Don't Underestimate the Power of Silly

I giggled with delight when I read the I love how silly we can be together love fortune.  The real gems in my life are the ones that can do silly.  To truly be silly you have a good sense of yourself and be risky enough for people to think your a fool.  There is such wisdom in this and I'm going to share a very profound quote that I discovered in a book The Witch and Clown.  I can't find it right now to credit the authors name.  I had this book on my bookshelf for a while and I decided to bring it with me on my plane ride to Costa Rica several years when I was going on a clowning trip (yes you read right) with Patch Adams (and yes you read right again).  This really taught me the power of silly.  I went on a whim, knowing there was very little I couldn't do for a week.  They didn't give me much info to prep with, so I went to party city and picked a wig (hot pink pony tails), a honking nose, wings and a boa.  Yes that was what my version of clown would be. I figured people that wanted to clown in children's hospitals had to be a pretty good group to hand around with.  The intention was to use clowning as caring.  We clowned in children's hospitals, mental institutions and, even an Independence Day Parade.  Each was profound in it it's own way.

The most profound for me was in the mental institution.  It was not planned and at last minute one of the local Costa Rican crowds told Patch about this opportunity and he was excited.  I was not.  I remember a quote that someone who used to work as a psychologist in Bellevue told me.  The only difference between the doctors and the patients was that the doctors had the keys.  So the way this worked is that there was a group of about 30 of us.  We would go from this house like buildings, each had a different demographic.  Without knowing which had which they would go and say ok four clowns hear.  They would unlock the door, let us in and then lock the door.  I remember that locking sound being thunderous and I thought, "Oh shit, if I need to bolt I can't"  There was other staff inside so we were safe but I was wary.  Fortunately I had a demographic that was perfect for me, ladies from 16 and above.  And since clowns freak some people out, again I was cautious.  They loves us.  We danced, we sang, we hooted and hollered.  And then I say this older woman sitting to the side and her face was wet with tears.  I cautiously went over to her.  I just quietly sat down on the couch and faced her.  We stared in each others eyes.  I practically got lost in the depth of her loving soul.  Part of my costume was a feather boa.  So I took the boa and carressed her arm.  We continued to gaze and I said to her in what little spanish I know, You have a big heart.  She shook her head slowly in confirmation and then she picked up my boa and caressed my face with it.  Let's just say, that boa became very sacred to me.  I guess we shouldn't forget the power of the boa.  Another of the patients then came over to me screaming angel, angel...(because I was also wearing wings), I said no I'm a butterfly and flitted off.  The moment was over but one that had stayed deep in my heart forever.  Had I not been willing to go to silly, this would have been a missed opportunity.

Yes some people get freaked out by clowns but the silliness lets lots of people put down their guards and they let you in.  I haven't done another clowning trip although you never know, yet I have taken that wisdom and incorporated into my essence.  Let's just say it works.

I used to be afraid that people would not respect me if I shared wisdom through silly.  I needed to be serious, but fuck that.  If people can't see the wisdom behind the silly, then who is the fool.  Oh I diverted here is the quote.

The clown collapses the distinctions of the I and not I, of the subject and object...Watching him, we begin to wonder who is the reflection of whom?  Breaking down the ego-boundaries, the clown lets in the stream of psychic life that dissolves the discrete I in this seeing eye, his own and ours, moving through the mirror to the flux of being and becoming, touching the Zen idea that seeing into nothingness is true seeing.  What we thought was fixed reality is but the play of the phenomenal world, the illusion of personal consciousness, the ephemeral nature of history.  Thus the clown leads us beyond discursive reason, symbolizing the values of the supraatios--of the pure heart, the true enlightenment.  Ushering us into the space beyond space, we come to entertain different views of what is illusory and what is real.  We join the juggling act, to juggle and be juggled.  Thus Jesus's silence before Pilate and before the soldiers who mocked him as a fool.  Jesus as clown takes us through the mirror to its other side, where what was thought to be foolish is shown to be wise."

Since I've been sharing music videos, I could have left you with the obvious Send in the Clowns and the true power in silly is knowing how much.  It's quality not quantity.