Clowndestine Occurences

This week the darker side of clowns reentered my consciousness when a work colleague who had been read Stephen King’s “It” ( featuring the evil clown ”Pennywise” who uses balloons to tempt his child victims) was freaked out by the synchronous appearance of balloons in his back garden. This was followed up by a number of balloon and clown syncs in quick succession. Like one does when bamboozled by synchronicity he shared the experience and of course the meme was passed on, I went home to see an article on T.V about an undercover UK policewoman who infiltrated a non violent direct action environmentalist group called the Clandestine Rebel Clown Army. There’s a lot of stuff on Spy Cops (undercover police work) about in the media at the moment.

The dark side of clowns first entered my consciousness as a kid when my parents used to enter my brothers and I in an annual carnival in my mothers hometown. For the first few years we dressed in cool costumes as grenadier guards ,knights of the round table and snow white and the seven dwarves, the first year i didn't really like the costumes was when we dress as black and white French Peirot clowns, I had always associated the clown with the red nose circus big top variety and typified the commercial arena Ronald Mcdonald.I had never thought of a dark side.

In my teens I read “It” watched the film and became aware of the “psycho clown” typified by Penny wise and the Joker of Batman. and even fantasied about being a pro skateboarder with my own model of skateboard with a killer clowns design.

It wasn’t until much later I made the connection with the Court Jester / The Joker in the modern deck of playing card who is represent by the Fool in the Tarot. My knowledge of the symbolism of "The Fool" is limited but I understand he can represents the querant at the beginning of their journey to enlightenment but also the querant at the end of the journey having achieved enlightenment and a new found playful freedom bringing the querant full circle.

Click the links for more on the trickster / sacred clown  or the Insane Clown Posse