MY FATHER; THE TRICKSTER

Lately I’ve been deep diving into understanding Archetypes, through the lens of how I view myself rather than how I am viewed..

A defence mechanism that has certainly helped me survive my early years, was being the Fool or Trickster, the one to bring the ease, joy and silliness to often very serious and sombre situations. Like making everyone laugh at my dad’s funeral with my obituary that was there to honour him, in all his greatness as the king of Jokers himself.

Indeed my father was who I learnt the most from about the archetype of the Trickster, the joker, the disruptor, sadly I didn’t develop appreciation for this all important role until he we was well dead! The ultimate last laugh from my dad’s eyes anyway, he’s probably still laughing - somewhere…

He certainly was the disruptor, throwing shit on cultural norms both within the family unit at my mums very serious Coptic culture and without at Aussie’s very serious drinking culture. My dad did not give a damn what others thought of him and would make this known, even if it was to his own family, he told the truth whenever asked, kept it real from day one and wasn’t prepared to dilute his essence to mix in the soup of society’s norms.

My mum and my dad were from totally different galaxies, thankfully those galaxies are now merging and melting in nicely together in the temple of my body, mind and spirit.

Disruptions have been a common theme in my life, the only constant were the disruptive changes, until I realised I didn’t have to wait for them to come at me, I could create them at will and with ease. So at 25 after 7 solid years out of home, I took control of my life and steered it in into my own disruptive direction, by travelling to Germany to meet Dad’s family then eventually moving to London, which was wild at the time.

The common theme with being a disruptor or Trickster is the ability to change sides, which I had mastered with the polarisation of mum-dad, head-heart and love-hate for both at different times, through their lives and still now through their deaths.

Tricksters throw dirt on your serious beliefs and perceptions so that you can get light; lighten the heavy burden of your pious puritan life, get soft away from the hard and rigid edges of your beliefs that you hold, which actually hold you.

In ancient times the King would have a court jester to do just these things to his people, to help them to see and feel the illusory nature of their strong held beliefs, to invoke softness, lightness within them as when one is mid laughter the belly is tickled and the world feels friendly, if only for a few moments.

The illusory forms and nature of the world is what Buddhists talk about a lot; that this world is not real, tangible or even permanent, which we all know and have experienced in some sense. In the weeks after the disruptive passing of Dad, I was reminded of this as I hung out in liminal space where life felt surreal and dreamlike yet had never felt so sharp, clear, vivid and NOW. So disruptors like those flash mob dancers that were popular in early 2000’s are here to shock or jolt us out of our hum-drum everyday existence and perception of life and forces us to see the other side so that we may have Whole-istic view, if only for a minute.

In the Tarot, the Trickster Archetype is both The Fool and The Magician cards, as the Trickster is the holy fool who directly transforms it’s surrounding world with magic, weaving shadows into light and old into new. Which my dad was constantly doing, to the despair of my conservative mother and her restrictive culture, thankfully.

I cannot remember a time in history when the world needed a particular Archetype more than ever; that archetype most definitely is The Trickster, the disruptor to shake and wake up tired humans from their slumber..

Thanks Dad for being the embodied experience of the Trickster in our lives. Hope you’re still causing mayhem on the other side..

R.I.P Mad Max.

Subscribe to my new Substack account here; https://substack.com/@liminallands