The fool's task

A new year reflection on kings and clowns

Last month I got curious about Transcendental Meditation so I signed up for an information session with a local instructor. Curiosity takes us places. There is so much world, and so many souls exploring it from so many angles.

I met the meditation instructor and one other interested soul, a chef, on a rainy mid-December day in the basement of the historic Cambridge Masonic Temple in Porter Square. The instructor gave me and the chef each a clipboard so that we could fill out a form with our email addresses and reasons for being there. 

My reason was something like: More levity, doing good work with a greater sense of ease. 

I might have just as honestly said: To drop down, for a time, beneath the chatter, and to bring back a boon of clarity.

Also, I was curious what sorts of things Transcendental Meditation instructors talk about in the basements of Masonic Temples. The space smelled of patchouli from the other room where the group of ecstatic dancers were just finishing their mid-day romp. My meeting place was a smaller room with six folding chairs, a dry erase board, a stack of books, and the clipboards on a low table against the wall—plus me, the chef, and the instructor. 

The instructor held court and did his song and dance. I was as intrigued by the caliber of his performance as I was by the content of the pitch. Who says a sales pitch can’t be woven together like a one-man show? I love getting to witness people giving their gifts to this world.

I walked away soggy from the rain, and curiosity sated for now.

The Midwinter Revels show, that I wrote about before the holidays, was set in a medieval court at solstice, and it centered on the tandem trope of the king and his jesters. They are mirrors of each other, kings and fools. The king and the fool are an inhale and exhale of the same breath. 

At winter solstice the king is traditionally charged with the curious duty of descending to the nether world to retrieve the light to bring back for the realm, ushering in a new cycle of creation and growth. In the Revels things went topsy-turvy, as they often do in a good story, and it ended up that the three fools were the ones who were called on to fulfill the king’s task. And so—faithful to the realm in their own ways—they descended.

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In the basement of the temple the meditation instructor recited a poem that I had never heard, penned by R. L. Sharpe around a century and a half ago:

Isn’t it strange

That princes and kings,

And clowns that caper

In sawdust rings,

And common people

Like you and me

Are builders for eternity?

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We’re all making something, or meant to be, at every given moment. 

Making love. Making amends. Making art. Making room. Making friends (or the reverse). Making home. Making memories. Crafting our contributions and building a legacy. We are—moment by moment—makers of eternity.

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The poem continues:

Each is given a bag of tools,

A shapeless mass,

A book of rules;

And each must make—

Ere life is flown—

A stumbling block

Or a steppingstone.

I like it. Though, certainly, by God’s grace, it’s not that binary. After all, I might stumble over something that causes you to leap. The builders, along with those who are making their way, share responsibility for the outcome of the walk. 

But the fools do return with light for the realm, making it possible for us all to identify, and then avoid or utilize, whatever the obstacles in our way. 

And, in case you missed it, we are, each of us, a court unto ourselves. We are, each of us, common people and princes and kings and clowns that caper—descending, transcending, dancing, stumbling, strolling, transgressing, and jesting—our way from moment to moment, day to day, season to season. That’s what it is to be alive. That’s what it is to be human.

So, whatever you are feeling today, and as you lean into this new year, may your heart be open to the full expression and experience of your humanity. You are royal, you are tricky, and you’re not alone in this world that is drenched with curiosities.