from her book Deep Play
“All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.” – Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
“I think kids know what we’re talking about here. I think they experience shared transcendence a lot more often than we adults do – or let on to. We adults make it too hard on ourselves. We think have to win. And we forget that it’s not about winning at all after all – it’s really actually about playing well together. We forget that we are, in fact, the ones making the rules here. We forget that together, just us players, we make it even more fun.” – Bernard DeKoven
“These moments of coliberation, of shared transcendence, like a moment in a well-played game or well-acted play, like moments of harmony, love, resonance with each other – these are the moments we use to measure a well-lived life. And, for those of us who willing to play, these moments are ours.
“Coliberation – A shared transcendence of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities; a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in.
A shared transcendence: Something we experience in certain moments of making love, of playing with children and animals, standing in a storm together, floating in the ocean together, listening to and making music together, watching a movie together; walking in the woods or on a mountain, eating a meal, reading a book, playing a game together….
of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities: An unsustainable union where distinctions between self and community, mind and body – between whatever separates us from each other, the environment in which we discover each other – are set aside.
...a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in: Sudden, momentary and unsustainable because we must ultimately return to ourselves, to “minding the store.”
Sudden, momentary, unsustainable, spontaneous, undefining, transforming.
We return changed, not the same person we were – our understanding of who and what we can become, our very selves, our relationships – redefined. “
Read more about CoLiberation from Bernard DeKoven
Our First Apartment
An iron-barred
plant-laden window,
guarded by the Buddha,
gating out the world.
Cold sunlight
on warm wooden floors
scratched up by a table
built for building a community
together.
Teacups.
Boardgames.
Blankets from your sister.
Books.
So many books
color coded and marked up,
separating you from me and here from
there
and
A couch you hated, and
the art.
Bay windows and
the bedroom walls
soaked with words
from whispered conversations
that drew us
deep
into the night and
into each other.
I didn’t realize it,
when we first moved in.
I swear,
It didn’t look like a battleground.
How is your heart today?
I recently came across this blog post “The Disease of Being Busy.” There is so much to consume in this post, so I recommend just taking the five minutes and giving a read.
I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.
Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.
Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.
And she goes on, asking some piercing questions…
Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy — just like us?
What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?
How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?”
“Close some doors today. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.” – Paul Coelho
2014.08.26 On Risk-Taking
“And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” ― Randy Komisar, Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
I am so worried that I wont be able to make heads or tails of my life. That I won’t make a difference, that my life won’t matter. I grind every day to make money doing something I have no real passion for. The only thing that keeps me going is staying up late working myself into the ground in the empty hours of the day
I frantically fill up the empty hours of the day with more work–an attempt to build something that I can eventually create a life of meaning around.
Am I being complacent? Am I playing it safe?
“Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and a little less time trying to impress people.”
breakfast club
M: On Happiness & Success
People place too much weight upon the expectations of others. They make decisions and choices based on a vision of success someone else has defined for them.
And of course, I think it is hard sometimes to identify your own goals, and your own purpose, free from the influence of the voices of others. We’ve been conditioned all our lives to listen to the voices of others. We have been told, since childhood, what the looks and measures of success are.
Have you graduated college? How much money are you making? How much power? Are you recongized by others for your accomplishments? Do you have a happy marriage–are you married at all? Do you have children? One? Two? Do you have a big house and a backyard and some dogs? Do you have two cars? Can you take two vacations a year?
It starts when you’re younger and grows up with you, in you. And then you are an adult and you find that you undervalue happiness and overvalue this predefined notion of success.
You’ll choose a job that makes others happy, jealous, proud–your parents, your peers, your ex’s and so forth. You tie yourself down, settle in before you’re ready, because its expected.
You never stop and ask yourself–what is success–for me? What is happiness, for me?
So my advice is to step back. Your unhappiness and anxiety in your life, with your decisions, are usually a product of trying to meet someone elses expectations & ideals. Figure out what will make you happy–and make that your goal, your standard of success.
You still got to work to live, but if you’re not happy–well, youre wasting your only life. Happiness should not be ‘optional’ to success.
“Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and a little less time trying to impress people. ” – Breakfastclub
Always seeking to be free from the concern of what others think.