learning from Trickster

Joe Migwans told me a great Trickster story today.

It got me thinking, as I walked home along the Yukon river, how important it is to learn from Trickster, how to laugh at Trickster, how to understand the Trickster in myself, and the society I live in.

This particular Trickster story involved berry juice and bear soup, a birch tree and a feast, muskrat and cooling a pot down.

This story got me thinking how it might be possible to be tricked so badly that it could become normal to work jobs that have no meaning, to pursue things we don't care about, escape reality and fail to live up to our responsibilities. If we don't have the opportunity to have Trickster show us reflections of ourselves than the Trickster in each of us will win out. From my brief walk home, it seems like we're tricking ourselves into systems that don's serve us to live full of joy/grief, which trick our thinking and affect us emotionally.

I was thinking about the land, and that the ways we are living are hard on the soil, water, and air. And that to be a well adjusted person in a society unhealthy for the earth is not a sign of individual health. It makes sense for individuals to feel dis-ease in themselves if our collective being is hurting.

Maybe it's time for us to tell/listen to Trickster stories, so that we can see ourselves in new ways.
So ask somebody who knows a story about Trickster and then once you know that story, tell it to others.