Fooling
Fooling is an improvisational art form, a way of entering into the empty space and engaging with audiences in radical presence with no plan, no net, and no cleverness. In my practice, our audience is each other, and I apply the more liberatory aspects of the art of Fooling to the work of busting binaries and creating the self.
The Fool is not a character to try on (a role) nor even a character to discover (a clown), and the Fool may or may not be, well, foolish, as the word is commonly used. Like all the very best things in life, the space of the Fool is transparent and slippery. The Fool appears as a lightning rod of freedom, relational intimacy, and universal life force.
“The Fool is the essential poetic integrity of life itself, clear and naked, overflowing in cosmic fun; not the product of intellectual achievement, but a creation of the culture of the heart. A culture of the genius of life. I believe that there is in life, and in the human psyche, a certain quality, an inviolate eternal innocence, and this quality I call the Fool. It is a continuous wisdom and compassion that heals with fun and magic.”
— Cecil Collins
To Fool is to practice showing up without having to be cool or clever and creating from what is available in the moment. We build capacity for awkwardness, for aliveness, for togetherness, and for making room for Something New to emerge - all the things we desperately need if we are to become disobedient to the dominant culture of the planet.
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"The Fool fearlessly begins the journey into the unknown. To do this, she does not regard the world she knows as firm and fixed. She has a seemingly reckless disregard for obstacles. She sets off with gay abandon with the innocence of a child coming into the world, full of trust, alive, playful and completely open to whatever comes her way in the present moment. This openness invites synchronicity. The Fool is the energy in all of us that is seeking to become full individuals, which carries vital, fresh inspiration without judgement."
- Mary-Jayne Rust
Fooling is an ordinary laboratory in which we practice:
-conspicuous aliveness
-collaboration with accident
-befriending self-consciousness
-being seen not knowing and doing anyway
A Fooling workshop has games, laughter, improvisation, and a nearly indescribable blend of intimacy, innocence, awkwardness, and risk.
I hold a strong container of cueing, play, and connection. We practice listening for the offer, following the impulse, challenging the assumption that there is separation between internal and external experience, and reaching into the ether of poetic imagination without knowing what will meet us there. We bear witness to each other's Fool, cheering as we see another casual step toward the unknown. It's an unforgettable ride.
Fooling is an opportunity to be who you are and who you are not in front of other people, to be fully alive and seen doing it, to take a break from managing, curating, and polishing yourself into presentability, to speak without having something smart to say.
The Fool exposes three fallacies:
The Fallacy of Intellect
The Fool shows us that information will never satiate (Kay) and that cleverness exists in opposition to generosity (Bass). By agreeing to the superiority of the one way of knowing (rationality, logic, proof, truth, science), we help maintain a false hierarchy, a split of self into matter and spirit, and a world that lacks meaning. The Fool helps us let go of truth altogether and risk occupying the not-knowing that leads to true nourishment and growth.
"But modern society, by its concentration upon Science to the point where it threatens to sterilize the growth and life of the human psyche, has outlawed the priest, the artist and the Fool; and has consequently outlawed an entire field of human vision." (Collins, 1947)
The Fallacy of Self-Protection
We believe that curating, editing, and molding ourselves in a particular way will keep us safe from judgment and rejection. Even if it's sometimes true, we must consider the cost. Our inner queen keeps things functioning but not alive, safe but dull. The times when we can manage to let ourselves be playful, even our play is mechanized (Gaulier). We repeatedly allow our internalized oppression to dictate our vitality. Unlike the queen, the Fool dares, risks, and trusts. By following suit, we confront the infinite and sacred self and discover much more than safety. We find an immediacy, a spontaneity, a poetry that sparks feelings of true freedom and possibility. We find the belonging we seek.
The Fallacy of Authenticity
The Fool reveals that our desperation for authentic self-expression is misplaced, or at least misnamed. When we find ourselves painfully unexpressed, we think the answer is to change our content (what we say, do, and make) in order to reflect something “real.” But in doing so, we become even more deeply obligated to our content as representation of our truth, defense of our worth, and validation of our right to exist.
The Fool sees the world as a stage and everything as performance. The Fool calls us to a path of self-creation, one where the isolated self dissolves altogether. I become the not-me, and I become the we. In this context, authenticity doesn't even exist.