Continuing the serialisation of my book, here on April 1st, 2012
Waking The Monkey!
by
Claire Rae Randall
Chapter 0
The Fool…
“I am The Fool” I said. “The Fool who stumbles into your circles without warning.”
That it didn’t come out as I intended… I had meant to say ‘I am the fool who stumbled into your circle last night’. I could almost discern the capital letter which the word Fool demanded, with all the associations of card 0 of the Tarot and the mediaeval Fools of courtly fame. As this word fell out of my mouth my body fell into a crouching posture, tense and poised; akin to that one might imagine taken by a witchdoctor around some village fire whilst his tribal audience looked on. My eyes narrowed and my head flicked from side to side, darting looks about unexpectedly and briefly arresting members of the Gathering with a piercing gaze as I began to circle the altar looking out at them, my lips curled in a sardonic grin. I held the ancient yew Talking Stick like a wand, pointing it slowly around the circle, defying the multitude, holding them at bay. They seemed taken aback, shocked into alertness.
“I am the Fool who stumbles into your circles without warning, that old Trickster known to some of you as Lucifer, but others call Satan. You don’t like it when I upset your plans.” I looked at the Shadow Master and met his gaze. He looked surprised. Perhaps he saw something of the creatures who had interrupted his meditation, or simply someone taking the opportunity to make a very public reply to behavior which he had hoped would not be referred to again.
But I was far more surprised than he could ever have been. I had no idea what was happening. I had begun with a personal statement, driven by my bottled up adrenalin but then something beyond my control had taken over. A release of unconscious material? Or something stranger. It was my own nervous energy that drove this, that this was riding upon, clearly, but my conscious mind and intention were not at the wheel. They had been thrust aside as some greater program intervened, as if it had been waiting for the moment to be triggered when all the circumstances were right.
It continued.
“You cast me out for that more than ten thousand years ago. I have been outside in the cold and dark, where there is but weeping and gnashing of teeth. I am angry! I am lonely.” I could feel my body miming the emotions. Fierce and proud for ‘angry’, shrinking and sad, the voice plaintive for ‘lonely’.
I saw Brigantia in the middle of the sunlit opening. She was smiling, almost laughing, leaning forward, her attention rapt.
It bowed to her and smiled thinly in a kind of mock deference. She seemed to appreciate this display and nodded, as if knowingly.
“You always want it tidy and so nice. Why do you think there are thirteen moons in a year? It wasn’t meant to be easy, it wasn’t meant to be easy at all!
“You may cast me out beyond the circle but invite me in and I will teach you wisdom. Cast me out and you cast out yourself.
“It was once said: ‘Every Man and Woman is a Star.’
“ ‘Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law.’”
… not my will, but Thy Will be done…
“But do you know what is your True Will?”
… the True Will, the Divine Purpose…
“I have been on the outside, but you only look inward. How can you know your Will if you are afraid to look outward? You see only a sea of fears.”
With a sudden jerking look over my shoulder I felt the energy expended.
The moment I relinquished the Talking Stick to the altar this Trickster fell away from me like a shadow at noon. I was left to return to my place emptied of the coiled tension and stabbing attend of whatever it was had taken me for this short spell. I had not spoken of my concerns of covert black magic or personal bullying. I had not really spoken at all.
At once I felt sheepish to have made such a bizarre spectacle of myself, but amused that I had apparently made something of an impression. Somehow I had managed to contain my personal emotion so that it had transmuted to a different level where it had taken on an archetypal persona of its own. It was curious to feel how the anger of the dispossessed outcast could be perceived as Satanic by those within the safe wall of community when to that exile it was no more than misunderstood feelings.
For that was what I felt the essence of this was about.
The scapegoat became the Devil. No coincidence that the Devil of Satanic mythology is portrayed as having the head and cloven hooves of a goat.
We all have a bit of the Devil within us. That’s what archetypal beings are about. In choosing to open up to the Universe and grow I had unleashed a dynamic passage through the archetypes. I had to step away from the safety of my ‘poor me’ mask and challenge the intimidator I had managed to attract, magnetize, project.
It is hard to see in others what is not already in ourselves; if we see that which we do not recognise then we must go through that hard awakening to find it. Follow your Truth, speak your Truth, be in the Truth, it is Light. Truth is like imperishable gold. The Trickster tests to see that which is true. He who holds onto a lie in the face of truth is indeed a fool. In denying that he sees the initiation into a new path of learning and truth as folly. He brands that initiator, that Light Bringer as a Fool, as Satan. They may see and believe that to be so, but it is not. The Truth will stalk them like a Jackal, old Coyote the Trickster waiting to track them down and trip them up. The letting go of falsehood is the Death which leads to Eternal Life. It is always the outcasts who must carry this message. To understand that you are a fool is the beginning of wisdom. No wonder people like me who are out of place in their own
bodies are natural shamans, we are already set apart from ourselves and need to find our way back.
A brief stunned silence followed this archetypal manifestation. I was as shocked as anyone. Looks of amusement, horror, bewilderment.
A middle aged man somewhere to my left was the first to recover. “We need to retain our focus. We mustn’t descend into chaos.”
A young woman from the far side. “Let us hold together and try to understand each other and where we are coming from. We have such diverse backgrounds that it can be difficult, but that is one of the strengths of this circle, we must work on it.”
Another: “How can we impose order on each other? We have to find our own pathways. Who are we to pontificate on the problems of others when we can’t even come to agreement amongst ourselves?”
How had I come to this place of doubt and faith when all I had desired was to spread the light?
Follow me in the story of how my inner Trickster had led me here to find my truth…
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