The World of the Trickster

Forms & Faces of Trickster

Do You See What I’ve Become?

Geode Collage

May I Haunt You?

Geode Collage

God’s Eye

Southern Utah

First Snow

Granville, Mass.

Blue Train

Rockland, Maine

The Gaze of What’s Gone

Southern Utah

Goethe’s DoorsBasel, Switzerland

Trickster in Autumn

Granville, Mass.

Gaudi’s ScreamBarcelona, Spain

Have I Been Here Too Long?

Gorges de Verdun, France

Rock Spirit

Pamaquid Point, Maine

What Are You Looking At?

Seguret, France

But…

Westfield, Mass.

Gourd with Hackles Raised

Westfield, Mass.

Doorway in Cezanne’s Town

Aix en Provence, France

Male Begonia in Evening Light

Granville, Massachussets

Rock DancerPage, Arizona

I’ve Seen Such Inward Complications

Banyon Tree, Hawaii

Feelings of First Love

Banyon Tree, Hawaii

Groping Forward

Wind River, Wyoming

How Did It Happen?Wind River, Wyoming

Uncertain PhoenixWind River, Wyoming

Agony in a Calm Green Dusk

Oahu, Hawaii

Hubbard River Water Sprite

Granville, Mass.

Memorial to Vanished Mastodons

Valley of Fire, Nevada

Sea Serpent or Claw Icon

Coast of Maine

Haunting

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sand Remembering the Spirit of Water

Southern Utah

Riding a Dragon

From the Air, West Texas

Rock Dancer IISouthern Utah

Cathedral SpiritBarcelona, Spain

Cave Dragon

Northern Arizona

The Late David Shainberg’s Shoes

Truro, Mass.

Lower Kingdom Divinity

Geode Collage

Kraken RisingSouthern Utah

Sun God

Westfield, Mass.

Tensions of Being

Roots and Rock,Vancouver, BC

Being Somewhere Close to the Center

Roots and Rock Collage,Vancouver, BC

Trickster Places

A Trickster RoadDeath Valley, Calif.

Dream LandscapeDeath Valley, Calif.

A Glimpse of What’s Real

Northern Arizona

Imagination a Little Wild

Page, Arizona

Inside of Love

Page, Arizona

Come This Way

Page, Arizona

Trickster Reflection

Granville, Mass.

Trickster Gatherings

What Rocks SayZion National Park

Morning AssemblyNear Tuscon, Arizona

Chaos DancersNear Lyon, France

A Comfortable Exchange

Vancouver, BC

Together

Granville, Mass.

Watching the Sky

Stonehenge

Trickster Changes

Cradle of LightVancouver, BC

Fractal Passing

Death Valley, Calif.

A Momentary Fractal Kingdom

Granville, Mass.

What Emerges in Hiding

Mollala, Oregon

One Stage of Decay

Benares, India

Spring Enlightenment

Westfield, Mass.

Summer Enlightenment

Westfield, Mass.

Autumn Enlightenment

Westfield, Mass.

Clouds

Provence, France

Clouds

Atkins Farms Parking Lot, Amherst, Mass

Clouds

Provence, France

Trickster Flying with Clouds

Mall, Hadley, Mass.

Clouds

Mall, Hadley, Mass.

Clouds

Mall, Hadley, Mass.

Clouds

Mall, Hadley, Mass.

Clouds

Westfield, Mass.

Clouds

Near Lyon, France

Soul Drifting Toward Death at the Close of the Day

Caromb, France

Release

Caromb, France

Clouds

Danbury, Conn.

Who Is Trickster?

We constantly distinguish—right and wrong, sacred and profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young and old, living and dead--and in every case trickster will cross the line and confuse the distinction....There are also cases in which trickster creates a boundary, or brings to the surface a distinction previously hidden from sight.

—Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World

Trickster conveys that our assurances about ourselves and our realities are illusions. The trickster’s world is a place of chaos and uncertainty, and it is our world, concealing our own deep ambivalences and our desire—or at least our proclivity—to undermine the very certainties we create.

—www.NuanceProject.com

Freud knew what this force was and how it alone could wrest life out of death’s grasp, and his word, Eros, describes well the trickster’s seizure of life. Yet the joy that the trickster gives and receives in penetrating nothingness and contradicting contradiction, in shaping and reshaping man’s life without end, rises from an even deeper source than Freud knew of—tougher, gentler, far more ironic.

—Robert D. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa

Trickster is Nature. (S)he is Art. (S)he is the twists,

turns, the backflips of our consciousness as it grasps at the no-

thingness that is.

Shrill tones slide upward, downward. Around the bird’s

trill, shadows cluster. Has something appeared in this place? or is it nothing? Water trinkles between rocks. Air stirs old leaves. Voices, almost inaudible, whisper.

We are here.

A man (the n father) A woman (then mother)

A da u gh t er (t h en sis t er ) A son (and brother)

We are here.

In this day. In this hour.