Why?

It wasn’t just “a game” that had me going back through the mists of time to conjure up a story of fossilized bones found at the far end of Roaring Beach.

I, therefore, must explain why it is that I spent, not just a casual afternoon writing last week’s blog for April Fool’s Day, but several days in its preparation, from the setting up of the photographs, researching the science of evolution and then putting it all together in a format that would be believable to some, yet potentially self informative and a chuckle to everyone.

Wrapped up in this blog of trying to fool people, is Nietzche’s idea that “in our time of doubt about all ‘certainties’, sustained intellectual discourse is hypocrisy.”

I’ve been doing an occasional April Fool’s Day “performance” for over 30 years in order to get people to understand the importance of accepting what it means to be the “fool” in everyday life.

For me, living an artful and/or Artist’s life requires one to be willing to “make a fool of himself/herself”.

When teaching full time years ago, one of my favorite lessons to first year art students — on their very first nervous day at university — was to have them go stand and talk gibberish in a public space for fifteen minutes. When we gathered back into the classroom I would ask how the experience was for them. “I felt foolish.” “I felt really vulnerable.” “I felt alone and unsure of what to do.” “I felt uncomfortable with all these people thinking I was nuts.”

In reply I said: “Get used to this. This is how your whole life will be if you’re serious about being an artist.”

When the muse visits and the artist rafts along on the exciting steady pulse of creative flow, this is exhilarating. This moment, however, is but the rare reward for a life mostly spent outside of one’s comfort zone. It may be rare, but this flash of insight will never visit the timid whose lives are dictated by conformity and living within the rules.

The Tarot cards recognize the importance of The Fool: quirky, crazy wisdom and allowing oneself to be open to vulnerability. All societies recognize the importance of the Fool, the trickster Coyote, the rascal Raven, Brer Rabbit. This character is a balance of both folly and wisdom, a teacher interested in the inversion of social norms, the breaking of boundaries and the shattering of cultural taboos.

In the context of last week’s blog, I would say: “If you want to learn artful behavioral strategies for coping with a changing world, look no further than the lesson of the Fool.”

Accepting the role of the Fool in one’s adult — supposedly mature — persona is what Jungian psychologist James Hillman calls “living the paradox of a puer/senex life”: a combination of youthful goofy irrelevance with teacherly wisdom; the blending of laughter with the serious.

Lastly, let me add that the April Fool’s Day blog entry had as much to do with my own personal growth as with any reader’s.

This is because I’ll do anything to learn how to speak more effectively for the forests. If I make an ass of myself but can save one tree, so be it.

So, no ancient bones to be found at Windgrove. But, hopefully, it is a land that speaks of kindness, compassion and a quirky sense of humour.