Elder Tricksters

September 28, 2024

Protecting eccentric elders
lets them do vital work.
It is work that only they can do
to protect our communities.

Today I read the September 28 entry of Juno Covella—Perpetual Calendar Of The Fellowship of Isis, by dear departed Lawrence Durdin-Robertson. Here’s an excerpt:

“A comic old woman … with her jokes and lewd gestures moved Demeter to laughter. … This episode served to relieve the mourning.”

In Japanese lore, the sun Goddess Amaterasu retreats to a dark cave after being overcome by misery. An old woman, with humor and lewd gestures, draws Amaterasu from the darkness. Amaterasu’s exit brings Her light back to the world, which had darkened during her retreat.

To my mind, the old woman who made the Greek Goddess Demeter laugh ensured humankind’s survival. Demeter is a harvest Goddess. When She was not able to move on from Her immense grief, plants could not grow. Food is life, just as the sunlight that Amaterasu embodies is necessary for life.

Both these myths reveal tricksters to be Shamans. This is contrary to the usual portrayal of tricksters.

Elders Who Teach, Heal, & Empower Us Through Good-Natured Tricks and Joy

Seeing trickster as Shaman is only one way I reject the standard definition of a trickster. I also reject the portrayal of a trickster as someone who plays mean tricks to teach us important lessons. I view a trickster as a kind person who empowers us enormously through joy, fun, and good-natured tricks. (Read a pivotal 4000-word essay about Trickster in a two-volume Book of Shadows. It provides a more comprehensive look at my unusual theories about tricksters and their powers. Both human tricksters and trickster Deities can give you so much.)

Trust Your Intuition and Common Sense

The two old woman tales embody my understanding of a kind, joy-bringing trickster. How wonderful to finally find my theory embodied in traditional lore. It shows me, once again, that if I trust the conclusions I reach through intuition and common sense, I will eventually find them backed by traditional lore.

… Perhaps I noticed this embodiment in the Japanese lore decades ago. However, seeing the same archetype in a second tradition today brought it home.

Kind Eccentric Elders Are Important to Humanity’s Survival

Elderly tricksters healed Demeter and Amaterasu of pain so that They could bring Their gifts to the world again. This embodies elders of all gender identities who are kindly, joy-bringing tricksters helping younger individuals overcome pain. Thus, younger generations are more able to contribute to their community and the larger community that is All Our Relations.

This is a pivotal and overlooked power of crones.

One reason patriarchy devalues and otherwise oppresses elderly women: So that they cannot uplift their community, which is then more easily oppressed.

Elderly trickster men are devalued for the same reason. The disrespect heaped on them is seriously damaging. It may not be as bad as the disdain commonly shown to elderly trickster women. But pointing that discrepancy out might be splitting hairs. In any case: Wisdom is often attributed to the tricks of elderly men, and the positive results of their antics are more likely to be acknowledged. Regardless, they vitally need their communities’ support. Keep reading.

Elder Tricksters Help Us During Crisis

When crisis causes paralyzing grief, pain, and anger, so we cannot overcome the crisis, eccentric elders can step in. Each one is Trickster as a Shaman who heals us and empowers us.

It is important to know that they will bestow their joyful healing tricks on anyone. Tricksters embody love.

It is equally important to recognize old lady tricksters as Shamans who heal matriarchs—the latter being women who, like Demeter and Amaterasu, provide for their loved ones, communities, and All Our Relations.

It is important to recognize this because matriarchs usually lack even the dubious support their male counterparts receive. This affects everything from their mental health to their physical health to their productivity.

In a moment, more about the importance of supporting their male counterparts. My immediate point is:

It is important to see old lady tricksters as Shamans who heal matriarchs because patriarchy pits younger and older women against each other. Both lose vital support. This influences not only their productivity but also their chances of survival.

Wonderful trickster men uplift the individuals who lead by vitalizing—instead of by dominating—communities. These elderly fellows are like the tricksters who uplifted Demeter and Amaterasu. It is important to support these guys. They reject patriarchal male leadership models. By doing so, they give up privilege and fight systemic oppression. This makes them vulnerable to oppression.

I’ve been talking about men and women. It is equally vital to recognize and protect tricksters who do not identify with either gender. Or who identify with both. Or who otherwise gender-bend.

Some lore represents ultimate power as a hermaphrodite. There is good reason. By transcending gender, a hermaphrodite transcends all divisive dualities, thus embodying the ultimate connectivity—the union of all parts of the cosmos.

This is one of the greatest tricks that anyone can play! It is one of the greatest and most delicious tricks to have played on you! It invites you to open to a blessing that is the essence of life, love, and Shamanism. It is the trickster offering the following invitation to Demeter, Amaterasu, and any of us when we are trapped inside ourselves:

Come out from isolation and sorrow
so that you can be embraced by all of life
and be in union with the cosmos,
in all its goodness, beauty, joy, abundance, and power.

Tricksters who gender-bend are subjected to all the disdain and other harm that male and female tricksters encounter, and for the same reasons.

They are also targeted for additional reasons. Here is one specific to tricksters who heal honorable young leaders:

As mentioned, a person who does not adhere to so-called gender norms embodies unity and an invitation to union. All power resides in union within the self, union in a community, union with the cosmos. To alienate people from their inborn power and power as a community, oppressive cultures divide everything into opposing boxes.

Opposing boxes. Light supposedly opposes dark, as if day and night did not happen by the planet’s natural rotation.

Nature is not seen as harmonic union, but as separate parts always in feral conflict. This idea implies people must constantly vie for dominance or be crushed. Thus pitted against each other, they won’t work together to throw off oppressors.

Boxes. Our bodies and life itself are seen as machines, with mechanistic parts independent of each other. Death culture!

No! The universe is alive. It is a glorious, complex, synergistic, and jubilant weave, of which we are a part. And we each mirror this tapestry in all its wondrousness. The weave within and around us makes all magical and mundane power accessible. Ours!

Individuals who represent that by not gender conforming threaten the idea of mechanistic dualism. It is a core cultural underpinning of systemic oppression. So they are targeted in awful ways specific to them.

The horror can start at birth: The word intersex is a term for individuals born with traits that are not gender-conforming. This can include having both male and female genitals. Surgeries that cut away some genitals so the baby’s body represents only one gender still happen today. This is physical and emotional mutilation. An infant’s body and psyche are too vulnerable to withstand this trauma without suffering an awful impact that could last a lifetime. I imagine how terrible it would be for an adult to withstand the surgery, and then think of how much worse it would be for a newborn

I dedicate this post to a dearly departed friend. They were born with male and female genitals. That is still sometimes called a hermaphrodite. Some intersex individuals do not like the term hermaphrodite, and the term is definitely out of favor right now. It was a definition my friend liked.

A card in the Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck portrays a Hermaphrodite. A divinatory meaning of the card is ultimate power.

How to Learn from Old Tricksters and Let Them Empower You

Let us honor our elder tricksters, learn from their wise eccentricities, and be healed by their so-called peculiarities.

For example, have you ever thought an elder was rambling verbally, perhaps about glory days? Or repeating stories you’ve heard a million times?

Perhaps through repetition and so-called rambling, they are weaving a lifetime of experiences together for you and thereby weaving the different parts of the universe together. Open your heart and relax, so the weaving that is the universe can wrap around you like an enchanted blanket. It’s a trick!

Note: This essay emphasizes protecting elders because of their vital contributions. But everyone deserve protection and respect from their community, even when their value is not obvious.

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Comments connect us better than social media does. We can share our ideas in a community without haters trying to divide and distract.

It’s okay to be the only person commenting on a post. I don’t care about receiving appreciation and approval from a lot of people. In Traditional Shamanism, people connect as individuals. That is what my Fey-touched heart wants.

Does anything come to mind that you’d like to share?

Or claim trickster power simply by writing “trickster” in the comment field. It’s a trick!

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Women’s Grief, Women’s Victory: a Three-Week Healing and Empowerment

My sister, we need not be maidens drowning picturesquely in pools of our own tears, fulfilling the delicate, helpless portraits men have painted of us.

My sister, if your heart has long held quiet sorrow, raging sorrow, or other sadness, it is not your inevitable home, though the patriarchy would trap you there. Instead, in this event, we will rise up from pervasive sadness and helpless anger, leave the past behind, and claim our power as wild women and Goddesses.

Women, as a class, suffer grief that is specific to them.

Grief visits every human. Life includes loss. Women’s experiences of loss and grief can be quite specific. Anyone might lose a job, a child, a love, and opportunities. However, women’s losses occur in the context of a systematic oppression of women. That changes the nature of—and the number of—their losses dramatically.

A woman might mourn endless opportunities lost to sexism. The lost opportunities’ wide range is tragic. Some examples: glass ceilings; living in poverty because someone co-opted ideas, products, or services she developed; stolen micro-chances accruing day by day, year after year, effectively stopping a woman from pursuing financial independence, financial security, personal fulfillment, and other well-being. Loss after loss, macro and micro, on and on.

Other examples of losses: a woman’s more likely to experience a child turning away from her forever because society teaches us the mother causes every problem a person has. A woman is more likely to grieve for the abuse her mother suffered. She might even mourn lack of visibility, as both her sufferings and her strengths are overlooked.

A woman’s many deprivations can cause great sadness that is perhaps repressed, painfully deep in the belly, just so she can get through the day.

Great sadness affects physical health, spiritual vigor, self-confidence, emotional well-being, and effectiveness.

We’re going to change that!

I developed ceremonies to help women move through grief and rise from it as powerful Goddesses.

Join with Goddess sisters in a three-week journey to healing, power, and peace.

Until we face our sadness and grieve over the tragedies and losses we’ve suffered, we remain stuck in the past.

We will leave the past behind, move on, live life.

This grieving process can open our spirits in big ways, so we no longer block the prosperity, love, and other blessings the Universe sends us.

This grief work also helps unlock our magic, joy, creativity, confidence, and warrior spirit.

You will learn material you can use whenever you need it. Life includes loss. Now you’ll have new ways to move past it. I’ve even used this material to recover from tragedies my ancestors suffered.

Rise up, rise up.

To rise up, rise up, we must grieve.

Enroll here: https://outlawbunny.com/special-events-registration/

I wrote lyric to express the theme of this three-week journey:

The above poem doesn’t point to something abstract and ungrounded from our actual lives.

It is my call to you, sister, to the upcoming ceremony, to honor your woman’s power.

It is also a description of what will occur during that ceremony.

Are you wondering how you could possibly manage to ever mourn so much loss? Or wondering how you could heal from so much grief? Mine is a down-to-earth shamanism that addresses real life issues. This three-week process can make a substantial improvement in your well-being and circumstances.

This three-week journey has four powerful aspects:

1) Three ceremonies, one per week, for three consecutive weeks. These rites are via group phone calls. To participate, just dial your phone. These will be major healing ceremonies.

We will work in old-style oral tradition, which allows immense headway quickly. Enrollment is limited to 12 people, so we can perform ceremonies that can only happen in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention if they want that support.

The rituals facilitate major transformation: energy will continue to shift in us after each rite, and probably snowball long after the three weeks end. If you need support for this big work, you can have plenty.

2) Throughout your process, you receive emails that provide nurturance, inspiration, and ideas. This support arrives in your mailbox five days a week. Each message is brief, so you can read quickly and then continue to go about your day, in an improved state of mind.

3) Direct spiritual transmissions for three weeks. These transmissions bring more healing and serenity into your process, make it powerful and safe, further your personal growth, and boost your power as a woman and Goddess.

You receive a transmission five days a week for three weeks! One of each week’s transmissions will be during the group meetings.

I can’t say what “direct spiritual transmission” means for other practitioners, but in my case: I was born a good luck charm who automatically generates a beneficial field of energy. I don’t do anything to you; I don’t inject you with energy, rearrange your energy, or even dust off your aura, LOL. I simply give off a blessing energy during a transmission, the same way burning incense gives off specific magical energies in a room.

My transmissions’ energy adapts to your needs. Whether you need healing of gender-oppression wounds, physical healing, safety, serenity, something else, or several things, my transmissions address it.

They also add a boost to any effort you make. Our efforts combine.

4) In addition to individualized attention during class, I’m available for one-on-one support by phone, should you need to privately discuss anything, or if something comes up for you that would take too long to discuss during a group ceremony.

No experience needed. But even advanced practitioners should find this journey well worth their time.

We’ll meet Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, for three consecutive weeks, starting February 2. Reserve Sunday February 23, same time, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of the planned sessions. If an unexpected problem makes me unable to send one or more of the support emails, I’ll send it the week after the event ends.

Full cost is $250—for three ceremonies, three weeks of direct spiritual transmissions, three weeks of email boosts, and one-on-one support. If you have previously made this journey with me, your enrollment cost is half: $125. Your carrier might charge you for the phone calls into the ceremonies. Pay securely with PayPal: https://outlawbunny.com/special-events-registration/

Upon payment, your place is reserved. You receive course details—e.g., the phone number to dial to participate in the meetings—by email. No refunds. To discuss a payment plan, trade, scholarship, or semi-scholarship, or if you have other concerns about the event, call me.

I’m committed to this event not being overwhelming. There’s enough that overwhelms women nowadays, without a healing and empowerment process also doing that. This will be a gentle, loving event.

Our journey will be only three-weeks long because that helps create gentleness.

A shyster would promise that a three-week ritual will heal a lifetime’s worth of grief. An inept facilitator would attempt that much work in three weeks. Trying to do too much transformational work, all at once, can buffet the psyche, doing more harm than good.

Our journey will cause a remarkable, life-changing difference for you. Many individuals who have done short journeys like this with me called the results miraculous. The gentleness of the journey will help create the remarkable results, rather than diluting or otherwise weakening the process. Plus, I have an exceptional shamanic skill set, which allows me to facilitate major change in a short period of time. Gentle magic has enormous power to create huge positive changes *stat.*

After the three weeks ends, should you ever want to continue grief work on your own, this journey will have transformed your being in ways that help you do so. Also, should you want to do additional grief work with me later, I’m happy to discuss options.

Our culture’s systematic denial of women’s wounds causes many women to internalize that denial. They don’t see some of the injuries their psyches have suffered, and some of the healing they need. The best of us can internalize oppression.

So, please don’t gloss over this event. Give a moment’s thought to whether you can afford to pass it up.

A woman’s many sorrows can overwhelm her. Some women suppress immense grief, in order to get through the day. Living in a state of sorrow, conscious or subconscious, suppresses our power.

My sister, do not miss this ceremony, do not miss this, do not miss this. I don’t know if I will offer this event again.

And I turn 70 next year so, if you need this, now’s the time. Yay!

Enroll here: https://outlawbunny.com/special-events-registration/