afterwords:4:secret

**Play in Secret

First we relegate play to childhood, blocking an essential life resource. Second we separate our creative flow from our everyday state of being alive and curious. Third we label behaviors associated with being playful as silly. Fourth we require play to sneak into our lives. We require it to remain in a hidden shadow form. Shadow forms form wonderful resources when we have a chance to draw on this energy. We lose out when we keep them at a distance based on fear, holding playfulness separate from us. Usually some thread of fear creates the shadow. Consider fears of darkness. When we play with this fear, we realize that we don’t fear the dark, but we dislike a feeling inside of not “seeing”. Not seeing becomes quite interesting when we take time to play with the experience. We can make up activities that let us explore the dark; then we remember with our other senses “objects” in the dark. Or we follow a different idea and play stumbling. Stumble over a chair into the embrace of a dozen cushions.