Laughing with the Jester

I was, uncharacteristically, nearly speechless for a moment when I first saw this. Then my reaction was to want to laugh, cry and get up and dance. Some people are offended by this video. They feel it is demeaning to those who lost their lives in Auschwitz and other prison camps. It is an extremely painful history to carry and I can respect their feelings however, they have the option of not watching it. For the rest of us, Survivors of all sorts, I think the role of the Jester or the Trickster is desperately needed. We have become either too politically correct on one hand, and too angry and righteous on the other hand; we tiptoe around our feelings of horror and rage and fear. It's almost like we are protecting them. It's almost as if we are afraid that if we allow ourselves to laugh, our experiences and pain will be invalidated. It is my personal feeling that our experiences are what they are, no one knows why some people were chosen to have more difficult lives than others. What we can chose is how to recover and heal. Today I am choosing to laugh and dance in honor of the strength of survival.