A lovely piece on April Fools Day
"The bitter cold winds of winter are a recent memory as the shining Sun brightly beams our way into April (this is a bit of a stretch given yesterdays winds and cold!) This is the astrological New Year and for centuries April 1st marked the New year for most of the world. When the current solar based Gregorian calendar was introduced, the New Year lost its affinity with the Zodiac. It took almost 200 yrs for the calendar to be accepted and instituted.
A few centuries later, echoes remain from earlier celebrations of joyful newness during April.The grass is a tender, fresh green, trees are budding and singing birds return to court and mate. We are giddy with delight, foolish in our desire to celebrate the sunshine and blossoming growth. We celebrate the April Fool.
April Fools Day, April 1, is a lighthearted holiday of practical jokes and laughter. Even though the origins are murky, some evidence indicates that this holiday of mockery and joking began while the calendar was changing. The fool mocked those who were laggard, resistant to change.
The idea of foolery and jesting is a time honoured and sacred tradition. In several Native American traditions, there are tricksters and sacred clowns whose path is to teach through humour and disruption. Joking, mockery, and the antics of the madman shake people out of their habitual thinking and actions moving them into new relationships with the sacred and with spirit.
In Europe, the tradition of the jester and fool is widespread, stemming from a time when there was no free speech. The fool was considered a twin soul to the royal leader, though one touched with childlike madness. The insanity was considered a sacred condition, a touch of the divine, and it exempted the fool from the normal rules, laws and codes of conduct. The fool was able to say things, point out incongruities and contradictions, and reveal hypocrisy. He did it with laughter, wild antics, bawdy jokes and rude language. In many cases, jesters and fools were the only ones who could tell the ruling classes some hard facts.
In our lives, the class clown performed these tricks for us. Modern comedians also look at life in a slightly askew fashion in order to point out ways to change. This is not always a comfortable or safe role - jesters and clowns often came to a bad end. A lot of times, our beloved class clown wound up in detention.
Folk and magical traditions tell us of the magical times and places called "betwixt and between." Neither this nor that , betwixt and between are times and places where normal rules do not apply- the place between, the normally unseen worlds give us tantalizing glimpses of what is, what was and what is to be.
April, from its first foolish day onward is just such a magical time. Each new day - with its tender green shoots, fresh blossoms, and birds on the wing is the the time between childhood and adult. We can tap into our own inner fool, allowing the laughter, jesting and disruption to jar us out of our winter pathways and depressions. We can move our awareness inward to that tiny bright spot of madness to find where desire and delight touch. In that gossamer place, we find our way into remembered innocence, laughter, mirth, and joy. Refreshed and enlivened, zany fools, we walk out into the sunshine ready for the next grand adventure and bright new season.
This is a time to see things with fresh eyes and to hear songs as if for the first time. We are rediscovering magic, reawakening to the world of light and beauty. We are between the past and the future. We are the fool."
-from the Llwewellyn's Witches calendar
The piece is written by Gail Wood
Have fun today being the Fool!
Posts
