My Trickster Journey continues a couple days ago, right after the tail end of the monkey wave, but still feeling the Trickster energies. I was in a facebook discussion where someone mentioned the difficulty that comes from knowing a situation from your own point of view, and knowing that it is your truth, and needing to impart that to someone else but seeing that they are not in a place where they can receive it because they are not in a place they can understand it. They explained it as, “this was true from my level but I could not find the door at her level.”
Something about this comment resonated with me and I wrote the following. It was one of those writing situations where as I wrote it, I discovered it for myself. I didn’t know I felt this way until I wrote it:
“‘This was true from my level but I could not find the door at her level,’ resonated with me. I have been in this situation on both ends. What a challenging place to be! Of course, when I’m on the side where’s there’s no door, I don’t see it until much later, I don’t see my lack of door-ness. Often, I analyze it once I do have the insight and ask myself what a person could have said or done differently to reach me. Usually, I can see something they could have said or done differently if they had known exactly what to do. Then, I always try to analyze that further and ask myself, “If I am ever in the situation where I am the person looking for that door, how will I know how to find it?” and to that answer I haven’t yet found an answer. I know it comes from deep listening and coming from a place of centered compassion. If I can enter into a connection with that person wherever they are at, then I have a chance. That requires at least a tiny bit of openness on their part, too.”
“Also, I think sometimes it requires me to learn how to take on a bit of the trickster. I haven’t figured how to do this yet, but I feel like its a skill I need. The wise trickster can walk into that situation, and not only connect with the person with compassion and integrity, but also can find just the right thing to say or do that will break through the defenses, create just enough element of surprise that the person can open up just enough to the receive the intended message. I think that’s part of how Rob Brezsny’s work works. By using language in such unusual, poetic and creative ways, he slips past the defenses of the routine ways of thinking, and actually gets some meaning through. People aren’t good at listening to words, because words get used in such stock, routine ways so much of the time. Also, we live so much in our own puppet theater heads, we don’t see when someone is trying to find our door, and we might not even care. But, if something can surprise us, that projected world cracks and a little bit of the “real” world has a chance to break through. There is an opportunity for an authentic moment, for a bit of brilliance, connection to come through, and right at that moment, if you are really in a place of compassion and integrity, you can say the thing that needs to be said, and you have a real chance of being heard!”
Wow, huh? I SO want to learn how to be a trickster!