Latest / Being Different Together / #37 - Dolly Parton and the Trickster Archetype: A Jungian Analysis of Her Life and Legacy

Transcript

#37 - Dolly Parton and the Trickster Archetype: A Jungian Analysis of Her Life and Legacy · Being Different Together

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we welcome them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about being right, it's about being different together.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we're recording this episode in Cocoa Beach.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: We did that um with one of the intentionality episodes a couple months back, maybe in May or June.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so if you want to know what what that what what's up at Cocoa Beach, you can go listen to that episode, whichever one it was.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know which one it was?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was the one about um it is useful to view the past in a friendly way.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, I'm s it's so cool that you could remember that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember reflecting on that intentionality saying, sitting at this table, although it wasn't exactly this table.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was this table, one floor down.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we um so we're at our place on Cocoa Beach.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We come here twice a year.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um Puppy's sleeping on the couch.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: We got to bring him.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've been um we've been doing a lot of puzzles.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've been doing a lot of puzzles, and it's been really cool because this is a big week uh in our history because uh Dolly Parton died.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that was that was a transition.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, from puzzles to I mean, I just feel like the puzzles have kind of helped me stay, you know, wherever here in the Okay, okay.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's been you know, they've been like a tether to mindfulness or something, you know.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so two days ago we were minding our own business.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was my experience.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, do today, my family came.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: We had some fun time with the four-year-olds, and then we came up to the room to get our stuff to go to dinner, and I look at my phone, and I have this message.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have a text message from my friend Lindsay, and it says, Have you seen the news today?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, excuse me, goddammit.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: The last time she messaged me with that was when RBG died.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was just like, Well, can you just tell me who died?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then I saw I had a text from my mom that said Dolly who passed.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, dang.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you and your mom share a really special connection to Dolly Parton's music, particularly, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: We do, and you know, I would not have seen that coming.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like growing up, I knew who Dolly was.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: We would see her on TV occasionally, um, but we didn't like did my dad have a Dolly album?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: He probably had something that had Dolly on it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there was like respect to Dolly.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of similar to like Garth Brooks.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or something.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like we weren't really country music listeners.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anyways, but then years later during the pandemic, when I was staying at my mom's house and she would listen to our local radio station, WNF 88.5, uh, also just shout out to that radio station.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing community radio station that plays all different genres of music.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, she would put it on in the mornings a lot, especially on the weekends, which is just sort of funny because during the pandemic were there weekends.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever, we still observe Saturday and Sunday.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, one week I was like, wow, they really play a lot of Dolly on here.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that it was the show called The Acoustic Peace Club, and they almost always open with Dolly's cover of Peace Train, Kat Stevens Peace Train.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Dolly's version of Peace Train, I will I will link it in the show notes.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is, it'll bring me to tears every single time.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you gotta link it in the show notes.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is wonderful.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: It became an anthem, I would say, for my mom and I, and it became a week weekly ritual where at the time, I think that show was on at 10 a.m.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: on Sundays, it's now on at noon on I mean 10 a.m.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: on Saturdays, now it's on noon on Sundays, whatever.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever time it was, she would go, whatever's coming on, she would literally yell, Peace Train, and she had a two-story house.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: There was a radio upstairs, there was a radio downstairs in the kitchen, and there was a radio on the porch, and we would turn each of the radios on full blasts and dance and sing on the porch to this song, Peace Train.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Dolly Parton version.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: The Dolly Parton version.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that had become that became a like pretty regular ritual where we have um initiated quite a few people, quite uh, especially if they come to brunch, Sunday brunch, and we end up um realizing it's noon and turn on the radio.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And shout out to uh Jeannie Holton, the host of the one of the hosts, the creator, uh founder of the acoustic piece club.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's got she's got a co-host, which is also great because then it takes the pressure off of her.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: But man, she's a light in the worlds.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um a big reason I texted her when Dolly passed because I was just like, you know, because of her and her playing that song every week, it became this really symbolic song for us.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that yeah, that is how Dolly entered my life in a significant way.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I've been reflecting on her just a lot, and I think maybe I'm a bit maybe I have more time for reflection because I'm on vacation right now.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I'm not seeing any clients.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying not to do like work.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that means in my life because now you're looking at the symbols of uh well my work is a lot like play for me.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm I'm blessed, like like I'm just really lucky that I get to play around with ideas a lot of the time when I'm in my work, and I love that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I get very excited about this stuff.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, I've had a little bit more time to think about it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was as I've been reflecting, I've been thinking about Dolly, and I've been thinking about you know her her persona, her use of her persona, her use of camp, um, her use of exaggeration.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like her use of exaggeration, like yeah, like her use of exaggeration, like the way she portrayed herself in a very exaggerated way, like big hair, big boobs, big nails, big smile, like you know, lots of red lipstick.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Big personality.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Big personality.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like all of this bigness, but she but anyway, um the camp is is that that's that kind of camp, you can be exaggerated style of humor.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's just called camp.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been thinking about like I was thinking about that, and I was thinking about how Dolly in in my experience has this ability to cross lines within communities, you know, because she like it's really hard to find a person who didn't love Dolly Parton.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know, like love her, right?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not not just like, oh Dolly Parton.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: You don't ever hear somebody say, I I don't even I don't even want to say the H-word.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You never hear somebody say, Oh, that artist blot.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know how some people have really polarized feelings about like um you know, they'd never go, they wouldn't, they turn the they change the channel kind of thing.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: That person was like, I've never heard anybody say that about Dolly Parton.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like she had this ability to like kind of slip through the cracks, yeah, is what I was thinking about.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was thinking like, well, what then I started looking at it from a Jungian lens because I've got time to think right now, yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I started thinking about the archetype of the trickster um and about how Dali really, I think, um that archetype was active in her in her ability to um bring opposing sides together and to show possibilities of things.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I have a lot to say about all of it, but I've been thinking about her and and like her ability to do that, and so I wanted to just like talk, I think we decided we're gonna talk about her for the episode today through our lens, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which for me is gonna be you know some some Jungian uh uh uh angles.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I see her very much as using in Buddhism what we would call upaya or skillful means.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like she was very uh intelligently crafted in her persona.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um very strategic, but in a way that didn't to me come across as manipulative in the way that I have experienced the strategy sometimes of certain sort of like pop stars.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know what comes to mind for me in that is like a salesperson.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, same more like the energy of a salesperson where there in sales there is a persona that you craft, but it's to get the sale, and not that there aren't like authentic whatever.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are good salespeople out there, and I have nothing wrong, you know, I see nothing wrong with that, but there is an energy around it, especially when we talk about like sleazy salesperson that I feel like does embody that like there there is a persona that that they're putting on and they are trying to manipulate.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't see I mean the th the the way that that I would describe how I perceive Dolly well and I would back up and say I don't know today, now that she's passed what people's reactions are, and we've been on vacation, so I've not really largely been looking at the cultural commentary of it, just kind of been sitting with my own.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that at least like for my own.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's been elevated to sainthood at this point.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and I mean she was already on her way there, too.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'm not surprised by that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that there is less im impartiality, but I do feel like I do experience I I do agree that that she doesn't like we were listening to the first couple episodes of this really great podcast series called Dolly Parton's America, which I will link in the show notes.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's created by one of the creators of the show Radio Lab, and it's it's an incredible just look at her and her life and and what she means as a symbol for America.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but one of the things that this um host talks about, who grew up in Tennessee, where she's from, is he never really thought too much about her.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: She just was just kind of always there.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, the word that comes up for me is impartial, but no, but nobody hates her.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like people love her, people respect her, but it I guess there's some there's some way of scoring different well-known people.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: He called it, I think, the Q-score.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, right.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And her Q score is so high or so low or whatever, and it's basically because everybody likes her.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody likes her.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that there is that there's the persona, but it doesn't come it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: We know that it's a persona.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it does not come off as inauthentic.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: It actually comes off as authentic, which I think is part of that that well-craftedness of that persona.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um Well, she so authentically plays the role that it takes the energy out of the role.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's she's very well and in this and in this way, she's so paradoxical and kind of like trickster-ish because so the trickster's this character who like breaks the rules, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Crosses boundaries, um, uses humor uh and cleverness um to shake up, uses humor and cleverness.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she was she's very funny.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think of like other if somebody wasn't familiar if somebody's listening isn't is not familiar with the idea of the trickster, the archetype of the trickster.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Are there other like common tricksters in either movies or shows that you could also point to?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think of, I mean, I guess would like the jester um be one or the jester's kind of an archetype in and of itself that to me falls into the category of you know, these kind of holy characters that help us think about um how just you know help us get out of ourselves and and um so c I mean tr all the tr all the tricksters in the world are like stand-up comedians are all tricksters.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay you know, because they'll break rules, they'll say things that are maybe that are maybe vulgar, that that push the boundaries all reveal an a truth.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Also, right.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that it does reveal a truth.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I I I mean George Carlin comes to mind.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm thinking Jim Carrey.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Carrey.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, there's so so many.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just in that, I I mean, how about Amy Polar is a wonderful trickster, the way she's Amy Polar like can can act just like the the the like she would just sneak up on you.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't know how smart, how clever, how well read, how intuitive um she she she is, and she's just she's such a wonderful comedic actress, too.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean she can just kind of do anything.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but will sneak up on you in a way.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know until you don't see them coming.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: They they they you know, they kind of slip in.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like in in the Native American culture, they um there's a there's a character called Coco Pele who is who's a trickster and he's got this magical flute, you know.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you think of the the guy who played the the the the um who who's the guy that the Pied Piper was probably attacked.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking, I was like, what was that story?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, and the trickster's always like pointing like Hermes, the god Hermes was a trickster.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like when he's born, like literally one of the first things he does is he tricks another god who's angry with him and creates music.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in in tricking that other god, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he doesn't he create a like a guitar out of a turtle shell or something and soothes this, you know, because he stole somebody's cow.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't remember exactly the story.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I could look it up.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hermes is Hermes where we get the term hermaphrodite?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that I think is another part of that trick, like Am I a man or am I a woman?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I think trans people embody a lot of trickster energy.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, and also and and Dolly, you know, had a quality kind of of being in drag.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: She was like a female who was playing a female.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: She was a woman who was playing a woman.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know I said this to you earlier, but listeners, if you have not heard of the story that um I think it was was maybe a couple years ago, Dolly entered Dolly snuck in to a Dolly Parton look-alike drag show contest and lost.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And lost to another drag queen, just as her.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think she had often said that she basically felt like she was wearing drag.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or she saw herself as wearing drag.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sh and she would make the joke about herself before you could.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how and and then so the question becomes how does that become feminist commentary?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, she would deny that she was a feminist.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't like the word, and I've I've heard this in I've heard it in that podcast, and I've heard it in other places.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: That and I think she would probably I don't know that this is true, but what uh my intuition told me is she would probably prefer the term humanist.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I think the reason that she doesn't like the term feminist is because it leaves out men.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she loves men and she she didn't like that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: But so she wouldn't so in this way presenting that woman.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's not saying she's a feminist.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's presenting feminist information without using the term really to a group of people who who were probably very healed by that information.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who really, you know, it's it's like she's presenting this that music to I'm i it's not like she was a progressive performance artist in Paris.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, totally.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she she she comes out of this place where she sort of like calls herself a hillbilly.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And comes from this long history of, you know, like her dad was illiterate, right, and couldn't read or write, and then this is what leads her to develop the Imagination Library and become so passionate about helping other you know, helping people to be educated.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: What's the Imagination Library?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's this it's a it's one it was one of her largest charity um things.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: She sends books to kids.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: She's spent millions of dollars.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, basically that's what it is.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: She basically gives books to kids.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Who can't afford books.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And millions of dollars into this imagination library.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like incredible.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really cool.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But she she bridges that though.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, here sh here she is.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did Dolly Parton go to college?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But she has this, she's this really keen observer of I think um like the problem of being human.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like being human's kind of a problem.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: It sucks sometimes.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I I guess y it makes me think about the um the first episode of that podcast, Dolly Barton's America, is the first episode is called Sad Ass Songs.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh right.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that was what sh how she described like all of the first songs that she wrote.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: They were just these sad ass songs.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um which I think is it kind of leads itself to what you had just said of her observing life and the the life around her and the hard life of being in Appalachia and the hard life of being a woman.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like if that reality doesn't have to be organized exactly as she inherited it.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's a c she's like a really interesting example of someone who inherits a reality and then turns it into something completely uh turns it into something else.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So like she she really uh, you know, embodied something new becoming possible.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um which is uh I can see why this idea of Dolly Parton's America, it's like she as sort of broken as it is, uh she really did live the American dream.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the thing about trickster archetype is that trickster trickster shows up in a way that's kind of like on its side because humor gets past the defenses.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Human hum humor like and human little babies like know how that's funny when things are funny.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and they'd love to trick you, you know, like our niece was over and she kept pretending not to know my name.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we know she knows my name.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because she'll ask about me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, she she knows me.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like she named one of her little stuffed animals, Papi Chulo, after Poppy Chulo.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: She knows my name.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: She knows I'm Kelly.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But intentionally, her grandma was like, okay, well, what's her what's her name?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then she'd like look down, then she'd look at me.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then right when she looked at me, there was this little sparkle in her eye, and then I would say, My name's Zoe Luna, because that's her name.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then she'd, you know, look down, and you know, I mean, laugh, and you know, just all of this sense of um, what are the possibilities here?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who are you really?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was so much play um in the way that Dolly presented.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, it was playful.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow she takes this hypersexualized image again, you know, kind of like a like drag.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then that removes the sexual energy from it for me.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think of Dolly Parton as a sex symbol.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, she's she in the like she's like another version of what female can be.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I I think there there is some like m maternal stuff, but she's not overtly maternal.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there's some sexual stuff, but she's not overtly sexual, you know?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: She's not dancing up on the stage in a way that's provocative.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like her presentation invites and and and like that you would underestimate her.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I was young, there were a lot of blonde jokes.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is very not politically correct anymore.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're we're not allowed to be.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're not allowed to do that anymore.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I grew up in the 70s, you know.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was born in 68, and so there were jokes.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were just jokes about people's race, about people's gender, about people's hair color, about people's boobs, about people's butts, in a way that we just do not make.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jokes like we're not allowed.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's not allowed.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But but like when she was starting, oh there that was allowed.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my generation had the Yo Mama jokes.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I think in your generation, becoming politically correct started to be a thing.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was I think it was less of a thing.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, for sure.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: When I was growing up.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Although it was getting there, like you know, racial slurs were not no longer okay.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: There were some places maybe where you shouldn't say them.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it was pretty common for people to call gay men fags.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And to call and to use that as a as a like a and it's an insult.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Fag it.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was a thing in the 70s, and it's just not allowed anymore.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it it's like, and I'm glad.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I can just say I think that's a fucking improvement.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's like, you know, you could think, look at this ridiculous woman, this ridiculous blonde, sure, you know, hillbilly, yeah, mouth breathing, Appalachian, you know, person.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it it it's like it could invite that kind of stereotype.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: She intel and she it's like she got inside the stereotype, turned it into a Ferrari, and drove it all over America.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: With singing her songs.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Singing her songs.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Which are really freaking good songs.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's an amazing songwriter.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what did we hear on that podcast?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: She wrote really gifted.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: She wrote Jolene.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I Will Always Love You.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: The same night.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: The same night.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the night that she was gonna um then when then we heard that that was the night that she left that that Cole Porter.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, what was his name Cole Porter?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, somebody else Porter.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Porter something.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Cole Porter somebody.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think he was the the man who was responsible really for getting her her first pick break, I think.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because she was on his show, his show.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: She I don't even know his name.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know her name.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because I mean, yeah, I care a lot more about her, truthfully.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paying more attention to her.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So then she's like this gifted songwriter, she's this really g you know, incredible businesswoman, philanthropist.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you assume that she's like foolish.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then she she knows something that that everyone else doesn't seem to know.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: She knows something.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's in on the secret.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like with me and Zoe.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like Zoe's in on the secret.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she doesn't tell you the secret.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like Zoe holds it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we both know that she knows something.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: But what do you think she knew?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just think she was an especially keen observer of the human condition.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think she really understood love.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think she understood loyalty.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think she understood service.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think she had suffering.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she understood suffering.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that she was raised as a as a in very with a with a kind of Christianity that I wish that if people were Christian, they would practice Christianity the way Dolly Parton, the way that I saw her practicing it, which was, you know, just service, loving everyone.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Never had never had a crossword to say either.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't, you know, people would try and draw her into negative commentary about politics, and she just wouldn't do it.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she was I going back and watching now, I've been doing this last couple of days, I've just watched a bunch of interviews with her.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, how folks would try and get her to say something.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Say something negative about Bush.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Say something negative about Reagan.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Say something negative about Trump.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Say something negative about Obama.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't say anything net Clinton.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing negative about anybody anytime.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the only the only place that I ever saw her get somewhat political was during the pandemic when she recorded a parody of her own song, Joeline, called Vaccine.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she gave a million dollars to the vaccine to the people who were doing whoever was responsible for doing all of the research.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Research and stuff.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: The research and development.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: She gave them a million dollars.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: A million dollars.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like she the thing about the trickster is the trickster exists like between so but it's like Dolly's like, you know, when there's like this either-or thing, there's like this versus that, there's a slash at that point.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like she's this poor mountain girl slash.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: She's also a wealthy capitalist.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's very traditional.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And but then she's entirely subversive.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she'll do things that the that register as progressive.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: She presents as foolish, but then she's wise.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's probably one of the smartest people.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Present is this Christian slash.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: She is a queer icon.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in our community, Dolly Parton is beloved.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when we were in New Orleans, I think they had Saint Candles with Dolly on it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we should have gotten some.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like Dolly Beyoncé.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: The paradox too of her persona, I think, is like worth slowing down for for a minute because she really does this thing that's unusual, and we were talking about it before, which is that she she wears the mask, but she tells you she's wearing it.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how is it that makes her seem more authentic?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a strange thing that it it makes it seem like she's more authentic, and then at the same time, who actually knows who Dolly is?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I when I learned that nobody, maybe her husband, nobody else had ever seen her for decades.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: No one else has ever seen her without a full face of makeup and a wake.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: She slept in her makeup.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: She slept in her makeup.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which, because there might have been a fire.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually heard this on uh our daughter Vera on my daughter Viera's um uh podcast.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: She just this week.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: She has a podcast for the aesthetic lab that she works with.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's called Rock Bottom.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's on Instagram.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's on Wednesday mornings.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they were talking about Dolly, and I watched it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the apparent, you know, Viera knew a lot about Dolly and her skincare routine because she wants she knows she wanted to talk about that.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So she so she swore by using Vaseline, by the way.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: As that was her favorite moisturizer.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and Vera was like, and that's very good unless you have acne.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the and then she also she slept in her makeup because if there was a fire or she needed to run out, she didn't want anybody to ever see her without her makeup on.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: So she would sleep in her makeup and then she'd wake up in the morning, wash it off, yeah, and start and put it back on.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: There had to have been a phase where maybe she shared a bathroom with her husband and he would walk in and she'd be redoing that makeup.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't hear anything about him.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Man, they really saved him from the spotlight.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: They really did.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: They really did.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, you would never you he was never really seen in public.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: So she had this whole private life.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: She had a whole private life.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it's rare to see that with celebrities at this point.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to have a private life again.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to know a lot of this stuff.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna know.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think if a person breaks the law, then they should just have to pay for that.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But like I don't I don't want to know a lot of this stuff.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't really I don't want to know.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think the problem is that other people want to know, especially when it's a celebrity.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have these platforms that have been built to show everybody our lives.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, the thing the thing about and sometimes you have to do that to get to stardom now, whereas she didn't have to do that to get to stardom at that time.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she she she really had this ability to kind of like hold the opposites, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so it it it it this is it's it's like Jung was was really interested in what happens when when we can hold an opposing truth, like the two things are true.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like paradox.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Without choosing one and then rejecting the other.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in that, sometimes the psyche can produce like this third thing.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Young talked about the transcendent function there, which is like the third thing is like a symbol that's capable of containing the tension between the two.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like the it'll give us give you a symbol in a dream, or it'll show you a way to symbolize something for yourself, or think about it, or imagine it, or even embody it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think in a way, Dolly, like I have this theory that she became that kind of cultural symbol for for America.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's like you don't have to solve the fact that trans people make you a little he in your belly.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to solve it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's just gonna act it out for you.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to solve the way you feel or don't feel or how you feel about really poor white folk in America.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Appalachian folk.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't you don't have to solve it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: She just is the vehicle for it.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she's like showing you another way to perceive those people because she is one of those people, but then she's also not one of those people because she's been wildly successful and and all of that sort of a thing.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I think that there's there's the holding of the symbol, like when you say, you know, hold the hold the symbol or hold hold the paradox, like for me, I I think of like, okay, my ability, my ability to hold that in my mind.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think that that is a really important skill.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that comes up too when we talk about dialogue and communication totally and like the ability to paraphrase what somebody else is saying requires me to hold that paradox in my mind, to have that skill.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I feel like with Dolly, she embodied it.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: She became the symbol.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's not that's that's exactly what I'm saying.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So sh it's like she was she became the symbol.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: She became it.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I've been thinking of this word smuggle.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: She smuggled.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she smuggled things into the culture without and that's classic trickster.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the Trojan horse, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Mmm, Dolly has a Trojan horse.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in a way.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because Yeah, because then you have people listening to country music that would have never listened to country music.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like for I d I wouldn't listen to country music in until maybe my mid-30s when it appeared that country culture started accepting queer and black people.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, my I had it, I had a bias that said country music is for conservative, traditional, racist, homophobes.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this this was my bias.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna I'm just gonna name it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not even gonna listen to country music.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now I remember having some guilty pleasures with country music when I was a kid.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she was one of them.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and when she teamed up with Kenny Rogers, uh-huh.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my parents love that music.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And sang it around the house.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they they really, really got into it.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um so she uh she's kind of like smuggled country music into the queer community.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she smuggled queers into the country community.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because she's been so pro LGBTQ plus uh issues.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's just like, find out who you are and be that on purpose.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's her that's one of her famous quotes.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have to find out who you are and be that.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Really be that on purpose.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and you don't need to be anything but who you are.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um did you ever read that book?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um Crazy Wisdom by Wes Nisker.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Have I ever talked with you about that?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've never read it?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Never heard of it.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's so good because I love it, first of all.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know I love comedy and um I love to laugh, and I I love using humor to help make points with clients.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I just find it's it's just you know, and and it's something that I don't, it's not intentional.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It just literally comes out of me.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why I think that the I so deeply resonate with the idea that the archetypes are these primordial patterns that sort of exist in consciousness and they're running their own program.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like trickster is a bandwidth and it's running.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes little Kelly Brady gets swept up in it and out pops some trickster kind of thing where I can say something.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you when you when you uh just half to play the air horn.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Even though everyone around you is going, don't do it, just don't, just just don't just put it down for her for her.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love the air horn.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, down.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: You mean like those moments?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nisker wrote this book called Crazy Wisdom, and it's kind of loosely based on some Buddha.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: He Wes Nisker was a stand-up comic.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: He passed away a couple years ago.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was a stand-up comic and he was also a Buddhist teacher.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was in Yes, he was in um Jack Hornfields, I think.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh kind of he was an insight meditation guy, the Basana practicer.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um had a beautiful, had a beautiful dharma.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote this book called Crazy Wisdom, which explores the archetype of um the the trickster from a couple of different positions, and he talks about this trickster energy and how it comes through in certain spiritual teachers.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that it comes through in Zen Masters, you can see it, but he also talks about it coming through in the Buddha.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: He also he talks about it coming through um, you know, in Christ.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is I know.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he he he kind of breaks down um some figures that are associated with that kind of crazy wisdom stuff.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: But here, let me tell you a story, and then and then we'll we'll just let it kind of sit for a second.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's this this great Zen story about um this old Zen master who's standing outside by the by the outhouse.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, like he's the Roshi of the of the temple.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's standing outside by the outhouse.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um Do you know the story?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Zen Master got a poop.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Are you done in there?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: The student, yeah, right.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Roshi.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the student comes up and says, Um, you know, something, what is enlightenment or whatever?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or I figured out enlightenment, or I can't I can't exactly remember.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this this item that the Roshi had in his hand, which was basically like a stick that was used to wipe off your butt.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: To wipe your butt.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was the shit wipe.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was a shit stick, is what they called it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And excuse the language, but we do have the we do have the explicit rating anyway.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the Roshi just looks at the guy and goes, Enlightenment! Bah, it's nothing but a shit stick.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: At which point this guy's enlightened, right?
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: The monk is enlightened.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the the monk, I mean, the Roshi says something really vulgar.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he says, and he's comparing enlightenment.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's comparing enlightenment to shit.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that is a very advanced non-dual recognition.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: That enlightenment and shit are the same thing.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: That hell and nirvana are the same thing.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very advanced awareness in that, in that con, you know.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he makes it with this crazy kind of crazy.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says something that another person would be flippant.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Another person would think this guy's crazy.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was little, I remember looking at Dolly and thinking, she's crazy.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she's a little crazy.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, why would she do this to herself?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like that was kind of, you know, in the 90s.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh yeah, Dolly Parton.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't our boobs get any bigger?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I um you know, I think that that's part of that Trojan horse thing, though, because then you don't pay attention.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then while you're not paying attention, she's making so much money that she's gonna turn around and give away.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's exactly what happened with the Imagination Library, right?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So she has this wound around her dad.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Yeah, give ahead, make fun of me.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: She has this wound around her dad and him not being able to read and write.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he was also, she talks about him as being really, really smart, like he was a really savvy business person.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he couldn't read and write though.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of treating that family wound of illiteracy as a shame, she transforms it into this incredible service, right?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And she just does it behind everybody's back.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: She just doesn't make a big deal out of it.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, hundreds of millions of books go to these kids, and that's not abstract compassion.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it really has like it has legs.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it makes me think that like maybe there's something about this trickster that it's like it doesn't I I was really been thinking about it in terms of the real dialogue lens.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the whole idea that when there's polarization, somebody has to win.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Is that part of what happens with polarization?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of what happens with polarization.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, somebody's the way the this is the way the toilet paper goes on the roll.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way we need to deal with um your mother-in-law.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way we need to raise our kids.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I this is this is an appropriate time for us to do.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, that whole it's like we were talking about it in the last episode, right?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you were saying this is kind of like the couch goes.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where the couch goes.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And being able to communicate about where the couch goes.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I could see how I had assumed some polarization in that.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, so at the heart of polarization is this idea that somebody needs to win.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so then how does the trickster relate to that?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't try to win.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: It just you know what it drops the fight.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: It just it it doesn't try to win at all.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have to I have to reflect on our game of spades last night.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we'll we'll just sort of shoot things up with this and any other final ideas that you have.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: But so one of the things that we've done this trip, besides puzzles, is we got a deck of cards.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Kelly's been teaching me how to play spades.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I had never played spades before, and I wouldn't say that I'm like a sore loser, but I can I can definitely get a little competitive, okay?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Blushing.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cute.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're blushing.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so funny.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so she's been teaching me how to play spades, and um I guess, yeah, and this happens to me, I think, when I when I play games too, especially when I'm learning a game and somebody else is better than me.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I want to be better than them because Well, and in this case, the somebody else happened to be me.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, she was kicking my ass.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Totally totally kicking my ass.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember there was a moment where I was like, Nissa, just just relax.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like it's it's it's just a game.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're just having fun on vacation.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just seriously, just relax.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that was the hand before the hand where I kicked your ass.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of felt like you didn't see it coming.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you didn't, you did really kick my ass out.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like, oh, you're figuring out blah, blah, blah, like some sort of like sneaky move.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, I didn't realize that that was actually by hearing that you gave me a tip.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I really had just started to let go of the need to win.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's then when it almost kind of feels like that trickster comes out.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: So then I'm just like chilling.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, well, that seems like a good play.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a good play.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good play.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, okay, okay, we win in this.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: So Well, I don't know, but I didn't like it was satisfying, but I also didn't really care.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, let's just play again.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I I got over that hump of needing to win that I can just enjoy the game.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe that's part of what happened with Dolly.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the thing about the camp.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that that she's so played.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: She's just having fun.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's well, she's acting like she's having fun.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm assuming sometimes it wasn't fun.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: But she's like, Oh, that's a good point.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: But she really embodied that.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she really acted that character with a cut, she had a commitment to the role because she kind of reminds me of Colbert when he was doing the Colbert report.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: In a way, like somebody like this who takes on a stage persona and just keeps it.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are burlesque characters that were like that too, you know, where they had like a stage persona.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they would have that, you know, like Don Rickles, for example.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Rupaul.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: RuPaul is a perfect example, right?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: They take that persona, they just really can own it, they can really act it, they're really camping it, they're really true to it.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you remember the movie critics Siskel and Ebert?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that like way before your time?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Siskel and Evert?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, two thumbs up.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Two thumbs up, Siskel and Ebert.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they made their career basically of saying, This is good and this is bad.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is good, this is bad.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I ran across uh a quote yesterday because again, I was in a dolly rabbit hole.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: I ran across it, it's it's really an anecdote, and I want to share it before we wrap it up because I thought it was so beautiful, and it really, I think, talks about what a healing figure you know she she was.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so this is Jean Ebert, and he said, or is it Roger Ebert in Jean Siskel, right?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, in Dallas for the premiere of nine to five, do you remember that movie?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I know it has Jane Vonda and Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's we had her song 9 to 5.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we gotta watch it.
• 45:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Working 9 to 5.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in Dallas for the premiere of 9 to 5, I had an uncanny experience, and on the plane home to Chicago, I confessed it to Siskel.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had been granted a private half hour with Dolly Parton, and as we spoke, I was filled with a strange ethereal grace.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: This was not spiritual, nor was it sexual.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was healing and comforting.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jean listened and said, Roger, I felt the exact same thing during my interview with her.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at each other.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: What did this mean?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Neither one of us ever felt that feeling again.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: From time to time we would refer to it in wonder.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: So Ebert, in a later interview, describes it as kind of a psychic euphoria.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: And emphasized that he was really skeptical of any kind of supernatural explanation, but that it was he was convinced the experience was worth talking to other people about because Siskel independently told him he had felt exactly the same thing.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about that?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's it's you know, when you encounter something that doesn't fit in any available category, that's God.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm thinking you can't wrap your mind around what it is exactly.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: This just a total spoiler alert here.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you've not watched Grace and Frankie, just pause and watch all of it and then come back to this episode.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: At the very end.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember at the very end of that show, Grace and Frankie?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which which part?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Grace uh Grace and Frankie stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And at the very end, I think one of them has a near-death experience and goes to heaven.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the receptionist in heaven.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was Dolly Parton.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I'd forgotten about that.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so per like she just played a heaven receptionist so well, and it now it just seems like a um harbinger.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not like um, God, that's beautiful.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: She brought such a sense of well-being.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you didn't feel intimidated or awed.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was a like uh like a sense of home or something.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Safety.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Really beautiful.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, I think we should wrap it up because now I'm crying.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, baby, you're so sweet.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was really touching.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Her RIP.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: That really brought up some stuff.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean Yeah, to just live in a world where someone with that energy was here.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like how lucky, how lucky we are to get her in this in this life.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and now she's gone into the great silence.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, she's figuring it that part of it out now.
• 49:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot to say about that, but uh for today, I'll still stay on the life side of the question.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, the trickster uh goes goes goes everywhere.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Goes everywhere.
• 49:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listeners, thanks for uh coming uh along with us on this um journey into our our uh dealing with the the fact that Dolly Dolly's uh moved on.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what she what she's meant to us and Yeah, well, and how how we make sense of things.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how we make sense of things.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we do on this show.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about how we make sense of things in the hope that the way that we make sense of things maybe could help other people make sense.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: It helps you make sense of things, yes.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're all just trying to figure this shit out, right?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean and sometimes, you know, you might be talking to a trickster.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, hopefully, uh if you if you see the trickster on the road, what do you do?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Call Kelly Brady.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you see any tricksters, please report any sightings um to us through our Instagram DMs or send us a text or whatever.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: We know uh y'all are y'all are friends out there listening.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if you've enjoyed this and want to share it with somebody else, please do.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can always rate and review, especially does always help a podcast.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we love you all.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you next time on Being Different together.