Liminality of the Trickster

The waking up of our intuition, wildness and the mythopoetic.

Welcome to this edition of Liminal Walker Musings!

If you are a new subscriber, a special WELCOME! Today I find myself pondering the liminal. Seeing how trickster energies evoke it by waking us up from our hypnotic state. The Trickster and Liminal intimately whirling together in unpredictable ways, inviting us into the mystery that life truly is. Here are my musings and meanderings. Love to you all!

Thanks in advance for reading and if you feel moved, consider becoming a subscriber as well as commenting because I’d love to hear from you. I am glad you are here today, appreciate your support.

Liminal Spaces

The liminal is a mystical threshold, a sacred space. An opening into the paradoxical natures of life itself and how we are all woven together in unfathomable ways. I find the more deeply I dive into the liminal, the less I understand. An ongoing journey that continually shows me the mercurial ways of the liminal, its defiance of being contained by logic or reason.

My experience with the liminal is diverse. At times it can feel like I have no bearings, for the ground is shifting under my feet. Then there are moments where I feel stuck, especially when a chapter of my life has concluded but nothing new has presented itself. An uncomfortable phase of being in the empty corridor of uncertainty. Then there are times the liminal takes me in so fully, so completely, I am infused with awe as I experience the marriage of the opposites.

The polarities are forever in an inextricable dance. Think about it, there cannot be a left without a right, no day without a night, no sound without silence. They are perpetually connected by their magnetic tension both drawing them together and pulling them apart. Like the phrase spoken in ritual by many practitioners including myself...

As above so below,
As below so above.
As within so without,
As without so within.

Last November I wrote about the Vesica Piscis (For more depth please go to that post). There is this powerful place that is alchemized by the overlapping of two circles. The creation of the mandorla. Where a pair of opposites merge, spawning a liminal bridge. A yoni, a cauldron, a doorway to the sacred where the healing of the split happens.

What facilitates this mandorla space for me more times than not, is meeting the trickster…

The Trickster as the Liminal

Artist Susan Seddon Boulet

I am enchanted by the trickster, drawn to them, yet both fearful and repelled at the same time. Which essentially reveals their deeper story, for they are made of contradictions. Tricksters are outwardly and inwardly enigmatic characters whose main purpose is to defy duality by bringing the polarities closer together as we see in the mandorla.

How do they do this? By being who they are! Unruly ones who revel in breaking taboos, disrupting dogmatic thinking and rattling the status quo. They remove our masks, revealing our facades and pretentious nature. What makes them endearing is that they also teach us to laugh. As the clown, comic and jester they usher in new and humorous perspectives, reminding us not to take life and ourselves so seriously.

When the trickster comes for a visit in my life it typically begins as an unwelcomed transfiguration, an ordeal, even a curse. It’s a time of confusion and disorientation, my habitual structures have been challenged. Yet when I relax and open to what the trickster is initiating, more times than not it becomes a blessing. Behind the scenes this shapeshifter is clearing space. Making room for my curiosity to arise, activating a deeper inquiry. Inviting me to be in the moment as it is, by embracing impermanence and uncertainty.

ESHU

Wood Sculpture of Eshu

The trickster archetypes I am most familiar with are Loki and Kokopelli, Coyote and Raven. Yet I was introduced to a new one recently, Eshu. Literally he crossed my path, which feels extremely synchronistic for he is particularly associated with crossroads and thresholds, these liminal junctions in life.

Eshu is a prominent deity in Yoruba mythology of West Africa. Known for his embodiment of chaos and order and his ability to balance the forces of good and evil. Both a bridge and messenger between the mortal and divine realms. His tricks and pranks encouraging us to make wise and ethical choices. To act with integrity, for he is a karmic force making sure each action and decision has appropriate consequences.

A POEM ABOUT ESHU

Eshu turns right into wrong, wrong into right.
When he is angry, he hits a stone until it bleeds.
When he is angry, he sits on the skin of an ant.
When he is angry, he weeps tears of blood.
Eshu slept in the house -
But the house was too small for him:
Eshu slept on the verandah -
But the verandah was too small for him:
Eshu slept in a nut -
At last he could stretch himself!
Eshu walked through the groundnut farm.
The tuft of his hair was just visible:
If it had not been for his huge size,
He would not be visible at all.
Lying down, his head hits the roof:
Standing up, he cannot look into the cooking pot.
He throws a stone today
And kills a bird yesterday!

From Yoruba Poetry (1970), ed. Professor Ulli Beier.

A TEACHING STORY

There are many tales about Eshu’s mischievous ways, of how he protects the sacred. Here is one such story… There were two neighboring farmers whose fields butted up against the other. One day Eshu went for a walk along the dividing line between the two parcels. He wore a cap atop his head. Half of it one color, the other half another. Only one color was visible to each farmer in his respective field. After Eshu was out of sight the two men talked about seeing him but ended up quarreling over the color of his hat. Eshu returned and settled the argument by showing them his cap. In the end both men were right, but both were also wrong. Here we come to the depth of Eshu’s teaching on liminality. There are many perspectives that can be debated, many sides and divisions considered. Yet the bottom line is most of the time we are talking about the same thing.

This is so true! There are many times my husband and I have a discussion and/or argument where we get caught up in words or trapped by our personal point of view. Eventually, we come to realize that we are disagreeing about the same thing. Eshu has been very active in my life all along and I did not even know it!

We see this practically everywhere in our current day. People arguing about their opinions and positions, each one toting the importance of their own viewpoint. A regression into one-sidedness. Whether it is about science, religion, spirituality, music, mathematics, politics, philosophy… the list goes on and on. Eshu’s teaching here is syncretism! A reconciliation blending as wholeness.

Final Words…

It may be the nature of our brains to separate and label, a needed function to operate in the world. But we do not have to be defined by this one brain capacity. There are many areas of knowing and understanding that become inaccessible, even incomprehensible when we define too much. When we hold tight to one way of thinking the Trickster reminds us of what we have been excluding. Like instinct, intuition, ancestor wisdom, the mythopoetic and our feral wild nature.

There is a time and place for drilling down into the microcosm and intricacies of life. Yet we cannot lose sight of the macrocosm. This fuller perspective which includes the orphans, vagabonds, forgotten and the forsaken. We need the bigger picture. Keeping the sacred alive, the door to the liminal open.

We are not separate from or a distinct aspect of the Universe. The deeper truth is that the Universe exists within and as everything. You, me, us! ALL things… The trickster reminds us of this underlining truth!

Questions for you…

• How does the liminal show up in your life?

• Is there a Trickster that visits you? Who?

• What have you learned from trickster energies?

Would love to know your thoughts and feelings. Let’s have a conversation…

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For more information about the liminal and my offerings:

Please go to: https://www.liminalwalker.com/

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