What You Will this Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night... The real Christmas for some, a night of fun and frolic presided over by the Lord of Misrule by others... January 5th for some, the 6th of this month for others... For those distracted souls that every once in a while we come across, sometimes January 12th, or even December 24th!

No...? No one else has ever been confused like this...? Wait... Was that just me then?
Oh rats...!

Fine, let me explain...!

For the longest time, I thought Twelfth Night was celebrated on my birthday, January 12th, and that it had nothing to do with Christmas, but that it celebrated, for some rare and obscure reason, the 12th night of the New Year! I took it upon myself to research what great symbolism the number 12 had, and oh, my, the phenomenal things I came across! It seems like every numerology practitioner out there has a different view of what numbers represent! Or at least they did, back in 1997 - I might do a proper entry about my interest in numerology further on, but for now I will focus on my teenage discoveries that led me to understand myself a bit better!

Well, let me also explain that in Mexico we don't celebrate Twelfth Night as such, but Epiphany rather. I'm not sufficiently versed in Catholic Mexican traditions to explain in what ways this is celebrated (yet from living in the UK for 6 years I can tell that it's not that different from the few bits I do know), but what it meant to me and my sister was chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate as a kid, and later on when I was a "grown up" a substantial amount of money to get myself some nice post-Christnas deals consisting of books, jewelry, movies, CDs, clothes, shoes and of course, chocolate.

Now, I was happy enough to know that for some, January 5th was the real night in which Jesus had been born; even at 10 or 11 years of age I understood that a Roman Emperor had changed the calendar, and then another one had changed it again, and that somewhere down the line another one had added his own name to it (making another one jealous and wanting his own name in it), and I reacted to that the very same way that I do now: I shrug my shoulders and acknowledge that the amount of days in the year are the same and that a lot of those dates are symbolic anyway, and that those that rely on the Sun or Moon, such as the Solstices and Equinoxes, as well as Easter, Ramadan and Chanukah are set by the Sun and the Moon each year anyway...  To me, there is no point in fighting over a date if December 25th means the same today as January 5th meant centuries ago, and all the symbolism is safeguarded by the old poems, legends and songs anyway.

I've already written my points of view of this before, so I'm getting back to Twelfth Night!

I was 11 years old when I first associated Twelfth Night with Christmas, as I heard a little ditty called The Twelve Days of Christmas at a neighborhood social - we were living at a University of Michigan campus flat at the time - and I was completely surprised to learn that it didn't have anything to do with my birthday after all! It had nothing to do with the New Year, but rather with the countdown to Christmas!

Now, that made cultural sense to me, because in Mexico people celebrate Christmas by holding a series of the famous (or infamous, depending on whether or not you like tamales) Posadas, which consist of mini Pastorelas (mini-pantomimes) telling the story of the trek the shepherds took to visit the newborn Baby Jesus, carols telling the story of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter, piñatas and mulled stuff. So of course to me that meant that it began on December 12th and carried on to the night in which Jesus was born! I carried on with that belief for another 5 years or so, which is one of the reasons that I started exploring numerology and what different numbers mean to me.

I was 16 at the time I learned about Twelfth Night being a play by Shakespeare (probably would have learned that way earlier if I had listened to my sister more carefully when talking about Shakespeare!), and I also learned about Viola and what it meant for her to crossdress. Around that time Mulan came out, and I began to see myself in a different way. I have already spoken a little bit about my sexual identity and the different issues that unravelled my personality in older entries, so I won't get into that just now, but I will say this: it was when I was 17, having started a path of spiritual growth, having been diagnosed with depression and being sidelined for many reasons (several already spoken of, most very much worth exploring in further entries), that I realised that my mind had always been ruled by the Lord of Misrule! That simple mistake about cultural symbolism and traditions, and the years of seeking understanding (unaided by ADD, taken off the path several times by a rough case of hyperimagination), got me to a place where I could fully understand who I was, and where I wanted to be... So, technically speaking, the Lord of Misrule guided me to a better understanding of myself!

Shakespeare's play is subtitled "What you will", which has such a beautiful psychological and spiritual connotation - traditionally, on Twelfth Night you could be whatever you wanted: fools became kings and kings were outed as fools; but also, lets remember that traditionally, the Fool or Court Jester was the only one who was allowed to speak the truth to the king, mostly about the king's shortcomings! The Fool is often known as the Wise Old Fool, and mistakes are often followed by learning and growth! Often, I say, although I will refrain to say how often...

And now for the extra twist: in the spiritual path I follow we have but one rule: An it harm none, do what you will! It is of course technically imposible to make sure that absolutely no one ever gets hurt from our actions, and I've had far too many discussions about this subject with people who express "Oh, but if you take your dream job someone else will end up whitout a job and so they will be hurt!" and such things...Oh, people...! I believe I wrote a very lengthy entry about this, Utopia, ages ago, but might enjoy exploring it further in the future! Anyhow, what the final words of the Wiccan Rede mean is that as long as you live a life where you're not actively trying to harm others with what you do, you should be free to do what you wish to - and considering that that is precisely what many of the great Masters have taught all throughout history, I think there might be some truth in those words! We don't need the cover of Twelfth Night anymore to be whatever we want to be: we can go for it and try our best, knowing that there's no reason for others to be harmed along the way...
I think there are enough clues hidden in this entry regarding everything I will be writing throughout the year, so I'll leave it here for now...
Now, unfortunately, due to the consequences of past incorrect decisions made by yours truly, I have not been able to start my year with posting my brand new entry on a Saturday as I'd actively planned... Wait, isn't Saturn a Lord of Misrule as well...? Ohhhh, now I get it...!

Have a blessed Twelfth Night, everyone,

Sandra Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Dreamer!

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