Release Your Trickster!
Essential Skills for ‘New Story’ Tellers and Work-Makers
*** Sept 2 - 30, 2025 ***
@ 1:00 PM Pacific | 4:00 PM Eastern
with
Elaine Decker, Ph.D
&
Cassandra Wells, Ph.D
* 5 Tuesdays: Sept. 2nd - 30th, 2025 *
As philosophers and activists Bayo Akomolafe and Marta Benavides recently observed, even though today’s urgent existential threats have been with us for a long time, “today gifts us with the appreciation of a different kind of urgency, one which comes from the realization that the system is not the cause of our problems. They argue that “we are still tethered to the deadening values of consumerism, and have not reclaimed our roles as living co-creators of a society we prefer to live in.”
If you are ready to take up the challenge of world-making, this course is for you. Led by humour theorist and educator, Dr. Elaine Decker, participants are not invited to fix a broken system, but to embrace their capacities to imagine, create, and embrace other worlds.
The key to this transformation is to understand the disruptive archetype of the TRICKSTER! Tricksters/clowns/fools have been documented in every culture on earth – ancient, modern, and even forward in science fiction. Depending on the context, the Trickster is a prankster/entertainer, a leader in the community, an advisor to the king, an inventive problem solver, a communicator among species, a competent manager of personal challenges and trauma, and a brave explorer of new ideas.
Get ready to Transform Tragedy! Undermine Authority! Debunk Dominance! Summon Silliness! Play with Power! Evolve Ignorance! Laugh in the Face of Doom!
In this class we’ll use video, songs, games, puzzles, yoga, jokes and riddles to
(1) demonstrate how Tricksters disrupt our attachments to given realities and make us hospitable to new ones, and
(2) develop in ourselves the Trickster’s 3 crucial qualities - flexibility, imagination, and courage.
We invite you to dispel the myth of separation, strengthen your capacity to celebrate life’s gifts & challenges (both individually and collectively), and to help decommodify and reconstitute the real world.
The times are serious; Let’s laugh!
WORKS CITED: Bayo Akomolafe and Marta Benavides, The Times are Urgent; Let’s Slow Down. https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/the-times-are-urgent-lets-slow-down
Bio - Elaine Decker, PhD
Elaine Decker earned a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia in 2004, for her study of the place of comedy in the interpretive work of being human. Her 50-year professional career has included teaching assignments in elementary schools, colleges, universities, pre-service teacher education and community organizations. She has held administrative posts in several post-secondary institutions – all grist for the comic mill. She retired formally in 2019 to be a full-time climate activist but continues to practice Conrad Hyersʻ (1981) advice, namely that it is the
ʻtask of clowns and fools and comic heroes to remind us of our intrinsic freedom and flexibility.ʻ
Bio - Cassandra Wells, Ph.D.
Cassandra Wells is a theorist of the body and ecozoic futurist, currently working on projects linking physical & ecological education, both online and in-person. Drawing from studies and certifications in eastern and western wisdom traditions - including kinesiology (PhD), Integral Yoga (India), Shin-Do (meridian energy modality, Japan), Deep Time cosmology (certificate), and the Design School for Regenerating Earth –she creates body-based learning experiences that address the personal, collective, and cultural challenges and opportunities of climate adaptation.
Program Name: Release Your Trickster! Essential Skills for ‘New Story’ Tellers and Work-Makers
Facilitators: Elaine Decker & Cassandra Wells
Dates: 5 Tuesdays: September 2nd - 30th, 2025.
Time: 1:00 - 3:00 PM PST | 4:00 - 6:00 PM EST
Cost:
$99.00
Please do not let cost deter you from attending.
Ask us about our funding for programs.
Location: On-line: Streaming Video via Zoom
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