself. It’s like those days of pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot and recalibrate in a way: a call to pause. In Andrea’s wise words, this will be a time of not just fixing; something will be made fertile. I will take care of my body in all the good ways I can.
So about that boundary dweller, the trickster: Hermes is the best known in the West as “the quintessential master of boundaries and transitions, “as Allan Combs and Mark Holland point out in their book Synchronicity through the eyes of science, myth, and the trickster (Marlowe & Company, 1996).
The trickster god is universal, known to First Nations people and Native Americans as Coyote. The Polynesian Islanders know the trickster as Maui and the old Germanic tribes of Europe know the trickster as Loki. Krishna is the trickster in the sacred mythology of India.
In the play of your life, the trickster would be at the edge of the stage, whispering sotto voce, to the audience: Wait until you see what happens next as they jump up and down with mischief and glee. And then the trickster would hop into the middle of an event or an interaction and turn it upside down because that’s what tricksters do.
Lewis Hyde, in his book Trickster Makes This World (North Point Press, 1998), says that “in every case trickster will cross the line and confuse the distinction. Trickster is the creative idiot, therefore, the wise fool, the gray-haired baby, the cross-dresser, the speaker of sacred profanities.” Hyde found out in the course of writing his book that trickster “creates a boundary, or brings to the surface a distinction previously hidden from sight.” I’ve highlighted that phrase!
I can’t help but think that the fact that our washer broke down yesterday was trickster’s way of letting us know we needed to lighten up. Sarah and I took our laundry to Busy Bubbles and had chai frappes at Serious Coffee. The washer is toast and the good news is, our landlord has already ordered a new one!
Just as I am reading this lovely continuation in your latest blog series, a woman is doing yoga in my livingroom on her first day of retreat. She is from Guelph, and over dinner she asked me who I know in Guelph… I named several people (one is her son-in-law!) and then I said, “There is this lovely woman and her partner… the creator of the mandalas I just showed you…” and she said, “I used to go to Mary Ann’s writing circles in Guelph!” Joanna Hall is here, having discovered me and my work on Facebook, for a two-day retreat and we are right in the thick of it, swiftly, deeply, sweetly. And you are right in the midst of our sacred time together. Is this not the way it is meant to be. The web is stretched, sometimes to the point of almost breaking, then something comes in from left field and it is strengthened, renewed, and we breathe a sigh of gratitude and relief. I am delighted you continue receiving the love of your friends, Mary Ann, through this ‘most interesting’ time! I send you both a big hug! Andrea
Another fine musing, Mary Ann, and I so love its focus on the wisdom-raising wiles of my good rascally buddy, Trickster! After my reply on the blog preceding this one, it came to me that ’tis 16 years, not 12, since I found your ad in The Guelph Mercury, overrode my phone phobia and called you to find out about the Re-Awakening the Great Goddess (forget exact title!) writing course you were offering in 1999. Yes, many of us are at your side as you venture to Victoria for this passage of your life … and happy to be spirit-connected across the many miles!
Thank you Kitty. You were brave to call back in ’99 and a wonderful connection we made in the sun room/dining room of the Mermaid Mansion. The circle was called Remembering the Goddess: Mapping Your Spiritual Journey. “Re-Awakening” is a good term though, and perhaps lots of things from that time need to be re-awakened.
The picture is absolutely stunning, Mary Ann. And I love the doorway aspect of it. So lovely….
Thinking of you…