Aaron Mason, M.A., is a freelance medical writer with an infectious laugh, whose love of depth psychology led him to make sweeping changes in his life since deciding to earn his Master’s degree in the Engaged Humanities Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. On his desk in his West Hollywood apartment sits a Pez dispenser gifted to him by a close friend. The figure is a coyote, and Aaron has constructed a wig for it using multi-colored ribbons, and grounded its feet in magenta clay. He attached the coyote to his dashboard when he drove across the country from Jersey City in a dramatic move to the west coast. Aaron has dubbed this icon “Coyote Drag Queen,” a name that takes on layers of meaning when one has a chance to hear Aaron’s personal story.
As a child, Aaron remembers his fascination at watching an uncle performing in drag with a dance company on television. There was something interesting about the way his uncle performed drag, insists Mason. It was “something playful, subversive, and fun”—almost as if he were “getting away with something naughty.” Now in hindsight, as an openly gay man, Mason believes that the experience impacted him profoundly, but it wasn’t until he began studying archetypes and the patterns of Jung’s unconscious via depth psychology that he recognized his uncle was embodying the archetype of the Trickster.
While at Pacifica, research led Mason to the work of Will Roscoe[1], who writes about Native American “two-spirits”—a term used to describe “non-binary gender roles among Native American tribes.”... Read the full post and listen to the audio interview with Aaron here
