Normally folk don't think of Trickster and Christmas in the same category, but if you really look at all the ambivalences that surround the season -- coals and candy, gifts and switches, babes and greed, joy and depression, light and dark, etc, Christmas is really a very nice Trickster holiday. Whether one is fooling Herod or sneaking cookies, heading off to Egypt or dashing around the skies in a sleigh, whether one is checking lists twice or terrifying some Scrooge with ghosts, whether one has visions of sugar plums or the restlessness of the deprived, the season is a marvelous time for Trickster: a great time
-
of puckish deception, elfish humor, and eternal childhood - of secret gifts, guessing presents, and open desires
- of dark thoughts and winter’s cold but the hope of light and rekindling of the fires
- of a King born in a Stable, the highest God and lowest classes, and grace on a gibbet
- of a bringer of Life through Death, forgiveness by sacrifice, and mercy by execution.
This list of oxymoronic pairs could go on forever. Somewhere the seasons bring hope and despair, gain and lost, warm memories and cold futures. No wonder Dickens’ tale of “A Christmas Carol” spawned a cottage industry of ghosts, goblins, and angels that run through the minds of our memories harking back and harking forward always reminding us of our limited time. The season of rebirth is the season of death, and Trickster comes down the chimney with the jolly old elf as sure as all those gifts get conditioned by behavior and judgment. Still the ambivalence of Trickster is a promise of hope and light. It is the creation of the world, and so his season gives the gift of laughter and the grace of wonder with just a tiny little warning reminder that “you'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, for Trickster is coming tonight"!
May this season bring us all wonder, peace, and joy of ambivalent light in learning the limits of things and the great web that ties us all together. Enjoy the mud...............
...................bless us everyone
................Merry Contrarimas
