The Sacred Clown - An Ending and a Beginning are the Same
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If you want to journey into the mind of a sacred clown or fool archetype, then up is down, left is right, an ending is a beginning, the wound is the healing, opposites are two sides of the same coin and balance is walking the edge.
If you want to find the light, you have to walk your abyss and unearth, what you have buried deep within, if you need to dive into your shadows, look into your sun and ego. Walking your abyss takes courage, facing your ego means facing fear. Courage and fear are the same, just different markings on a scale. I once asked a shaman I was walking with and who was struggling with letting go of something, how many sides a coin had. She said, “Two.” 
Me in my teenage years. For a while I dyed parts of my hair a different colour. It threw my Math professor completely for a loop.
I took out a coin and said, “You have heads and tails, like love and hate.” I put the coin on the table, heads up and gave it a slight push. The coin slid along the table, but came to an abrupt halt caused by the friction. I repeated the same tails up and again, the coin came to a halt abruptly, never gaining traction. I said, “If you choose love and follow it through to the extreme, you will self-sacrifice and nothing will be left of you. If you choose hate and follow that path until the end, you will destroy everything on your way and then devour yourself, for a fire cannot keep itself alive on ashes and ruins.” I paused for a moment. 
"The Sacred Clown", Kristin Raphaela Otti (2005)
“Love and hate are the same, two sides of a coin. Choose one side and you will experience friction and eventually not go any further. There is a third side to every coin albeit, the edge.” I balanced the coin on its edge. “Balance.” I gently set the coin rolling. “If you walk the edge, the coin turns into a wheel and life is in flow.” We watched the coin rolling. I added, “Let go and welcome in. Provide and receive. Experience both sides, success and failure. Be gentle and laugh with yourself, learn how to walk the edge and heal.” A shaman I had the honour of walking with for a short while, asked me to say “Thank you.” every single time, when he saw that I was hurt. He did not offer any help and he did not acknowledge my pain making me feel completely unseen. To say that it was irritating, would be an understatement. It hurt. Months went by until I realized that he had helped me understand my own medicine and my way of healing. He had seen me and allowed me to dive deeper into myself. 
This is a screenshot taken right after the end of my speech at the UN Summit of the Future Action Days online event. Yes, there is a plush penguin in the background. Humor is not about mocking or making fun of anything, humor is about enjoying life and healing the soul. And yes, I asked during rehearsal, if the penguin were allowed to stay in the background. The response was a "Oh hell yes!". Good hearted humor is a universal medicine.
The wound is the healing, a trigger a pathway to it. I started smiling, then laughing with myself.
Yes, with myself, not at myself. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 
This is a group of friends playing "Mensch ärgere dich nicht!" ("Ludo" or "Don't get mad!" in English). Yes, it is the very same penguin watching over us. (c) Karin Brüstl
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My goalie masks reflect that opposites are two sides of the same coin. This one combines fire, ice and the Northern Lights, the one before that was the black of a starless night and the orange of a coal not yet burst into flame.
Humor and laughter are among the strongest medicines there are. Being able to laugh with yourself and letting go of laughing at yourself is a healing experience. When meeting a sacred clown, a trickster, an agent of change, expect the unexpected.
Never albeit play with a soul. In its malevolent archetype the trickster turns into the soulthief or narcissist whose aim is not to help you heal and break the cycle but to bind you to them, continue and prolong the exchange of conscious abuse and reactive abuse, so you become their source of energy. Narcissists inflict wounds to trigger you into an emotional reaction, positive or negative, that aims solely on feeding the void in themselves, that has been created by not walking their abyss and refusing to confront their shadows and shame. Your energy supplies them, until they have drained your heart, soul, mind and spirit and they discard you as if you were no more than a drained battery. A soulthief, narcissist and malevolent trickster abuses spirituality and religion. To them, spirituality and religion are just tools to get their needs met. They weaponise the old teachings to make others follow tales of wisdom they have changed into a rigid set of rules, they themselves have no qualms of breaking or twisting in a way that serves their quest for power. They are bullies and thieves, not healers or spiritual leaders. A malevolent trickster only caters and tends to their own needs. It is a me me me that only takes the needs of others in account, if it serves a purpose, polishes and shines the mask they are wearing or their meticulously crafted image, brings in fame, fortune or riches. The trickster in question attempts to wear the accomplishments and merits of others as their own, benefiting from being associated with them. The names and accomplishments of others become their ticket to success, with no-one questioning their abilities or intentions, blinded by the names of acquaintences, alleged friendships or former teachers. Soulthieves are masters of facade management. They appear incredibly charming, but are hunters on the prowl for new prey, categorising people. If you bear no name in their eyes, they cannot control you by trauma bonding or blinding you to their true nature, you recognise your worth, start seeing through them and they cannot control and illusion you anymore, they will discard you after having used and drained you. If being associated with you makes them shine as well however, they will brownnose, kiss your ass, play the victim or rescuer, massage your ego and put you on a pedestal. Do not illusion or flatter yourself, it is not love. It is strategy. You have not found your perfect soulmate, you have fallen prey to a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do not mistake a narcissist or soulthief for a sacred clown or a shaman. A shaman and sacred clown knows that with the path they have agreed on walking comes responsibility. They watch over the people they are walking with even from a distance. They never use humor as a weapon to damage your soul. Bullying someone else, belittling them, putting them down behind their back, causing them physical, emotional or psychological pain, abusing spirituality, religion or the illusion of being anonymous on social media by creating an avatar or fake persona, dismantling the self confidence of someone walking with you to steal their light and extinguish their flame, mocking their struggles, knowingly re-traumatizing and abandoning them, when they cannot bear it anymore and ask for help and then smearing and isolating them, is neither “just a joke”, “just a mistake” or “a prank”. It is playing with the soul of another being and not a sacred act of healing. A sacred clown turns the world upside down, challenging norms and perspectives. The wound inflicted onto them becomes the healing, an ending threatened or forced simply a pathway to a new horizon and new learning, belittling them is showing them their potential and the one who laughs best is not the one who laughs last. It is the one who has the strength and courage to laugh with themselves and let yesterday's ego go with a gentle smile. Yes, the sacred clown is the soulthief's worst nightmare. Sacred Clowns are the mirrors unconditional, balancing on the edge, laughing with themselves while enjoying and playing the game of life, never using humor as a weapon but instead as a gentle reminder of the absurdity and comedy in the games being played. And yes, at times it will hit you like a bolt of lightning later and the joke is on you. Laugh with yourself, let go and embrace life with a smile. Kristin Raphaela Otti |
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