Kweku Anansi & Lupine Flower Essence

Archetypal Essay by Renee Kimberly Smith, 2020 Graduate

“The trickster is a creator, a joker, a truth teller, a storyteller, a transformer linked to the spiritual frequency changes humanity is experiencing at that time.” (English, 2015)

Every community has one...the sly, clever, underdog who uses his wit, charm and influence to conceive a plan that will benefit him in the long run. With each of these plans, a morale lesson is left for the listener on how to approach these types of situations in the future. As an archetype (an innate prototype of ideas, which may subsequently become involved in the interpretation of observed phenomena), the trickster is described as an important archetype in the history of man. (Jung, 1959) He is a god, yet he is not. He is the wise-fool. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates convoluted schemes that may or may not work, plays with the laws of the universe and is sometimes his worst enemy. He exists to question, to cause us to question not accept things blindly. He appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded and needs to be torn down and built anew. The trickster can be an ally or companion of the hero or the villain. He may also be the hero or the villain. In any role the trickster represents the force of cunning, and is pitted against opponents who are stronger or more powerful. The trickster lives inside and outside of time. He is of our world, yet not of our world, so our laws will not always apply. (English, 2015)

Meet Kweku Anansi...or as known around the world as Anansi the Spider. His father is Nyame, the Great Sky God and his mother is Asase Ya, Earth Goddess or Goddess of Fertility. His name Ananse or Anansi is from the Twi language of Ghana and means spider. He has many aliases including Anansi, Ananse, Hanansi, John Anansi, Bro’ Anancy, Miss Nancy, The Spider and Spiderman to name a few. Born on Wednesday, hence his day name Kweku, Anansi has many addresses around the globe including Kumasi, Ghana, Jamaica and other Caribbean Islands, The Sea Islands and South Carolina (Gullah), USA, Ayiti, South America, Central America to name a few. Anansi has been identified as the trickster who is loved by many and despised the same due to is modus operandi which includes trickery, quick-changing others, using his brain to outsmart those bigger than him, often in trouble and hustling others out of what is rightfully theirs.

Nyame allows Anansi to bring rain, especially to quench forest fires. It is also Anansi who determines the borders of oceans and rivers when they flood. Anansi is so famous that he is credited with creating the sun, moon, stars, night, day and the first man in whom Nyame breathed life. He showed humans how to plow and sow grain. His web of life inspired humans by showing them how to weave and how to construct houses. The web also showed human beings how to link themselves together in order to form a society. The web is also a symbol of the life-giving sun. His mischief had infuriated Nyame one time too many and for this final transgression Nyame permanently turned his son into a small spider-man. From that time forward, Anansi the spider-man had to use his mental skills to survive. Undaunted by his fate, Anansi rose to become the "Keeper of All Stories". He is the hero of children and the champion of the little guy and the powerless. Like them, he often gets in trouble and must use his intelligence to save himself.

When thinking about Anansi, one has to also consider his place in society as an archetype. It is the community that defines him but also his innate character as a trickster that holds his place in community. All of his tricks and schemes become the living library and rule book for the community to learn from his trials and tribulations. When using this comparison, I am drawn to the flower, Lupine.

Lupine (Lupinus latifolius) is a member of the pea/legume family (Fabaceae) and is part of the Range of Light series. As a member of the pea/legume family, Lupine shows the common traits which include an irregular flower consisting of 5 petals forming the distinctive “banner, wings and keel” affect. This usually resembles a single petal with two lobes, then two more petals to create the wings and additional two petals that creates the keel. (Fabaceae) The lupines are one of the members of the nitrogen-fixing pea/legume family of plants that bring such benefit to land in need of regeneration or fertility. As pictured below, Lupine has a purple cluster of flowers that grows on a thin stem upwards towards the sun. Purple also being a color associated with spirituality, one’s ori (divine-self) or seventh chakra, this flower replicates community in by unifying many blossoms into the whole.

Photo Credit: Richard Katz

The positive qualities of this flower essence includes:

Expanded self-identity that is integrated within a large community matrix; ability to sacrifice or sublimate personal needs or desires for a greater whole.

Patterns of imbalance include:

Selfishness, greed; intense identification with petty concerns or narrow interests that stymie community welfare.

(Kaminski, 2016)

Patricia Kaminski states “For the lupine is indeed, a plant that brings much healing to a parched and devastated earth. As a flower essence, lupine challenges the human soul to greater acts of generosity and selflessness. It is especially needed for just those times when the giving heart is hardened, or the sense of one’s own needs and self-preservation obscures ways in which we can minister to a larger community or social structure. (2016)

The trickster archetype and specifically Kweku Anansi shows both the positive and patterns of imbalance in his day to day interactions within his community. Take for example Anansi’s fondness of food and the story of how the spider got a small waist. Here is how the story goes...Anansi was hungry and wanted to eat the yams from his neighbor’s yard. In order to get the yams Anansi decided to tie a string around his waist in an effort to hoist the yam from his neighbor’s garden into a basket. Of course, he did not account for the heaviness of the newly dug up yam and his light weight. And so he continued to try to hoist the yam by wrapping the rope around his waist inevitably squeezing his waist smaller. In the end, Anansi did not get his neighbor’s yam and he left with a smaller waist which meant that he could only consume a small amount of food. The morale of this story is about greed and how many times it is the person who is greedy who ends up without in the end. There are many, many stories like this one and many others that talk about how Anansi became the hero because he used his wit to defeat an enemy that endangered his community.

The affirmation associated with Lupine is:

In the mirror of my soul, the circle of community is reflected. When I give to others I receive more abundantly.
When I share with others, I become more fully my Self. Others are an integral part of me; therefore I Am.

(Kaminski 2016)

Kweku Anansi and the archetype of the trickster is a direct reflection of the community that he inhabits. No matter where in the world he resides, his true self is only defined by the success of the community around him. He delights in the auspicious bewilderment, refuses the oppression of the spirit, and is about the carnival, about the turning upside down, associated with many rituals (Jung 1956). He has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He exists to question, to cause us to question not accept things blindly. He appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded and needs to be torn down and built anew. Kweku Anansi champions for the underdog and continues to create a space where community though they may not agree with his methods, can think outside of the box to create, restore and promote balance. He in essence is very much like Lupine, and acts as a communities’ consistent reminder that the only constant is change which is required for continued growth.

Bibliography:

Jung, Carl Gustav 1956. On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure. In: P. Radin TheTrickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Schocken.

English, Styler 2015 “The Trickster Archetype” Website Source:

Http://mrstylerenglish.pbworks.com/f/The+Trickster+Archetype

Kaminski, Patricia 2016. “Lupine-Challenging the Human Soul to Greater Acts of Generosity and Selflessness” Website Source: www.fesflowers.com/blog/lupine-challenging-human-soul- greater-acts-generosity-and-selflessness/

Stefanova, Ana, Humor Theories and The Archetype of the Trickster in Folklore: An Analytical Psychology Point of View, Source: http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol50/stefanova.pdf

Wikipedia www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster

Fabaceae: Plants of the Pea Family Website Source: www.wildflowers-and- weeds.com/Plant_Families/Fabaceae