How I’m the Sacred Fool, of Course, in all Her Guises and Disguises
How I’m the Sacred Fool, of Course, in all Her Guises and Disguises
For when she asks, Who am I? Which archetype is most alive in my life?
How does that work?
How can a fool be considered sacred? Can the sacred be tarnished with the blemish of foolishness? Shouldn’t there be some wall between these qualities to protect their integrity? Or at least a semi-permeable membrane?
Archetypically speaking, no. That’s not necessary. Besides, when these seeming opposites attract, magic happens.
This is one of the reasons I so resonate with the Sacred Fool and her holy impishness. Her presence fuels my creative spirit. And when I took the archetype test mentioned in Barbara’s post, it said I am 58% creative.
(The rest of me was split 50–50 between spirituality and caregiving — which fits so well for me at the moment. The last time I took that test, I had some visionary in there somewhere. Maybe I need to spend more time with my Sacred Fool to get it back!)
Thank you, Barbara, for opening up on this juicy topic and posing the question — who are we?
Moi? Je suis La Sacred Fool!
And damned proud of it.
In fact, if this archetype didn’t exist, I’d have to invent her myself.
Sacred Fool mystically and playfully captures much of the ticklish topsy-turvy holy hodge-podge that makes me, me.
Or to badly parodize Nabakov’s brilliant opening to Lolita:
O Sacred Fool, light of my life, fire of my heart, my joy, my soul, my delight, my spirit, my playful power plot or plight. Sa-cred Fool: the tip of my tongue using your energy to find the spark of holy humor, the trigger to healing laughter, the way to get a point across such that they won’t know what hit them till they get halfway down the block. Sa. Cred. Fool. You give me permission to be authentically, angelically, asininely me.
Sacred Fool as Sacred Rebel
One of my favorite descriptions of her comes from Alana Fairchild’s Oracle deck called Sacred Rebels. How could I resist?
Here’s a snippet of what she — channeled through The Voice of the Soul — says about the Sacred Fool:
“The sacred fool is a great rebel, able to thwart convention and tell the truth without restraint. (There’s my authenticity!) She lives according to an inner wisdom that cannot be dictated to or controlled by anything!
“She says to you, don’t try to be appropriate, don’t try to be socially acceptable — just be. If you want to wear a mad hat while doing so, that would be just fine.
“It’s time for you to play, to let life happen in an unscripted way. The more bizarre, left-of-field, unexpected, and apparently ridiculous, the better. It is the desire of life to operate radically through you so you become the conduit through which miracles and crazy synchronicities can occur.”
And my lesson for today is–-those miracles and crazy synchronicities can only occur when I embody her more fully than I have been as of late.
Of late, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed.
With a sense of hyper-responsibility.
Mainly from being the main helper/caregiver for my friend and roommate as she deals with debilitating back pain. Given two compression fractures on her lower lumbar, healing will take some time.
She’s doing better now that she’s wearing a back brace, and has in-home physical and occupational therapy. As well as a hospital bed and tub transfer bench. But it took a weekend in the Emergency Room and a skillful discharge planning nurse to put all that in place.
Before then, she was ragged with pain. And I was worn ragged helping her.
As much as we both probably could have used more spiritual support and laughter’s healing powers, we got so caught up in the needs and fears of the moment, we did not know what we needed beyond what was right in our faces.
Even though she’s a minister, and I’m a Prayer Chaplain. As well as a student of improv, clowning, and Commedia dell’Arte.
I had all the raw ingredients but was too raw to harness them to help. Can you relate? So again, thank you, Barabra, for such a timely question, that in my case turns out to be healing.
Especially since I’m facing some health challenges of my own. Let me use this aha! moment to harness my Sacred Fool to support me in that journey.
Calling on My Sacred Fool’s Healing Energy
First and foremost, by connecting to all the spiritual support and inspiration, I can. In addition to the companionship of my fellow writers, there’s the Healing Presence of the Divine Mother in all her many guises which we’re exploring together.
Mother Mary being just one of them, but one who is very personally present for me. In my hours of darkness, she whispers, Let it be, let it be.
She’s even more present since I made a SoulCollage® card to bring her energy closer. Or should I say, my Sacred Fool made because on the card, right next to Mother Mary are Dorothy’s ruby slippers from her adventures in Oz?
So if ten Hail Marys don’t cut it. I can always click my heels three times and say, there’s no place like Om, there’s no place like Om — thanks to fellow Sacred Fool, Steve Bhaerman, and his alter ego, Swami Beyondananda.
Creativity in all its manifestations is healing for me. When I get crazy with worry, that’s when I’ll tap into Sacred Fool with SoulCollage®. Together we’ll make a soul card for my leaky, freaky heart. And let the healing spirit of laughter circulate through my artistic arteries and my voluptuous veins.
This is a timely reminder to revisit Duddles, my Clown Persona. Or maybe Zanni, my zany Commedia character, from this healing perspective. Oh, there’s a lot to say about how that all might unfold. But I’ll save that for another time.
Till then, wishing you all the sacred foolishness your heart and soul desire. Namaste and blessed be.