Happy April Fool’s Day. In recognition of this important day I wish to take you on a little journey – a Fool’s Journey. I want to re-enforce the importance of laughter. This year Kal got a message that would define his year’s perspective – it would be a year of laughter. He is still learning what that means, but I have an historical context for it, and that context becomes particularly salient today.
We start the journey in all seriousness.
Advisors
In druid culture accounts seem to place the druid in many positions of status and recognition – law-making, dispensing justice, directing war, and advising on political matters too. It seems that druids had the ear of the ruling leaders.
“When druids were not kings, they were advisors to king, queens and chieftans…” (Philip Carr-Gomm: Druid Mysteries)
From this lofty position there was a gradual decline, helped along by our friends The Romans. The skills and wisdom that the druid class was renowned for – especially the arts of divination, the bardic arts of wit, satire and lampoon – would struggle to survive. Unless they got preserved somehow.
Diviners
We have often mentioned The Fool tarot card, and usually we are likening ourselves to the actions of the fool – unaware, embarking on a new journey, trying to achieve spirituality, juggling several things at once, prepared but oblivious. These are all qualities that we relate to on our recorded journey.
“The Fool is shown at the beginning of his journey with unlimited potential. The sun rising up behind him represents the beginning of his journey. He is facing north-west, the direction of the unknown. He is looking upwards, toward the sky, or Spirit. He is about to step off a cliff into the material world but is he prepared?” (Biddy Tarot)
No-one is sure of the origins of the Tarot cards, yet this card in particular reflects the psyche of the spiritual journeyer so well. Someone had insight into a wisdom that ran deep. My suggestion is that as the druid culture became subsumed and relegated, that elements of it were preserved in those things which preserve knowledge best – imagery and story.
The divining capabilities of the ovatic practitioners became the secret tomes of lore, but also the tools of tarot, crystal ball, divining rods, rune stones and a ‘crane bag’ of other items. The Fool continued his journey to spiritual awareness.
Jesters
When we come to see depictions of the jester or fool in Shakespeare this position is always as an advisor to the monarch. The emphasis has shifted away from a direct advisor role, but the tools and the position of The Fool are at essence the same: criticism, satire, wit, holding events up to the light.
Falstaff is a famous depiction of such a character:
“Overtly Falstaff is a Lord of Misrule; parabolically, he is a comic symbol for the supernatural order of Charity” (Arthur Kirsch – Auden and Christianity)
Feste, from Twelfth Night, is quite overt and on the edge with his criticism of the ruling elite. Although he seems to embrace and enjoy the role of fool, he is nevertheless very aware of the role’s influence over his mistress:
“FESTE …I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. (3.1.34-35)”
OLIVIA: …there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.” (1.5.383-86)
How did they get away with criticism and satire? Because advice can be direct or indirect. When the direct route as advisor was no longer politically acceptable the advisor put on the mask of The Fool and turned the advice into a scathing form of ‘entertainment’ – a poem, a song, a story, a morality play, a joke, a witticism, an aside. All under the cloak of the healing and unifying power of laughter.
There is an unspoken inference here that as the role of the druid became one in which, as the druid order became less acceptable under new rulership, so the prized role of the advisor took on the motley clothing of The Fool in order to retain the ruler’s ear, and to steer the course of history through wit, satire and clowning.
The importance of April Fool’s day as a tradition seems to have a new vibrancy when seen in this context. Happy clowning, wise ones!
What an interesting observation about Russell Brand – I hadn’t thought of him in that context but now it seems obvious! More fool me. 🙂
The idea of the Shaman, Druid, jester, joker, fool, has been fascinating me for some time now. The Clown/jester archetype is so strong in our culture it feels ancient to me. Interesting that people like Russell Brand are gathering such a following currently. The clown pointing out the inadequacies of our leaders?