🌬️ The Trickster--When the Universe Plays: The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious
🌬️ WHEN THE UNIVERSE PLAYS
This morning, serendipity revealed itself — a full God Wink.
I sat down to record a podcast after too long a pause, planning to speak on Windhorse. But in honor of the ancient tradition of letting the Muse choose, I closed my eyes, opened a book, and listened.
The page that revealed itself was from Carl Jung’s The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious — the section on the Trickster. And I laughed out loud. Of course.
Just days ago, a coyote crossed my path on the mountain — not skittish or fleeing, but trotting calmly, as if arriving from another realm. I spoke to him, thanked him, even sang to him, and he stayed longer than reason could explain. It wasn’t merely an animal encounter; it felt like an archetype embodied.
Coyote, the shape-shifter and boundary-crosser, had already stepped into my field. And now Jung’s Trickster appeared on the page as if to say: Pay attention.
Jung describes the Trickster as a composite of opposites — divine and animal, foolish and wise, destructive and healing. A figure who embarrasses, confuses, surprises, and liberates. One who breaks rigidity, exposes hypocrisy, and loosens the ego’s grip. Primitive, chaotic, unpredictable… yet strangely redemptive.
Most strikingly, Jung calls the Trickster “the wounded wounder who becomes the agent of healing.” The one who stumbles and disrupts — and by doing so, awakens consciousness.
We rarely speak of the Trickster today. We talk about purity, alignment, manifestation, enlightenment — all beautiful — but where is the holy fool? The Divine comedian? The one who pulls the rug out not to punish, but to free?
Every tradition knows this figure: Coyote, Eshu, Hermes, Loki, young Krishna, medieval Fool’s Festivals, even Christ’s unexpected reversals.
Yet in modern spirituality we try to sand off the edges, be “good” and “pure,” forgetting that life refuses to be sterilized. The Trickster returns when we become too rigid, too certain, too serious, or too spiritually inflated. He pops the bubble. Restores humility. Reconnects us with our humanness — and our humor.
Sometimes the Trickster arrives as a coyote on a trail. Sometimes as a book falling open to the perfect page. Sometimes as:
• spilling your tea the moment you declare serenity • misplacing your keys and finding them in your hand • overreacting just after promising “I’m so evolved now” • your perfect plan dissolving so something better can emerge
Instead of shame or blame, we can whisper: “Ah — the Trickster is tuning me again.” And everything softens.
Trickster energy is woven into the collective right now: old structures cracking, truths surfacing, people awakening in unexpected ways. Many of us are being invited to reclaim what we’ve lost — the freedom to laugh, to not know, to let life surprise us. The Divine is not fragile. The Sacred is not humorless. Creation itself is playful. This is Lila — the cosmic dance. The Trickster is one of Her costumes.
Take a breath and reflect: Where has the Trickster been teaching you lately? Where has life humbled, surprised, softened, or amused you? Let these become part of your mythology — not failures, but initiations.
Whisper gently: “Thank you, Trickster, for keeping me human and free.”
This morning, I thought I was choosing Windhorse. But Windhorse carried me straight into the Trickster. Coyote stepped into my path. Campbell whispered through memory. And Jung offered the perfect page.
When we release control, the Mystery writes the script — and it is always funnier, kinder, and more meaningful than what we would have written ourselves.
May the Trickster walk with you today — not as chaos but liberation, not as fear but freedom, not as confusion but the cosmic wink that says: You are alive. You are learning. You are guided. You are loved.
Amen. Aho. Om Shanti Ma.
Artwork by Mary Engelbreit: https://maryengelbreit.com/products/lifes-too-mysterious-white-fine-print?_pos=1&_sid=c4b288ac7&_ss=r
