So the truth about my recent ride up to the trailrider's wall is that I didn't really want to go, lest I give the impression that I'm some kind of backwoods adventure woman, which I'm not. At least not all on my own.

Fankly, I thought we were riding up to Lake Baldy (3 hours), having a lovely picnic and a nap in the tall grass and then returning home. But when we arrived at Baldy, my trickster husband Dennis informed me with that spark in his eye (the one that means there's no changing his mind) that we were going to ride up The Wall. "I'm so close, and I might not get to do it again," is pretty much what he said. I wonder if it's because I read him this quote from The Sheltering Sky not that long ago? I rolled my eyes and dug in my heels, whining about how the horses weren't in shape for that and blah blah blah and every other matter of excuse possible. And so my Trickster talked me into it. And I could have just ridden down to Jack's Creek on my own and waited for him there if he didn't. Because he was on his way.

I love the Trickster. Both of mine (Dennis and my young Percheron horse Toby, who is a major four-legged version of the archetype), and just generally speaking. Trickster pushes us out of ourselves and helps us become something more. Trickster transcends the mundane. Trickster laughs and plays and sees what's just beyond the horizon. Tells you to get back up on that horse because we're going to ride The Wall, baby!

If you follow the Trickster, you will most likely be amazed.

Consulting Wikipedia.org about the Trickster-- Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.

There's wisdom in the trickster/fool archetype. From mythandmagic.com--

The complex role of the trickster. The trickster provides truth, balance, play, recreation, destruction, creation, change. He is the destroyer of our well-ordered world and the creator of the new through play. It is by change that we are made new. We are all Phoenixes, capable of rising out of the ashes, if only the destroyer will bring us change. Let the trickster lead the way.