On Disbelief and Synchronicity

 On Nov. 3, I sat down with MrM around 10pm to start watching the televised election returns. We stayed with FOX as Florida and Ohio were called for Trump, and began alternating between FOX, CNN and NEWSMAX after FOX's early call of AZ for Biden.  At that point in time, Trump was still trending ahead of Biden in Michigan. On the visual models presented, Kent County, which houses the city of Grand Rapids (a traditionally Republican stronghold where Trump held his final rally of the campaign with thousands braving the cold to attend) was showing up red and the county situated above and to the left of Kent (a traditionally blue Democrat leaning county with a large African American community) was also showing up red, along with most of the rest of Michigan,  including a equally surprising number of counties in and around the Detroit area.  

After MrM went to sleep at midnight with the belief that Trump was in the lead,  I continued to watch into the small hours of the morning with a growing sense of confusion and disbelief forming.  I saw the mystifying slowdown in counting and reporting take place, and watched the Trump lead suddenly vanish to the point where, at 4am, Kent County unexpectedly flipped blue for the first time in fifty six years!  I wondered how that could be possible and when I finally went to sleep just before sunrise, it was with the belief that  something unusual and untoward seemed to have taken place with Biden receiving just enough votes in MI  to overcome the lead Trump had been holding.  I spent the next few days (and weeks!) in a state of surprise and disbelief, unable to reconcile what I’d seen with what I knew from lived experience to be true regarding the values, work ethic, commitments and voting history of a city/county/community that had consistently voted Republican since 1964. 

Though it took me a while to figure out from online reading what the reporting delay was about, and how the inexplicable turn around I’d witnessed in one particularly strong Republican county may have been managed,  the greater question of how to handle the disbelief I was carrying and what perspective to take going forward, left me stumped.   

I decided to stop watching cable news and focus on the “chop wood and carry water” aspect of daily life. To address the sense of incongruity, confusion and overwhelm I was feeling I began drawing mandalas during the time I'd previously devoted to listening to and watching the news; and I started with white colored pencil on black paper (using the Light in the Dark technique spelled out in Judith Cornell's books) adding more color to later work.  Over time I was able to piece together an awareness and understanding of what may have happened and what I experienced that made sense to me. And I began praying for a “return to balance” for myself and all involved.  

On Nov 15,  just prior to Trooper York’s post on old man Coyote as Trickster, I read about and ordered a book that sounded intriguing called The Trickster's Hat: A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity  by Nick Bantock (author of the Griffin and Sabine Series).

On Nov 19, I responded to TY’s post with the following comment/quote regarding the role Trickster plays: Trickster alternately scandalizes, disgusts, amuses, disrupts, chastises, and humiliates (or is humiliated by) the animal-like proto-people of pre-history, yet he is also a creative force transforming their world, sometimes in bizarre and outrageous ways, with his instinctive energies and cunning. Eternally scavenging for food, he represents the most basic instincts, but in other narratives, he is also the father of the Indian people and a potent conductor of spiritual forces in the form of sacred dreams. 

On Nov 20, SixtyGrit’s post on the sculptor/author Bill Reid, and the bad ass Raven Who Steals the Light, provided another example of the connection between tricksters and the creative force. 

On Nov 23, The Trickster’s Hat arrived, and I opened it to find this as the first exercise: “Draw a 2” x 2” square.  Inside the square, draw as many animals as you can in five minutes. Now draw a second 2” x 2” square, but leave one of the four sides open.  Then draw as many animals as you can escaping out of the square. Again, you have five minutes.   Hint: this is not about drawing skills.  It’s about doing something relatively lighthearted that gets you moving.  But mostly it’s to remind yourself that you need to enjoy what you’re doing”.

After following those instructions and letting the all the animals out, I went on to draw and fill several additional boxes, filling one with  money and another with ballots before letting it all loose with the ballots following the money.  And for the first time since the election, I felt a momentary sense of lightness and fun return, strong enough for me to marvel, first at the power of the creative force in the midst of disbelief, and secondly at the presence of tricksters and synchronicity to encourage, reinforce and invite me forward into whatever the future (and year ahead) might hold.