“My intention has been to write not simply about mythological tricksters, but also about the disruptive imagination and the art it gives us. The term “art” covers a lot of ground; what portion of that ground intersects with what tricksters do?” – Lewis Hyde, ‘Trickster Makes This World’
“From the point of view of his more settled neighbors, his aimlessness makes him an embodiment of uncertainty – no one knows when he’ll show up, or how he’ll break in, or what he’ll do once he has arrived. Not surprisingly, the stories exhibit some tension around this issue, for these more settled neighbors often tire of trickster’s disruptions and set out to bind or suppress him. That turns out not to be so easy, and to have unexpected consequences.” – Lewis Hyde, ‘Trickster Makes This World’
“Along with the revelation of plenitude, then, comes revelation of a complex, joint-working consciousness, one that can always find those corridors of humor, one that will play with any concept, no matter how serious it seems (play with shamanism, with the truth, with the apples of immortality), and one that can create new artifice if need be, that can turn to shaping when it tires of shifting.” – Lewis Hyde, ‘Trickster Makes This World’
“Complexity has been with us since the beginning of time, and a mind as supple as the skin of an octopus arose to work with it. In the last part of his prophecy, trickster reveals himself, for he is that mind. When a human mind recognizes what has been revealed, it is recognizing itself. The hunter finds two things at once when he finally sees the octopus hidden on the rock.” – Lewis Hyde, ‘Trickster Makes This World’
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