five pieces, and what they reveal: the third one

My favorite
exercise is walking.
I particularly like to
walk in nature.
I build
on physiological repetition.
Steps create a meditation. I play,
repeating a simple act over and over again.
My body, mind, and spirit know that I play.
In my soul I play and something soothes; something heals.


Repetition Exercise #3: Walking

Go walking and consider the repetitions.
The breaths, the steps, the rising and falling of limbs, posture...
Think about how each aspect repeats.
Move through space.
Include the sensation of air and of clothing on the skin
and even include thoughts in the mind.
Some of these patterns get very little attention.
Structure the thoughts as a meditation on being grateful
or observe thoughts and watch them form repetitive patterns around feelings.
I add picking something up while walking.
The act becomes another type of repetition in the dance.


Anything can define something.


It seems ironic that this section has to be rewritten because I erased it by playfully hitting some computer keys. In the interim since this event occurred, I have learned the value of an undo command.

I did lie down on the floor and play dead in order to regain the strength to type what I had just finished transcribing. For an empathic reference, consider I never learned to type. It took hours. In recomposing my thoughts, the humor of the play on repetition sinks in.

Since I still don’t know the second thread that I planned to follow, I make a detour. I delete a few tangents. I remember the little boy saying over and over again some expression with potato. He must find this word a soothing auditory trigger. He uses a discordant intonation.

Repetition holds the essence of the initial step of what we could call getting warmed up to play. In one sense we already play. From our earliest games we repeat behaviors or even just rhythmic movement or sound. Over and over these activities thread together to create knowledge of basic behaviors. I remember bouncing a ball and counting the bounces, heading to one hundred. Was I five? Somewhere in the 70 somethings I remember jubilantly feeling that such high numbers and so many bounces were really something. A friend, describes hundreds of lay-ups in basketball repeated with pleasure. So we start play there. Quite soon the initial repetition becomes a phrase of its own, which repeats a new rhythm and then adds some subtlety of another dimension.

Look at patterns in nature, in music, and in architecture. These patterns remind me of the fundamental nature of play.
A rhythm carries us along for a while and then another replaces it and carries forth followed by yet another. And feelings accompanying them.
The way in which the universe organizes itself allows for some human awareness of this repetition.

Time creates repetitive phenomenon.
The quip being that time, a divine intervention, prevents us from experiencing everything at once.
Repetitions of hours or months or even moments create playful ways of linking events.
In each moment we begin a series of activities that form new patterns.

five pieces, and what they reveal: the second one

this might be a blank piece. Maybe that would be why someone else doodled here. Imagine this in white ink on white paper; and you have a marker in hand. I offer a visual doodle with lattice and stone. Is that cheating? Can you cheat at playfulness?


Sometimes we learn something by repeating it over and over. Playfulness links any tedium we experience with some other physical, mental or spiritual activity. We engage our own definition of the quality of repetition so that we observe and value the give and take of the process. The act becomes personal.


I return to drawing marks on a surface: I am not a doodler,
that’s the concern here. I would delete this piece and start again, but if I do that I will do it a little later. I doodle with materials, with objects that are cast off or lost. So if you doodle…..

Repetition Exercise #2: Doodling(using our hands as we listen.)

Take a spot and doodle for a while a repetition of points and lines and shapes, probably while attending to something else. I asked John if I could have his doodle after a meeting we attended. Some people better focus their auditory attention while doodling.

Set it aside, do some more; and look at it again later.
Try it as a bookmark. Use any shape or size.
Repeat the process on the other side. Doodle over doodles.

As close as I get is a tally card. I repeated marks to try and track a pattern about something else. In the process I didn’t use the same marks, but I did repeat the basic action of putting marks in their columns. I definitely can see the repetition in this process. I like the regularity and the irregularity of the pattern.

When faced with repetition, I immediately shift and set up some slight transformation. The way I play acknowledges the need to repeat while simultaneously altering the act, object or notion. So my playfulness enters as the response to the implied need for repetition.

Collecting similar objects strongly represents repetition. Here, too, in my collections the gathering reflects play because of the attention to the slight variations. These make the act engaging. I definitely play in the playground of the subtle novelty seeker. Discoveries and new ideas litter the path.

[I seek novelty.
(Two ideas catch my attention. One gets lost.)
Four types of personality factors come to mind.
Novelty seeking holds one corner.
Balance that by a need for familiarity.
This places soothing on a continuum between familiarity and novelty.
Seek soothing.

Stimulation is also present.
Sensation seeking represents a similar process as novelty.
Something can be stimulating in the subtlest ways.
So the novelty can express itself in pattern variation
rather than in strong physical experience.
Loud sounds and fast rides represent the common course of novelty seeking,
though dissecting difference could be novelty as well.

That quality pulls my attention.
Could someone else find a roller coaster soothing?
Does novelty and soothing intersect playfully?
A connection surfaces; does it relate to repetition?
I like to figure out how things connect.

Overhearing someone named Mark talk today,
speaking words about being a connector;
part of his endeavor includes making heart connections.
Does that have anything to do with repetition?
The link eludes me.



Do we connect with the heart?
Is that where soothing and stimulation meet?
Better walk around the block; walking and blocks lend themselves to repetition.
The blocks are building blocks from childhood.
The walks loosen a knot of thoughts that confound me.]

five pieces, and what they reveal: another one

Five pieces
Level 5 Pieces Repetition
re
pepet it
itition
s

let’s begin again;
in the process of repeatedly trying to capture the idea,
a few unexpected discoveries occur.

false starts of this section have more to do with a playful approach to repetition.
transformation signals play during repetition.
Mirroring transforms. So do subtractions and multiples. Transformations help us notice subtle changes.
The multiples have playful slight variations. So now we can begin a second beginning again.

When we make up something, we repeat an idea. The repetition in some basic sense reinforces itself. We could start with repeating ideas, words, or behaviors. The ideas could allude to these behaviors, while the words could describe these behaviors. Think about language and making things, Think about performance. Think about observing how something occurred.

Let me do something again. Let me rewrite this. Doing that creates repetition. Doing something again to make it more comfortable likely leads to an experience of mastery. Repetition mirrors something, doing something that you saw done. And I realize that in the doing, we always alter the process in some sense.

What about copying? Copying leads to the notion of transferring something. Something transferred requires recognition of the source or the trail that the something passes along. Entertain whence it comes.

Repetition Exercise #1 Mapping

Let’s map how we know something,
whom we had to know to know that next thing. Where we were. What else happened then.
Take an idea or fact and consider its source. Break it apart into components of knowledge. Pretend like you have a map in front of you and mark in details with reference to time and place. Nest other details in open spaces. Connect the ideas with line, dashs, dots. Block off some areas.
and annotate the source of these bits.
See how far back a line of an idea traces to some point in the past. It can fold back on itself.


As an example, I learned French in High School from Mrs. A whom I recently saw at a 30-year Reunion.
The word Souvenir entered my vocabulary.
I had to take French first in 7th grade where I remember my mother correcting my pronunciation.
I had trouble distinguishing between the “ou” and the “u” sounds.
I remember the word souvenir having a charm based on the word's exotic sound and length.
I almost remember the first time I wrote it.
I could say the word by six or seven before I could read or spell it.
Shall I write this story on a souvenir of a place like Niagara Falls?

That place also would have entered my early consciousness, though I only saw it in my early 20’s, well after the place name became fully grounded in my vocabulary.

Set up a memory trail around the repetition of a word or an idea or an object. Write it onto an appropriate or inappropriate surface.

Could the very language of the repetition chapter literally repeat itself at some point? That would annoy the proofreader in each of us. I remember rereading a line of a book several times until it dawned on me that I had entered a repetitive loop. I heard that biblical verses follow a structure based on repetition. I never checked, but learning uses repetition. Repetition until mastery precedes the sudden shift to another level of knowing. I think that shift represents play and the repetitions provide the preamble.

five pieces, and what they reveal: the first piece

I begin to notice that repetition and slight alteration are the elements of behavior that allow for playfulmaking.

Do that again!

laughter... I have just finished swinging a small child back and forth.

L-O-I
I-O-L


I imagine setting up a matrix made up of elements that I have collected or discovered. I arrange them in some kind of order by some repetitive sorting and there they are. Just so, inviting exploration. I strip back the behavior, it could be walking steps, it could be hammering nails, it could be sorting papers. It could be drawing lines or writing words. It could be ordering thoughts. Again the behaviors could be devoid of playfulness. I want to choose the playful way.


Repetition Exercise#1: Mapping
Repetition Exercise#2: Doodling
Repetition Exercise#3: Walking
Repetition Exercise#4: Worrying
Repetition Exercise#5: More Walking
Repetition Exercise#6: Familiarizing

I started this level so many times that I have stories about writing about repetition. I want someone else to playfully set up a matrix that contains these stories and ideas. Et Voila

iv/ seventh pocket

A final empty pocket

Can we ever be at the wrong place at the wrong time? When playing, don’t we always arrive just now and move to where next unfolds?

Mystery

The unclear possibility becomes quite useful when we feel trapped or limited in the process of living. Mystery allows us to attend to some alteration that makes something unexpected valuable. I never learned magic tricks, but I remember being told distracting and focusing attention accomplished the trick.

Maybe the biggest mystery is that life unfolds without tricks.

Mistakes

Certain mistakes have immediate value. They lead to some discovery we would have missed. When we play we pretty easily excuse mistakes and refocus.

Anticipating mistakes in order to prevent them may be inefficient.
We want more time to spend on interesting things the mistake introduces.

Sometimes I can catch the shadow of a mistake. Though more often than I wish were true I end up trying to anticipate and avoid "mistakes." It's more of a doomed role It is exhausting. That role shapes the internal message. Don't make a mistake.
In a manner of speaking we play this doomed part. Like so many games we play as adults, the rules have been misconstrued and the playfulness has been obscured.

Be drawn in by a mistake. That's a better rule.

If we turn this around then any choice we make provides a chance to explore an expected outcome. In the present moment of that exploration, many things happen simultaneously. We reclaim our right to make mistakes. We learn about unexpected things.
We discover a healing feeling from within that affirms an age-old truth that we know what interests us. And we have more energy to explore playfully this moment.

Flexible like branches in breezes.

iv/ sixth pocket

another empty pocket with a question, and this one has a hole in it.

How hard is it to notice that what we believe is a way of packaging our perception of the past and the future? When we play we deepen our connection to the present; and so past and future can fade and lose their hold.

Do possessions really matter? Is this why we lose things when we play? Does the belief in possessing loosen?

To enter the realm of play requires an active imagination. An intention to suspend certain rules of daily living helps. We have to navigate certain limits that we accept without thinking. The simple act of holding an improbable or unexpected outcome as possible shifts the way in which we interact with the world that holds up the more likely outcome. That outcome screams, “ I am what happens!” We propose a quiet meditative playful retort,“I will gently hold onto this improbability!”

The improbable constantly occurs. Not oddly at all, the improbable requires its own occurrence by definition. Our goal places increased awareness on this occurrence. Sometimes play requires siding with the improbable. Playing embraces the improbable.


Attributed Meaning

Most people still have memories of attachment to objects from childhood that hold greater meaning and value than an observer might attach. These objects have been labeled transitional objects. The expression unfortunately implies a transition out of childhood dependency into adult independent functioning. I have arrived at a different conclusion. Shame tricks us into letting go of the mystery that allows attachment. These objects serve as reminders that affirm our ability to cross over into the realm of make believe. This realm fills itself continually with potential solutions to the smallest concerns and the greatest threats to the world’s ecology. Child idealism often becomes an avenue to generate global solutions to problems that adults bogged down with details, fail to fathom.

If a clutched teddy bear can support an individual through inner turmoil, then… Our current society advances exploitation of resources and ostentatious displays of wealth and conspicuous consumption. Have we simply found a way to create vast teddy bears out of home furnishings and jewelry, out of cars and planes, out of boats and swimming pools without giving ourselves simple truly sacred objects? We had these objects by our side when we were young, and they didn't take up much room.

There is a hole in my pocket.


Val asked for a donation to benefit a Belly Acres silent auction; and I am thinking about a bag of a hundred found pennies for good luck. What will the label say? May all these found pennies bring you and everyone around you compassionate good luck and may they inspire generosity.

iv/ fifth pocket

I wanted to add an empty pocket here

Here’s an idea I carry around in my pocket. Are there any strangers, really? Or are there just people we don’t know yet and connections we haven’t discovered?

The improbable
When I travel I notice improbable situations. I see the same strangers repeatedly. It has become a personal point of honor to notice familiar strangers. I think I naturally notice a lot of details and I am not sure how many details other people notice. Do you notice details? If you travel do you run into the same people repeatedly? There is something about the improbable that is part of playing. I met five men hiking with one of their sons. They were provisioning a father son team that I had met three days earlier and again the prior day. What about the little I knew of the father and his son and the five men and the son of one of them led me to ask if they were hiking in to meet the former? I asked a friend if it were obvious to him? He said it never would have occurred to him to assume the connection or to ask after it.

This first example tends toward recognizing strangers. Another example was learning layer by layer that the stranger in front of me was someone I had known decades earlier. The string of questions which began as social pleasantry, veered toward a set outcome. This stranger across from me had to be a high school student in the class ahead of me with whom I worked on a project. Not recognizing the other created a strange perspective.



The Unexpected
Noticing the unexpected and including it in a worldview serves as a structure within play. Lightly holding onto observations of our environment helps increase our relationship with the unexpected. Trusting intuitive knowing helps. This could be called exercising the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere processes information spatially and may be responsible for making connections among random events so that they form meaning. In this manner we can arrive at knowledge without knowing all the details required to build that knowledge. Certainly part of living playfully develops that aspect of our mental process that allows us to see the whole picture without necessarily knowing many of the details. A hologram offers way to think of the process, where knowing one detail allows that bit of information to reconstruct the whole image. Playful experience has the potential to develop greater confidence in our intuition.

Making a detour through a friend’s yard to get back on track to where I was headed, I ran into a young man taking photographs of a cat in tree. I hadn’t noticed him when I turned in, and so, surprised I introduced myself and we talked about his name and how he was named after an ancestral scholar. I had run across the scholar’s name in a family tree and upon checking realized that ten generations back his foremother and my forefather had been siblings. He had to stand in the path that I hadn’t intended to take and I had to ask the series of questions I chose to discover this other trail through time.