appendices i-vii seventh heart

Become interested in the packaging of any object. The packaging surrounds the object. Inside the packaging is a layer of air, wrapping and confining the object. Outside the packaging more air wraps around. These air pockets separate the object from everything else. The interior space begs to be played in. These exercises, this writing, these musings revolve all around these layers of space.



We have a chance to see things differently when we play. The space becomes a medium that we have at our finger tips to explore. As the vast machinery of perception kicks in and the movement begins, we have an opportunity to glance at the potential role the space between things plays. It can buffer the object or become so minimal to almost not exist at all. It can become wide. Suddenly we can navigate this space and pass through the brick wall and come out on the street outside where we sense we stand all along.

appendices i-vii sixth heart

Engage the heart of play by selecting a group of words that carry special personal meaning. They may be key words that always catch our attention. I select: synchronicity, heurism, optimism, enthalpy, choice, serendipity, intuition.





In any activity I find these concepts near the surface, creating an order and suggesting connections from one object to another, trusting that observing them introduces a sense of delight. I hope to find them standing for truth about play. I want to experience them as they reveal more layers of unexpected playfulness.

appendices i-vii fifth heart

In social settings a spontaneous shout of glee reveals a blatent playfulness. Or we may muse, “I did not know I could do this so easily or offer this so generously.” The heart of play acknowledges moving through the doorway into the play realm and sometimes it reveals the expansion of the play experience itself. Scenes in movies sometimes sweep us up passively into this sense of play. With a rush of emotion, we delight in some life truth staged before us. We may have to stage a reenactment to get the full effect for our self rather than the effect on us as an observer. It's a challenge worth exploring.





Heart of Play Experience #3 Putting into Words

Once we have a sense of living playfully, other words can fill these pages. Add words as commentary. Don’t push the prose; let words stand telegraphically or poetically. Remember that like love we have a concept that eludes certain aspects of verbal description. Trust that we know when we balance on the giving and taking fulcrum. Let the verbal approximations hum of the experience.

appendices i-vii fourth heart

Heart of Play Experience #2 Openness

Making known in a way
that is really still more hidden than known
is a manner of partial playful openness.
I am trying to "capture" this partial openness;
only I really don’t want it captured at all,
just remarked.


We gently hold an openness to possibility. When it happens, we know because some piece of our life puzzle fits into place with a feeling of satisfaction. Again I use the metaphor of puzzles. Puzzle solving tends to use shifts in reference. We shift from using the image on the pieces to place them to using the shape of the piece as a sorting and fitting principle. And then there is some other selection criterion that moves the stalled puzzle solving process forward. Do pieces call to each other?

appendices i-vii third heart

When I watch some people leave somewhere for somewhere else,
and even now when I leave,
I witness us suddenly realize we have forgotten something.
Appreciate the time it takes to go back.
Go back once, twice, three times.



Once the judgments that strongly criticize ill preparedness quiet,
and like all criticism generated in the realm of thoughts to protect our self,
they do quiet,
the humor of the multiple attempts to leave fills a potential space.
Why be so prepared when we can smile and chuckle as we leave again and yet again?
We reveal the give and take of leaving. The play shines through. Try it!

appendices i-vii two hearts

Play gives to us a moment when we feel the whole puzzle shift, and we sense an important personal piece falling into place. It tucks right in. Our awareness takes on a new level of playfulness. In this timeless experience of play something shifts and gives way subtly to something new. The metaphor of a little bit of give that exists in a machine between gears seems closest to this subtlety. At one moment the machine rests still.


In the next the whole apparatus hums along. As direction overcomes inertia, motion begins; we pass through a state where play between parts exists. That state or that window occurs where some force initiates the next motion. We use the expression play for this. It probably wears the machinery slightly with use, and it also allows the whole mechanism to advance. In one sense it lurches into existence. Its nature represents the overcoming of inertia. We push through the veil. In another sense it reveals the elegance of potential flight. At one moment the bird perches and in the next the bird flies.


In my memory is an image of Charlie Chaplin, standing in the gears of the world machine. I see him there and think: there he stands in that moment when the whole thing starts to move. Motion plays him. Potential movement promises magic or whimsy. It promises play. It intimates delight.

In the puzzle sense we reach our finger tip just over the edge and pull up a little piece of reality and discover underneath the opening of another world.

appendices i-vii one heart

At the heart of play we give our self a place to balance, in our personal from of balance. We keep the inner psychic machinery working while not wearing it out. We reawaken our senses. We use the machinery so it doesn’t become stuck by disuse or gummed up with shame. It runs on the juices of engagement and excitement not on the anxiety or the restraints of time. Engaging and disengaging becomes a simple method of entering the playground and leaving it. Of opening a box of treasures and closing it.



Heart of Play Experience #1 Breathing Again

Attention to the mysterious game of breathing resumes. Those two quiet almost unknown spaces between the inspiration and the expiration and the expiration and the inspiration open into our awareness. They symbolically represent and manifest portals of a give and take in the play of breathing. Within the whole breath, a little attention comes to symbolize and indeed nest all of life.

11th Avenue seven friends real and imaginary

V teaches me to help where, when and how long I feel drawn to help.

THis PaGE leFt iNtentionaly alMost entirEly, buT aT tHis poiNt noT quitE sO, blaNk

S reminds me to choose hope.

11th Avenue six friends imaginary and real

Everyone deserves a playground. Find a place most like a playground. This may be a comfortable chair. Make this place accessible everyday. Believe that it occupies a space and time just here in the present moment. Like a gate, slip through and enter the playground.

G teaches me that we can know more than we know and that we can figure out great solutions to our concerns even without knowing all the details. Others have other details readily accessible.

So many stories from our past imply this realm rests as close as we let our imagination allow. Find it without great contortions. Remember the story that uses the magic words: Open Sesame? Open says me… Exercise sensations to open awareness. I think many people will think they can only accomplish this with mind-altering substances. I can see the experience all around us, though I think we sell our selves short. No substance gets us more fully and thoroughly into the present playground then our own willingness to go there, a clear glass of fresh water, a good stretch and a gentle reminder to come on.

X teaches me that unseen connections between things we don’t perceive show up with regularity. It seems we have a habit of explaining them as best we can and that an expanding science reveals them too.

As youngsters, most of us went out and played with someone else. It seems likely that we would include others in our rediscovered play. Use the cards as a play tool to invite others to join, embellish them with other tokens to make them more inviting. Use favorite words, expressions humor or homemade labels or stickers. Though also remember that we can have no idea what might happen when we go out to play, and it can be just right that way.

11th Avenue five friends real and imaginary

T teaches me to choose a lighter more humorous opening way to regard what happens and that we can find our way through this window repeatedly.

A friend has note cards in his car with the list of things he likes to do. He uses them to find new jobs. We too could travel around with a collection of note cards reminding us of little truths we know that help us remain playful. Imagine how wonderfully torn and tattered the cards could become with wear. It reminds me of some old decks of cards, which with age evoke hours of use.

We can make a reminder deck out of old cards, even a deck missing a few cards. We could trade them with friends, and even give them to strangers we meet to remind them to play. It only takes an old deck and a marker…

Playmate Exercise #4: Deck of Play Cards

Take a deck of cards and divide them by suit, if two people play, use one suit to write playful activities and one for preferably avoided activities. Each person shuffles cards. One at a time compare cards, decide whose card represents a higher value. Some may match, leave them for a while on the table. After going through the entire deck revisit these left pairs. If a decision can’t be reached take back the valued card. Arrange the cards by like and dislike, I'm not sure who wins, decide who. While playing notice what other activities come to mind. Rewrite cards, if so inspired. Change them to be more accurate. Cross out and rewrite them. A dislike card can even appear in someone else’s like collection.

Let details remain inconsequential. Mix the cards all together. Arrange an ideal play date for two, using the cards as a resource. We’ll know what makes the event valuable and we can introduce aspects from each person’s cards. Once we play this with two, add a third or fourth. Plumb each others' story for the play essence because that makes playing most fun all around. Encourage wonder at the similarities and differences. We may notice when the differences offer a different truth.

My cards say: make things, laugh together, walk at a comfortable pace, tell stories, sing freely, hug warmly, eat simple yummy meals, sleep late, take care of certain basic details in different ways than usual, call attention to details of the environment seen anew, experience places of stunning beauty, experience someone’s generosity, help someone organize their personal space.

The cards start in one order and then move to form new arrangements. They generate a recipe where we add different things to create an experience. Each experience connects and balances with a new situation; holding an observing awareness of details, we make the present even more engaging.

D teaches me that everything we have mastered in the past can be revisited and savored and used in a new fashion.

11th Avenue four friends imaginary and real

A group of people exists that likes to prevent the flow of these truths. Their strongest tool comes from an activity called “Fear this or if not this then this.” I don’t see how they got hold and retain hold of this process. It seems so clearly not part of our innate nature. By steeping us in fear and pessimism, they challenge us to a different stance than the obvious one of “Believe me.” Maybe they want to have someone really invite them to experience play again. Maybe they really want to play a few rounds of “Now I Feel Less Anxious.”

W teaches me that pessimism is a luxury
I cannot afford.

If discouraged, be discouraged consciously. Don’t despair, just be discouraged; time and progress help us process something worth attending. Or if it is despair, then despair consciously. When we get discouraged we can play out our personal discouragement. Hopefully with this amount of attention to play, we can play the discouragement consciously. We can find the humor in how we play it. And we can make a choice to continue playing it or choose a different activity.

Here comes a story of going out to play Saturday. Call this going out for “plenty.” I want to get outside for a walk. While I walk, I realize deeper inside that I want to find something while I walk. The day before I bought myself a present of a special gold ring. On this day I discover it came from my birth year and looked like a ring I have imagined several times in the past. Usually I ignore these material attachments, attributing them to marketing. I also have found a torn dollar bill, a half dollar, so to speak literally, which I turn into a little money fetish. As I walk I remember how much fun I have and how clearly I feel that everything I need already exists at my fingertips. As I pass a dumpster behind a farmer’s market, I resist looking inside. Then I change course and find a bag of 25 peppers, mostly red peppers. At first I can’t pick them up, though wrapped in their own clean bag. I smile when I think how I just want to find something and here I find these peppers. In fact the bag contains other rejected vegetables. I carry my peppers to the house. I feel like Peter Piper. They forgot to tell us that he picked them out of the trash. I feel lightly amused. I make stuffed red peppers for dinner. I stuff them with leftovers.

C teaches me that plenty of time exists to attend to each idea and every thing.

Once I wished for an ideal playmate. Sometimes I get together with him and we share the play adventure. Make friends for play time. Reopen the world to play. He would have delighted in the peppers where another would have grimaced.





Playmate Exercise #3: Playmate Map

Think back on favorite playmates in life. Collect a series of memories that stand out. Make a map of who played with whom during different periods, where they played, when they played. Try and find some detail that strongly evokes each memory. Arrange the memories as a reminder of what makes us playful to be around. Start with the clearest and proceed to vague sensations. Write these along a spiral. Start with the earliest memory and moving outward pass toward the present. Or curve the memories inward. Involve someone else in recalling their memories and making a map. See if memories trigger other memories. See how different the maps become. Try and find common attributes of shared play experiences. If enjoyed, involve still others; see how maps overlap.

11th Avenue three friends real and imaginary

B teaches me that rush comes from a sound of water and to repeat myself as often as needed.

Exercise #2: No Rush

For example, let’s start with the concept of rush. Let's choose 'no rush.' Create an activity that helps shed light on 'no rush' as a truth. Use some of the ideas we developed earlier to see what might work. The 'no rush' quality for me always centers around gaining perspective on where I stand. Where do I think I want to get so that something about my life becomes more pleasant. I could change perspective by putting something pleasant first; or even better, identifying something pleasant in this moment. Now I can see if a need for anything else exists. To start out, call someone on the phone and set up a time to check in after a certain length of time has elapsed to report on 'no rush.' If we play at not rushing then we may want to account at the end of the interval with the details that enhanced our experience of being alive during these moments, not rushing through life. Let rush be the sound of mountain river water flowing around rocks.


Exercise #2.5 Make a Reminder of Truth

Consider other truths and make specific attributions to those who teach them. Thank them directly or in spirit. We need reminders frequently of these truths. Find activities that can employ a reminder within the community. Spend time inventing new activities to highlight the reminder of the truth. Each truth reminder serves as excellent exercise. Start with one and develop an exercise for it. Extend it to include others. See if friends want to help create the truth reminder. We will find some playmates immediately drawn to certain lessons. Be surprised at who fits into creating reminders.

H teaches me that the road followed engages our sense of purpose, not the arrival at our goal. Actually we don’t follow, we walk the path. We walk, maintaining a clear open heart. The experience of exploring carries on from our earliest experiences. We forget sometimes and relearn it from our friends.

11th Avenue two friends imaginary and real

Some of us don’t have enough of the kind of friends for which we have always longed. By sharing some of these exercises, or by adapting them, can we go out and make friends, gently using everything we have gathered? Can we expand play into the realm of social engagement more often?

Have we abandoned play, stopping making friends and even meeting new people? Now we have a new job: making real and imaginary friends. Now maybe after years of following the same habits either because of a change in circumstance, a lightening of work loads, or a shift in focus at home, we find out that it's time to make new friends with whom to play. We set out to make friends with whom we feel comfortable expressing playfulness. If play involves others, and we lose the thread with which to begin, we may choose to play alone with imaginary friends. These exercises can encourage making bridges to forming new friendships with people with play potential.

Consider that these friends have to believe certain things about the world. Playing with them reveals these beliefs, which I call secret truths. These secret truths ground us deep down. I think we play because we know these things deeply. Part of letting go of our playful nature includes forgetting what we know.

Playmate Exercise # 1: Listing Our Truths

Consider what truths still hold from childhood about the world. We imagine our self as naive, but I think we know truths. Then consider our closer circle of friends, real or imaginary, and what they hold up for us as basic truths about the world and our community. Choose a large enough surface to make a chart. Group people together. Group them by shared belief. Draw this pattern on the surface. This sets up a constellation. They connect to each other because of a shared truth. Like stars they form a constellation. Like stars they exist at varying distances. The distance can make them unrelated to each other. They seem connected from our view of point. We may want to stop and play with this idea for a while. The surface has another side to start new patterns. The varying distance of stars does seem to offer a way out of other dualities when we might feel stuck. Now add in people we feel drawn to include some close, some further away. Make notes about connections based on truths or values, or experiences like laughter. Create a laughter constellation or a silly constellation, or a mischievous constellation. The members don’t necessarily know each other. Add in missing bits that intuitively belong in the constellation.

If I take my friends, a list emerges. They teach me to value my ideas and my humor. Over and over again not just once, they remind me that what I offer helps them live playfully. They remind me what I once knew, that we connect as friends and acquaintances, not as strangers. And they remind me that when we give a child a problem to solve the child sees truths, the secrets that we buried. I have scattered two of these truths from friends though this avenue. The line begins with an initial and the verb teaches.

L teaches me that I can love everyone fully and deeply. The myth of a limited amount of love reflects a falsehood, and our hearts can remain open most of the time. I say most because sometimes we have to check internally for a sense of balance.

R teaches me that I can keep on stretching and speaking up for what I want and that the universe arranges itself in such a way that what I want fits together with my community’s needs and that these fit together with the needs of other communities linking the world community.

11th Avenue one friend real and imaginary

How curious to arrive at the sense of friends with whom to creatively play, only to discover my play is primarily a solitary act which involves friends peripherally. I wonder if this is true for others.

The intimacy of play requires a certain shared perspective. Do we choose playmates with initial attention to values and behavioral habits? Do we all need slightly different companions? And do we need committed players?

Consider again the amount of structure, the physical activity, the non verbal communication, and the intuitions conducive to play. Consider the need for surprise, the need for touch, the need for understanding, the need for optimism, the need for humor, the need for laughter, the need for spontaneous plans, the need for emotional expression, the need for truth telling, the need for secrets, the need for time. Consider the needs that we don’t find on this list yet that we know. And, of course, we occupy a section on a continuum in relation to these factors. In relation to these needs we find sections representing others' needs. We may fit in better with people receptive to our needs but not sharing the same needs.

I think my playmates are imaginary, though I am willing for others to be present while I play. Mostly I am a play hermit. But since many of us aren't hermits, let's explore this realm.

Our needs will change as we play. At first we might think that children would make good playmates. But we don’t want to draw them out of their childhood with adult perspectives and biases. Another grown up provides a better choice with whom to start. To youth we want to offer reminders to never give up on play as a valuable resource. We want to support just hanging out. When including a young person, their developmental needs deserve extra attention. A slightly different balance sets the play dynamic.

K teaches me that more than enough of everything exists to feed the world and meet our basic needs within an environmental balance. The balance yields complexity but not difficulty.

M teaches me that we can all get along with each other and make meaningful connections that help ground us in the deep sense of belonging to this place and this time.

Playmate Exercise #! Hunh?

(alot is to braver more innocent players)
A once written line that I can’t figure out.



Perhaps this came from a typographical error. Perhaps it came from an idea that escaped and left this odd word string? Can it relate to choosing playmates? I'll make up that this line serves as an attempt to say that we draw on the innocent side of friends, when we play. I could see the line being rewritten as: ”The art of play begins with a shared state of innocence.” What we hope to create represents a network of dedicated people who want to experience all that play has to offer. Try and find someone with whom to make up what the line means or choose another “senseless” aphorism to explore. And consider playing along side, if playing with seems to forgo playfulness.

10th perspective seventh view

I will now dive onto the ground, roll over and play dead. We create a third way to wiggle our self outside the box. Playing dead sounds serious. Though far better than experiencing deepening depression or suicidal thoughts, playing dead anticipates transformation. Just as dreams of death mark transformation, so playing dead marks transformation. Evoking this state offers a chance to do some magical thinking and realignment. The practice acknowledges the need to disengage and the not yet readiness to head in a different direction. Some brick walls have to be scaled rather than walked through. Playing dead allows us to lie down, contemplate the height of the wall and often times allows us to arise into an environment of altered scale, where we step over the barrier, easily.

Perspective Exercise #9: Playing Dead

With two year-old temper tantrum theatrics, we cast our body down on a bed or well-carpeted floor and announce to the air surrounding us that we have had it and will play dead. We may play dead for all of a few seconds or for a long morning. Let the awareness of playing float inside consciousness. Detach and see what details we notice. Then when ready reengage with life. Jot down a reverie to remember. Plan for the next demise. At some times of year this represents the only way we can get our self to detach enough to gain a perspective on how we don’t let our self separate from some less than fun activity that we overvalue. After a spell of lighter fun activity that earlier activity can sometimes be quickly accomplished and pronounced done. Or simply pronounce it done. We evoke an awareness of non-linear time. Non-linear time wraps around our awaeness, close by.

Standing outside the box gives me a whole different perspective on gardening and maintaining a yard. I know I enjoy playing with dirt and water. I know I do not know enough about gardening to grow vegetables. I know, though, that I like yards that have something always blooming. I do not have too much concern for color. So I begin to play in and with the yard. I grow flowering weeds. I move around what is there. I focus on areas where big trees once grew, blocking sunlight. I begin brick walks to imaginary places. I begin placing stones on the ground to mark and relate one spot to another randomly. Eventually I stack stones into cairns. Something deeply satisfies me in this process. Around the stones I plant simple species that require little attention. The yard becomes an enchanted playground. Due to bugs and heat, some times of year, the playground closes. Due to the temperate climate some times it unexpectedly opens. Neighbors and friends have extra plants to share. Clumps take up perennial residence. I see my swamp daisies across the street and down the way. I can stack stones in other places and meet other people who stack stones. In Vancouver enchantment overcame me, I see stones stacked in the inter-tidal waters. These stone balancers encourage me to attempt greater acts of balance.

When we step out of our boxes and balance on edges, sometimes we simply expand the fields in which we play with a new sense of our center of gravity. And that center rather than holding the grave holds levity. We can travel lightly upon the earth.

Perspective Exercise #10: Outside the Box

At a loss for a talisman of these changes in perspective, I have to hear the words I use. Outside the box requires a box.

So take a small box, and place inside it a collection of annotated small "pages" for each token we have created. Also imagine a box that would hold the universe.

Like a flash card put a reminder on the reverse of the "pages." Now randomly tuck them into the box. When needed spread them out and notice

the content, the messages, and hopefully the humor.

10th perspective sixth view

A second method of taking a break uses a delicate balance. We stand outside the process observing. The tension forms around enchanting the play without tearing the imaginary fabric of the space.

Perspective Exercise #7: Reminders

So how can we stand outside and remain agile? We don’t want to harden into a type of stone. Patient observation helps as does disempowering shame. Start with a list of reminders. Add personal ones as they come to mind. We can write them and post them on our favorite mirror. Remind us that under all, around all and through all we still like play. Reminders can state that we can play and work. Reminders speak with a silly voice and still have integrity. Reminders can fail to know how and still play. Reminders can be playful first and attending to important details fully. Reminders can make up new ways of playing when other ways have lost their essence. Reminders can set boundaries that when pushed allow wonderful yogic stretches. All this occurs in the time and space of standing out.

Perspective Exercise #8: Standing Out

Standing out allows reinvention. If something doesn’t work, playing can lead to another level. Remember how we talked about the story of two children fighting over a ball. (Really, I am not sure we did.) When the adult watching has enough, he takes the ball and runs. The children unite in their attempt to retrieve the ball. The direction of the play shifts. The first conflict has lost energy. One duality dissolves when the direction of play changes. Looking for the direction for the ball to take next requires only a moment standing outside. A simple act created an act of realignment. Reinvention occurred. Look for the ball in our life. Instead of dissecting the conflict, take or have someone we trust take the ball in a different direction. If we rely on someone else then we can pursue the ball with the players involved in the conflict. Successful moments of shifted perspective will probably seed a grin in our cheeks. Sometimes we can accomplish the entire shift in our head and we still get to grin.


Keep practicing the shift.


Make notes about any discoveries. And make notes to remind us to practice personal shifts.

Plan a time when you can instigate this kind of play into every day life. A favorite tight stuck place serves as the perfect starting point.

10th perspective fifth view

“I quit!” means break time, or hurt feelings, or overstimulation, or understimulation, or some sense of imbalance, or a distraction from senses, or hunger, or realizations about something else, or a recipe of some of each.

Think about the value of attaching and detaching. Consider the value of intentionally detaching from people and things. When we feel that the priorities we hold become inconsistent with our behavior, detach. Take into account the stuff of life. We all have varying tendencies to fall into a trap of valuing material possessions above their due. We learn to value certain rare substances that shine or sparkle as though they had personal dynamic value. If we notice what we really enjoy having around, then we can play at spreading the rest of it out and even give it to others where the material either gets used, used up or serves them or serves another purpose altogether. Take into account people and places that fill time, though we don’t engage in meaningful connection. This offers a chance to play as well.


Perspective Exercise #6: Interesting Conversation

Consider what really interests us. Plan to have conversations with people about this. First though we can prepare for conversation by telling people our intention. Let them have a chance to think about what really interests them. We easily hold attention when someone talks clearly and directly about what really interests them. Then when we take time out, we can let these threads of information sort themselves out, making new connections of our own.

I asked this of a young stranger. The answer, cooking. He spent years discovering this truth for him. He mentioned how important it felt to feed others in ways that awakened their sense of taste and smell. In the statement stood a profound truth.

In each of these scenarios we titrate engagement and detachment. We make a game of connection and value each part. Just like we valued each aspect of a breath. Detachment as signaled by “I quit!” has become an adjustment in our inner play control panel. This writing stresses engagement in play, though in order to really play well we have to be good at stopping play. Actually we just play at not playing. In this way we become more sensitive to our inner needs for stimulation and rest. These serve as personal subtleties about which we can now go deeper and deeper. They provide us with a better sense of our core.The core can be that wonderfully vast empty chamber of choice. The use of play to accomplish a balance between stimulation and rest allows us to side step some of the rigid ways we use to define a false core. Wrestling with these kinds of identity issues brings us to consider with whom we want to play and how. We may learn to play less and less because we accept some rigid sense of ourselves and playing puts this self at odds with our core being. I wont say play subverts this paradigm, but I think it serves as a healthy force to get our priorities restructured. Can we value the whole planet by playing in our personal corner and not feeling like we have to have everyone play like we do?

10th perspective fourth view

Perspective Exercise #4: Break Signals

Over years I have noted that we each have little habits that indicate when we want to take a break. For me nail biting still exerts a reliable signal. Search for a signal. Our signature request to quit offers a language for rest. This process we are doing no longer fully engages us. Some part of us has decided not to play. A little attention focused here can redirect the flow of playfulness. Earlier I stopped reading as the frequency with which my fingers returned to my mouth increased. I always associated nail biting with transformed thumb sucking. The thumb sucking served its own construction of self-comfort. Could I ignore feelings; while my hands spoke a different language? I can now translate the language of my hands into being tired of doing this particular action. Am I asking to play a different game or am i simply asking for a break. With my finger posed at my lip, I decide to take a break from writing now. Remember for the sake of playing fully to interrupt the flow in the middle, in the middle of the page, in the middle of the behavior. See what is freed up.

When we return, do we engage more fully? This serves a worthwhile investment in our potential involvement. We intend to play from our energy source. In this kind of a break notice patterns in the fabric of play to which we have not attended. I return to the theme of hanging out and doing nothing where inner connections thread together seemingly unrelated ideas. This time out of getting more direct input represents a chance to value what already exists inside. We can do this by not directly attending to content.

Since time out serves as a nap or a rest, it also serves as a time to daydream. Daydreaming can help us attend to priorities and particularly notice personal balance. In a playful way we can attend to our dreaming and notice whether we use these thoughts for a game of comfort, or whether they signal a need for some other form of engagement. Notice whether in this daydream we repeat something and whether we attend to any new details. We can map our daydream content and add details as we create them. We may be able to find a pattern of the comfortable threads that leads us to a clear sense of why we need to take a break from what stands directly in the forefront of our attention. As with daydreaming, notice that some details make the experience much more satisfying.

Perspective Exercise #5: Sleep Play

A note to the sleepless: consider daydreaming at night while we lie awake. Play a game with insomnia. In a time out zone, we want to engage with something and everything tells us not now. Bring out favorite memories that haven’t gotten enough remembrance. Savor all the details we can recall. Try and find the smaller nuances of the event that made the experience special. Don’t stick to the story of the memory, try and find details with all our senses. Rest while we let our mind attend to the pleasant memory. Nighttime daydreaming takes a different direction out of a rigid duality. We play with sleep and wakefulness; we rest.

10th perspective third view

Perspective Exercise #2: Social Time Out

Some times we play in social settings and we need to take a break. We play less than our best or less than how we like to play. We engage from a perspective of discomfort. To quit at these times may mean to give our self a break. Take time out. Even when we feel like we’re fully engaged, we can use a break. We can savor what we enjoy. Go and spend a moment in the rest room, in the bathroom, in the toilet stall. It serves as a guaranteed safe space in a social setting. We can check in, and see if we continue playing, how we will play. We have the chance to just breathe and notice what goes on inside our body. Pieces constructed from the past and from an imagined future. When we return, we consider embracing just the present. From this refreshed position, we can reengage.

Perspective Exercise #3: Personal Time Out

Some times too many demands pull on a moment and priorities become confused. Next time take or give time for a simple time out. Start practicing at home when no one else observes. Just sit still and let all the lists and the demands sit still, too. “I quit,” can mean I have something else I have to do now. Take an aware breath. See if we can playfully approach the list in a new way when we reengage.

A list of comfort scenarios can become large and personal. Take time to do research on comfort. Some times our bed serves as a safe ship to play on. Taking naps seems a playful way to insert a safe place. The nap alludes to the essence of comfort; discover what makes the break effective. We may need a little jump to reengage. Jumps can be playful. Find a jumping memory. Find a time when to jump meant full joy. The next time we come back to reengage in an activity after taking a desired break, jump using this memory as the frame.

Along with naps, soaks and baths create comfort, or repeating any aspect of a morning ritual. Since they represent part of our daily engagement rituals, reexamine them. Be aware that to disengage we can use any of our nighttime rituals as well. Turn inward for an answer to the question, “Now what?” Now we can make time for what we would like to have at the top of the list. The list, not structured by outcome, but by playful inquiry holds to our intent. We didn’t plan to hold our breath forever; we consider, continuing to play with a new awareness.

For many of us the sense of renewal from taking a break can be evoked with a childhood memory of play. Find a time we got hurt and ran to a parent for comfort. As soon as we had our parent's attention and the chance to cry out our tears of relief and feel the comfort of our parent, we felt a return of playfulness with a readiness to jump back in. Do remember. We would repeat this cycle, when really young, as often as needed. Don’t forget. Young humans do this naturally.

10th perspective second view

A cycle of the breath becomes part of my personal meditation. I meditate on the sound of creation using my breath as a focusing of attention. I reflect on the potential contained in each breath of any human being. Everything created or destroyed accompanies breathing. This includes the most exquisite joy to the worst invented horror. As we breathe, we breathe through. Literally through our lips, and also in the cycle that emotion comes and goes.

When ready, we can run back into the playfulness of our lives. We can be thankful for each breath and feel generous in what that breath accomplishes in service to our individual community.

Perspective Exercise #1: Breathing Meditation

As we play and then take a break, imagine creative energy flowing through our hands and right out through our fingertips. Through nine spheres of experience, through eight organs, through seven chakras, through six ages, through 5 unspoken truths, through four directions, through three eyes, through twin selves and through one divine breath. Or another other playful rendition.

We honor the creative energy that created us. We honor our ancestors, our families, and our friends who create us We honor all the objects with which we have come in contact and all we haven’t discovered yet. We, part of a universal organism, all exist as part of one universe, and we can honor the interconnection and release resistance. As a universal organism, we already have it all. So with our intent, we can wish for whatever we have truly longed. List as many wishes here as matter just now. Just hold the intent to receive them. Let us open our sense of being worthy to receive everything for which we wish. Once if not now, we knew we were worthy of everything for which we wish. Wrap up in that knowing.

As we breathe, consider listening to the world with an open compassionate heart. A listening love attaches no expectation; we can imagine that everything is as we wish already. We can savor how that feels. It, like the breathing cycle, shifts to receive awareness of what happens and accepts what happens next. Nothing really changes or remains fixed. Something heard meets something listened to. Listen to the world in this loving way. Listen with a type of fully engaged appreciation. The listening occurs. Remain open hearted. Breathing becomes the meditation on creative potential, the meditation on the breath of creation. It holds sounds to which we can always return.

Now let go; detach from what happens. Let time shift our awareness to some unfolding sensation. The playing occurs in this open potential field where much of anything can occur next. We can await whatever occurs and make it our next experience playfully. We play with all our heart and comfortably share everything that we receive. We won’t need to hold or covet anything because more continues flowing toward us, filling us with this great sense of playfulness. Ah, breathe.

10th perspective first view

“I’m not playing!” Ever heard that? Ever felt that? It represents a very important aspect of play that of stopping playing. To quit playing fundamentally belongs as part of playing. In so doing, we redefine our role. The role changes our behavior. Now we will explore not playing.

The first aspect of stopping gives us a break to catch our breath. We can reflect on the fun part; maybe notice we played with only part of our heart. Maybe we need to put our self in time out because we need to rearrange our breathing.

I like to think about breathing. Taking time out to savor our breath positively accentuates our experience. While we attend to breathing, we heal from any hurts we accumulate since our last break. The positive play of words and phrases like “taking time out,” and ”going out for a special time” use language to help us notice a change of perspective. Psychologically time out gives us an opportunity to take a break from any struggles we have inadvertently taken on. It seems typical that we think of time out as reserved for children: whereas, time out can serve as a deep reminder of our safety. From a safe perspective we value our own cadence. In renewing that sense of safety, we find comfort in a way that only we can give to ourselves. This place of comfort requires persistent daily cultivation.

Perspective Exercise #!: Breathe

Take a break from all the playing by taking a breath with awareness; center with breathing. I think we fear our breath and need to reclaim our breath through another type of play. Our breath clearly reminds us of the basic creative force of life. First let’s pay attention to how we normally breath. Do we favor the inspiration? Does the drawing in of the breath give us a sense of safety or security? What do we notice about the expiration? Can we savor a part of it? Did we notice the give and take as we switched from inspiration to expiration? Come to it with the next breath. The transition from expiration to inspiration gives us another perspective to savor.

9th circuit seventh star door Unexpected Elaboration

Na nag nab nap nay nab


Playfully approach more endeavors, break them down into lengths. Engage in the parts that really inspire. Do the parts that require making up new ways to accomplish them. Try those new methods. Invite a friend along. Everything flows in some grand motion. Dust off the best thing that could happen. Let’s see what is happening. Let’s use imagination and live each small moment as fully as we can, down to the inspiration and the almost unnoticed pause before the next breath. We can be amused when we pass through a final door and find we are back out on the street under the street lamp where we started. Come with me down the chute to... [dear reader: Send me my reference to coming out in the street again, please.]


Does power flow from simple truths? If someone notices our behavior and we sense they would like to ask what we are doing, consider telling them that we are having fun playing. Leave it at that and see if they ask other questions. Being gently truthful about play can bring it back into our lives where it belongs. We have a lot of unexpected playful elaboration to engage in over this stage of our life.

Radicalized elaboration, radical playfulness,
goes to the edge of what you do before you complete anything. Add and transform actions of life, changing your perspective. The material, not just material, an approach to material shifts; engage the process, repeatedly attempting to make subtlties visible. Fully played with material like an experiment you can’t observe directly, reflects some other measured mystery.
from

Play for the Soul

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9th circuit sixth oval door Unexpected Elaboration

I asked a group of middle-aged volleyball players if they ever had flying dreams. Of 9 men, 3 didn’t. Two flew without being in a physical body. And each of the other four had specific ways in which they flew, using their body like a super hero, like a bird, or like a fish though through air. And then there was my skipping along realizing the side-swipes of my steps had lifted me off the ground unexpectedly, perhaps more like a fish than bird or super hero. Most of these men hadn’t had these dreams in a while. Does our dream world reflect something of our play world? We can inquire about something familiar to us of others and explore the variations, finding unexpected elaborations?


On the bookshelf
Creativity (underlined) sits unread,
a dry husk. Unfit.
While reading, hands remain unengaged.
Playfulness absent, Nails bitten,
A sign. Hands measure something:
Linked emotional well-being.


Thinking about playing, never picking up anything and playing with it, there's a rub. The degree of kinesthetic organization and learning determines a degree to which this type of play proves essential to learning. The knowing comes later. What someone says, you simultaneously “speak” through your hands. The lag in the translation favors the experience rather than the knowing.
from

Play for the Soul

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9th circuit fifth nook door Unexpected Elaboration

Lah lash lath lay

Elaboration Exercise. # 3: Shrine for Totems

As we’ve moved through these various layers, we’ve created a series of play testimonials about different aspects of creative expression. Create a place for these objects on a shelf or in a corner of a room. These representations or totems can serve as reminders of aspects of playfulness. The first time we gather and set them down, don’t pay attention to how they get assembled. Come back and check on them later. Do a little sketch of how they sit. Remember we can use symbols, doodles, words or any other method of annotation. What do we notice about these objects? How do they relate to each other in this layout? Rearrange them. Do they still contain reminders of playfulness? What about the place where we place them? See what changes, if we choose a place where we pass them regularly. See if they will be in the corner of our eye frequently. If we want to we can move them around to several different locations and experience what difference location makes. We can place them in some kind of carrying container and keep them with us. Do they invite us to live more playfully?


Play with them.



Keep the elaboration process active. Have a sense of humor about this and see if you hide aspects of play literally in the way you set up a shrine. Allow the symbols to tell a story just as one relates to another. You can apply some embellishment to the shrine. Play remains available even when life gets busy. Take the detour.
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Play for the Soul

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9th circuit four rectangle door Unexpected Elaboration

Jah jag jam jaw jar jay

I’d like to do that a little more.

Elaboration Exercise # 2: More

Take an exercise of which a little more practice would seem enjoyable. Add another layer to it by combining another aspect of play discussed earlier. Borrow ideas from childhood, or ideas that might have made childhood richer. Use any references. Bring in extra materials. See what happens.

Send in the results, possibly as testimonials inscribed on odd surfaces. Send a sketch or a description or a photograph covered with personal annotations. Send a copy with additional notes in the margins spilling onto the image. Send them to anyone who will enjoy them, I will; or send them as a surprise. Let this thread elaborate into community outreach for valuing play. We could send it to someone we don’t know whom we think would do better what they do, if they valued their playful nature more fully. Reaching out to ask someone to play, our earliest social engagement skill still offers a viable and valuable proposition.

Unexpected Elaboration of play shows you how you approach playfulness. Elaboration allows you to add personal to what you have developed. It reveals what you sense at any given point in the process. In the realm of play, right ways don’t exist. You don’t get to anywhere. Equally your way represents only one way. In fact in elaborating play, as you mimic others, you knowingly and inadvertently borrow from others. We borrow from the vast experience of human community. This act of borrowing has to be washed clean of indoctrination about competition and winning outcomes to be authentically valued. The novelty of play comes from the inner experience of the individual or group.
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Play for the Soul

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9th circuit third key hole door Unexpected Elaboration

Gath gash gay gal gap

That I’d like to do.

Elaboration Exercise # 1b: Making It

We can try a similar exercise with something we always wanted to make. The short circuit: “Make it.” Consider something seen in an interior design magazine or a gift shop or a piece of art. Something that evokes in us the “Hey, I could do that” response. This time for the purpose of creative play, hold to that response. We release the attachment to how this turns out. We search after a feeling that engages a process within. Describe how it feels to do this. Make notes; maybe even on the surface or interior of the object created. Or imagine it’s a cake, how about eating it and letting the crumbs fall onto cracks on another surface as a reminder to invite unexpected elaboration. Describe the emotional map passed through in making this object. Retain a perspective of an amused observer. This may provide essential clues to our personal playful identity.

Hands can serve as a barometer of playful activity. Their activity reveals something we can’t measure with thoughts. This type of activity links the body to emotional well being. “Don’t sit still with empty hands, make things?” Playfulness exists in our body. Maybe play simply reflects kinesthetic experience.

Does play represent learning without having to know?
Could playfulness express a personal sign language?
Can we understand play as eternal wisdom coming through our hands?



Interest revolves around the enhancement of moves through layering with other ideas and behaviors, rather than with the reduction of play to a set of moves. Many times something will seem like a novel approach and later you’ll notice another's similar style or form in some other context. Synchronicity reigns. (logicum inconstantia) from

Play for the Soul

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