“He is the god of the unexpected, of luck, of coincidences, of synchronicity…Whenever things seem fixed, rigid, stuck, Hermes introduces fluidity, motion, new beginnings and the confusion that almost inevitably precedes new beginnings.” Stassinopoulos, Gods of Greece.
It has been noted that the archetype of the Trickster defies and resists easy classification and unified definition due to a capricious and tricky ambiguous nature containing all conceivable opposites. Trickster has variously been named as the collective shadow (Jung), the Self (Doty), the personification of the Self-Care System (Kalsched), a metaphor for the psyche (Samuels), the spirit of the transcendent function (McNeely) and the image of the individuation process itself. We will attempt to capture this elusive, mercurial energy in all its paradoxical complexity and numinosity. Trickster appears in the field of liminality, bringing chaotic instability in its drive to subvert the social order, as a shape-shifter, thus carrying gender fluidity, crossing and violating boundaries, confusing and blurring distinctions between right and wrong, sacred and profane, male and female, living and dead. Trickster as an agent of a differentiation of morality, holds the potential for humanizing marginality, forcing us to question our ideas of order and morality, and, therefore, is a potent force for healing and revitalizing culture.
As one of the most powerful archetypes within the collective psyche, the moral complexity and transformative potential of Trickster energy exhorts us to wade into this swamp, get intimate with discomforting ambiguity, and cultivate and embrace an appetite for nuance and change. In our western culture that disavows impermanence, it is challenging to accept change as the one constant in life and stay in states of liminality to see what gifts emerge. We will examine the crucial psychological concept of liminality, how it manifests in our lives, and why it is so important to be more able to tolerate and metabolize these destabilizing energies in our on-going quest for deeper wholeness.