Tricksters come in many guises – think Smeagol from Lord of the Rings. Or Loki, of Norwegian mythology. Or Jim Carey in The Mask. Or coyote in Native American mythology. The Trickster archetype is one of the 7 secrets of synchronicity that we wrote about in our book of the same name. These synchros sometimes make you feel like you’re the brunt of the universe’s joke. The trick with the trickster is to dig beneath the joke to find out what’s really going on.
So over Thanksgiving, we had 4 dogs and 4 cats here. The one in the photo is our cat, Beowulf. He jumped onto the TV stand to get out of the way of the dogs and I snapped a photo of him. A few days later, I was going through my photos and realized that the title of the book on the table – PERIL – describes how Beo felt when he jumped onto the TV stand.
Today, when I ran across the photo, there were a lot of email exchanges with people in The Coincidence Project about tricksters. Sometimes, the Trickster synchronicity is simple. But even with this one, I wonder if the message goes even deeper down the rabbit hole that Bob Woodward and Robert Acosta wrote about in PERIL. Given the vile divisiveness in the country now, perhaps the Trickster is addressing that democracy is in greater peril than we realize and that the insurrection on January 6 was just a dress rehearsal.
I do hope the Trickster energy you speak of doesn’t fortell the dangerous return to what we saw in January of last year. But I fear this country is very divided, and there are a great many Americans who are worth being afraid of.
Funny, I just posted an article on my Blog about Coyote! Ursula Leguin had some great things to say about the trickster archetype. Did a silent retreat recently, and many funny synchronicities that I still can’t figure out.
Driving home I saw a bumpersticker that said “God Bless Dolly Parton”. Found myself then singing a song she made famous “Jolene, Jolene, please don’t take my man…….”……that song. Then stopped at the grocery store and as I got out of the car heard that song coming from a street musician/homeless man singing with a guitar in front of the store…….I had been singing it to myself just minutes before. Weird…..then as I was checking out I saw the security man grabbing the poor fellow in an aggressive way. I have no “man” and don’t know anyone named Jolene………but it was a striking coincidence.
Good ones, Lauren! Figuring out the meanings… hmm, well.
You kinda hit on the same thing twice in your post: In The Mask, Jim Carrey’s character is possessed by Loki, the Norwegian trickster god whose spirit is imbued in the mask itself! The psychologist that Stanley Ipkiss visits speculates as much while examining the artifact. 🙂
Good point, Dale!