The trickster is usually intriguing and sort of plays with us, makes us look silly or naive or ill informed. But it has a counterpart in what I think of us as The Dark Trickster. It does basically the same thing as its sibling, but in a way you’re not likely to forget.
For instance:
Our friend Evan, a physical therapist, has been really careful during this pandemic. For awhile he worked on the road, going masked to homes for PT sessions. Then he changed jobs and went to work for one of Orlando’s hospitals, always masked. He has been vexed and boosted, but recently came down with Covid. His symptoms were mild but persistent. Finally, he went back to work and was assigned to – the Covid wing! He says this was unintentional. In my mind, that qualifies it as a dark trickster.
Here’s another example. Before the pandemic, daughter Megan came home one night from a movie with friend Denise and they found her beautiful cat, Piper, dead on the living room floor. Megan, hysterical, thought one of the dogs she was watching had killed her. But a veterinarian who arrived shortly afterward to pick up her dog, saw that Megan was distraught and examined Piper. She said there were no bite marks, that it was likely Piper died of a heart attack, that her heart was congenitally weak in some way.
Now here’re the strange synchros. Denise, who had given Piper to Megan, was with her when she got back from the movie. Denise actually spotted Piper’s body first and stayed with Megan for a long time in the aftermath. The next day, October 29, National Cat Day, Megan buried Piper and Denise called her, hysterical because she’d found the cat she’d rescued dead on her porch. The cat had been hit by a driver who had left her a note of apology and placed her cat on the porch. Megan went over to Denise’s to comfort and console her and to bury her cat. While she was doing that, she found out that another friend had to put down his cat. All of this on National Cat Day. Dark Trickster.
Rob experienced one of these on a trip to Minneapolis. He stayed with a friend who is a chain smoker and didn’t sleep well that night because to the smoke. So he decided to get a motel room. Turns out they had only one room left – in the a smoking room. “It smelled just like the apartment I’d left,” he said.
I’m not sure what the purpose is of this type of synchronicity. We certainly take notice of these Dark Tricksters, we tell other people about them, talk about them. Maybe they happen just to remind us that the universe is a strangely conscious place, after all
