Traditional cultures have reserved a special place for the unknown and mysterious. The folly of being human is embodied through the Trickster/Clown Archetype. The western mindset tends to be proud of knowledge but uncomfortable with the unknown. We live in uncertain times politically, socially, and environmentally. In a world full of surprises the trickster/clown archetype has some powerful medicine for us.
As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. -Albert Einstein
To be proud of what we know has the shadow effect. It can make us subtly ashamed of what we do not know. As Einstein’s quote points out above, we must always embrace the circle of darkness surrounding the light of our knowledge.
The words human, humor, and humility, all come from the same linguistic root for a good reason. It is okay to laugh at ourselves. The trickster teaches us that sometimes it is better to wonder than it is to know. Accepting this truth can be exciting and humbling for us as humans.
We are noble beings when we are in balance with our folly. When we become arrogant and rigid is when we often create the most trouble for ourselves and those around us. When we get too high on our horse, the trickster is the one who will knock us down a notch.
What is the Trickster?
The distinction between clown and trickster is subjective. Generally, tricksters are considered more mythic and archetypal meanwhile clowns are their more worldly counterparts. Thus, the trickster comes in many forms including clowns, merry-makers, buffoons, and jesters. They can be playful, mischievous, disrespectful, backward, paradoxical, or even obscene. This archetypal energy can play out through various circumstances in our lives. This can make us feel like we are the butt of a cosmic joke.
Sometimes you need to break the tradition in order to keep the tradition alive and the accepted tradition breaker is the clown. – Hopi Scholar Michael Kaboti
Tricksters cross boundaries in society, playfully disrupting normal life. This bending of the rules usually appears in the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters openly mock authority, and can be both cunning and foolish. They break rules, boast, and play tricks on those around them.
Take, for example, the great American contribution to clowning, the hobo-clown. We laugh at him as he slips on a banana peel and everything goes wrong in his life. This form of slap-stick humor teaches us to laugh at life’s challenges and not take ourselves so seriously. Sometimes things go our way and other times it can seem like the whole universe is conspiring against us.
Once you can laugh at a situation it will no longer have power over you. – Slave Adage
Tricksters Around the World
Tricksters and clowns exist in almost every culture around the world. Many Native American Stories have the trickster embodied as a coyote. Coyote Tales were central during long nights around the fire during winter months.
The Lakota call their trickster, Heyoka, and he is often seen sitting backwards on his horse. The Azande People in Central Africa have Ture, a trickster that is a spider that changes form into any animal. Ture brings food, water, and fire to the people but he is always tricking people. He steals from them, serving his own interests, acting crudely, and being disrespectful.
Oftentimes we are grateful for the gifts and revelations the trickster brings us without actually condoning their behavior.
These trickster characters that don’t neatly fit into traditional categories. They can’t simply be called good/bad. Often we are grateful for the gifts and revelations the trickster brings us without actually condoning their behavior. They confuse us because they defy our ability to categorize them.
Hopi Clowns in Action
Writing about Hopi ceremonial culture is delicate because they have a strong oral tradition that frowns on the written word. Hopi artist and scholar Michael Kaboti believes it is important to share the clown wisdom everywhere that has been forgotten. In honor of my friendship with Michael, I will share a magical experience I had at a sacred Hopi dance.
The Hopi have ancient cultural wisdom but it is not respectful to visit their ceremonies without an invitation. The villages sit high above the painted desert with stone buildings that are hundreds of years old. The houses surround a central plaza where the ceremonial dances take place. People crowd the plaza and sit on rooftops under the hot Arizona sun to practice their ancient culture.
During the dance, at a certain moment, the clowns enter the plaza. The clowns are boisterous and loud. They throw food and act completely disrespectful at Hopi sacred ceremonies. The audience oscillates between laughter and a feeling of anger as these clowns act increasingly rude and oblivious.
Confronting Ignorance
As the ritual theater unfolds the sacred Kachina Spirits enter the plaza. They are dressed in full regalia, decorated from head to toe. The Kachina also carry yucca whips and gourds of holy water. They have come to reprimand these unruly clowns and purify them from their ignorance.
When the clowns see the Kachinas they run into the audience to get away. The audience cheers as the Kachinas follow them in the audience. What few people notice though is that the Kachinas throw their holy water on the audience as they chase the clowns.
The clowns actually represent the ignorance of us humans. They are mocking childishness that we exhibit, the way that we can be so self-absorbed, so arrogant.
When the Kachinas chase the clowns it is the humans watching that receive the purification of the holy water. This deep cultural wisdom allows people to laugh at themselves indirectly. Their own judgment and anger are cleansed through ritual theater (ceremony).
A beautiful aspect to this dynamic is that the clowns are considered to be the parents to the Kachinas. In this way, there is also a reverence for the child-like innocence they represent. We must strive to evolve but we will always be humans full of folly. We are like children in this vast universe of mysteries.
Profane and Sacred
The trickster makes us examine the profane and the sacred. It brings the shadow to the light. Both the profane and the sacred are two sides of the same coin, and they often define each other. French sociologist, Émile Durkheim, considered this to be the central characteristic of religion.
He believed that the sacred represents the interests of a group or community, which is embodied in cultural symbols. The profane involves the opposite, the not-so-special, the mundane, the human day-to-day individual concerns. Durkheim made a very important observation that is not part of conventional wisdom.
He claimed that the sacred/profane dichotomy is not equivalent to good versus evil. The sacred can be good or evil and the profane can be either as well. We do not live in a world of absolutes, there is much gray area in between. This is the place where the trickster taunts us, pushes us out of our comfort zone and helps us evolve.
Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden. – The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
Only when we confront our unknowns and our ignorance with acceptance can we embrace new ideas. We become so attached to what we know that there is no room for anything else to enter our consciousness. This is usually when we find ourselves face-to-face with the trickster archetype. The antidote to too much pride is a dose of humility. The trickster is more than happy to laugh at your human-folly in case you should ever forget it.
Developing a Relationship with the Trickster
Sorrow, loneliness, doubt, anger, depression, confusion, and many other shadow emotions are universal to all human experience. This is why we laugh at the sad-clown who is down on his luck. We can all relate to these feelings. Having compassion for these aspects of these human expressions of the self is the key to personal mastery.
We can’t always be in control of circumstances and sometimes breaking down is essential to transformation. Losing it and melting down can be embarrassing but it is part of being human. Sometimes we are as helpless and foolish as a clown in the face of life circumstances. The best way to respond is with compassion, humility, and humor. The ability to laugh at ourselves is invaluable in this inevitable process. This is the medicine of the trickster.
Trickster Medicine in Modern Times
It is enlightening to look at the chaos of our modern times from the perspective of the trickster. We have politicians completely disconnected from their role as representatives of the people. We have extractive industries wreaking havoc on our sacred environment, desecrating the waters, air, and land. We can feel ourselves losing control of this monster that has become modern society, and the feeling of helplessness grows.
We are like that crowd in a Hopi Village watching the dance. It is sometimes funny to watch but we are all fighting this deep anger and sorrow inside. The world is beautiful but it can also be an ugly place due to human behavior. We point fingers at the politicians and the corporations. Yet they are manifesting an aspect of humanness that is within all of us.
How do we shift our relationship with these shadow parts of ourselves? We can learn to accept our innate ignorance and folly. Have some humility to cry or laugh at life since sometimes we all feel helpless.
Nowhere to Run
When the trickster comes for us we must learn to accept this wisdom regardless of how uncomfortable it may feel. There are larger forces at work in the universe. There may be no place to run but that shouldn’t stop us from dancing.
