The Joys of Play!

Step out of ordinary time and let go of self-consciousness

Spontaneity, Freedom, and Renewal

I am a woman who loves to play. It's true that I did have a serious play deficit during part of my adult life, even quite a significant part of my adult life, but now that I am older and wiser, I have relaxed back into being playful--thank goodness. 

Grownups are far too serious and inhibited. Elders included.

It would do all of us good to be more playful because playing lifts us out of seriousness and self-consciousness, giving us a no-cost vacation from mundane concerns that preoccupy us much of the time.

Play sets us free in a beautiful open field, where we have a chance to express ourselves spontaneously.

Things happen when we play that don't happen in other situations. In the midst of playing, we lose some or all of our usual self-consciousness and step into another, more timeless way of being. Play is pleasurable and invigorating. It's full of information about ourselves and others that comes in refreshing, even surprising ways.

People don't all play the same way of course. We have different play personalities or styles, or a mixture of several of them. Here are eight play styles.

Eight Play Personalities

There's the Joker, who loves being silly, the Mover who loves dancing and sports, the Explorer who loves new places, whether they are physical, emotional or physical, the Competitor who loves playing to win, the Director, who loves planning and creating events and projects, the Collector who loves gathering interesting or beautiful objects, the Artist who loves making things and the Storyteller, who enjoys creating an imaginative world with stories or other artforms.

What play styles appeal to you?  I am fond of the Joker, Explorer, Director, Artist and Storyteller, with a good appreciation for the Mover. I have limited involvement with the Collector and the Competitor. What about you?

Medical doctor Stuart Brown wrote a wonderful book titled  Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Brown suggests that when we reminisce about positive play experiences from childhood it can give us information about our emotional profile and what truly excites us in life.

What kind of play did you love as a child? What are some of your positive memories about great play times?

I remember doing a workshop titled Playfulness and the Pleasures of Aging at the Sage-ing International Conference in 2012.  I asked the 20 people who took part in the group to consider their childhood play experiences and to choose one that remains vivid to them. The responses were wonderful--running the gamut from tender and mystical to liberating and whimsical. One man spoke about how few positive play experiences occured during his childhood in Germany in the midst of war. But he recalled picking wildflowers and sitting with his sister making crowns from them. Weaving and wearing those crowns was a memorable moment of play and connection for him. Another person told of being raised in an oppressive atmosphere in an orphanage, and how he looked forward to throwing off his clothes and running into a lake at the end of each day. A woman spoke of a numinous dream of being underwater and the influence it had on her life. We went on to play some improvisational games together. By the time the group was over, I think all of us understood the truth of what Plato said long ago, when he wrote, "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."

Not only can you discover more about another person, you can also discover a lot about yourself that you would never learn from other types of pursuits. Because in play, we are free to express parts of ourselves that often have no other kind of outlet.

Is it scary to be silly?

Even though I loved playing jokes from a young age, and even though I had a father who took great delight in talking with many accents while inventing a variety of very funny characters, I often thought being silly was kind of scary. After all, kids or adults could make fun of you, ridicule you or laugh at you. It took me a few decades and a fair amount of experimentation and healing work, but these days I am generally comfortable with being silly.

Being silly is really a lot of fun. It's freeing to let go of being so darned grown up, armored by the need to control our established image of ourselves. I know that when I am silly, it gives other people permission to be silly, too.

Of course, Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin have permission to be silly. They are professional funny people. But we can give ourselves permission to let go and explore what form of silliness lives in us, too. What are your silly aspects? Do they have names? Do you talk with them?  You know, we all have a bevy of characters and archetypes within us, and being silly is one way to get to know them better and give them a chance to have their say.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. ---Friedrich Nietzsche  (and that goes for women, too!)

The Magical Aspects of Play

For this child from the Omo tribe, elaborately beautiful makeup  includes many elements from the natural world, and carries meaning within the tribe.  In our culture, Halloween and Mardi Gras are often the only times we dress up or change our faces to present another character, persona or archetype, and these dress-ups we do in our culture are of course quite different from the Omo ways. But they are what we have to start with. It is wonderful to explore archetypes and personas with ceremonial makeup.

I have been wanting to play with others using ceremonial makeup, movement, voice, improv games and deep relaxation. I have been calling this program Free as a Bird Frolics. I would love to see this develop into a retreat of 2-3 days, either in a retreat setting in Ashland or in other locations. Right now, I am offering it for 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon.

So far, however, the tribe of players has not responded to the call. This is a bit sad of course, because it would be great fun to play together. But on the other hand it just may not be the right time, or I may not have gotten the hang of how to let others know about what I am offering, or it may be that this program is something for me to let go of.  It's good to remember that all of life is a creative exploration. Success and failure are rather static, blocky words for what is really quite a playful enterprise. It all becomes clear as we go along the path. I continue to be playful in my life, and welcome the opportunity to play with other dear humans, in whatever way the play manifests.

So if you want to play, let me know. I am sending good energy waves to you, energy waves, the play of cosmic forces.....
  
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there. -- Miles Davis

The Artist's Life: Her Update

Songs of the Inner Life: 
How I Made My Way in the Dark

The final proofing for Songs of the Inner Life has been done, and soon the book will be finished, published, out and about in the world.
  
The book explores the buried meaning in life events, the juxtaposition of ordinary outer life and mysterious inner experience that leads one further into one's calling and development. It's very personal and very universal. 

Creating art can be a solitary and sometimes lonely pursuit. Friends and kindred spirits are essential to one’s sense of purpose and well-being.  I am fortunate in that regard. I have been buoyed up, inspired and brightened by many people, each of whom brings unique and wonderful qualities into my world.  Harry (Rick) Moody, author of a wonderful book titled The Five Stages of the Soul, had this to say about Songs of the Inner Life. 

 "Whoever thought that a spiritual journey could read like a roller coaster ride?  As Bette Davis said, “Fasten your seat belts! ” -- and be ready for a great ride in Gaea Yudron's memoir of her life and times."

Activities In the Kwan Yin Inn

We are assembling the new audacious aging kits in the Kwan Yin Inn, a studio in the back garden. The button making machine, button parts, magnets, booklets and envelopes---each part of the kit sits in happy expectation of meeting people who want to get a positive aging boost in their lives.

People often say "what a cute idea" when they hear about the kits....

Do you want to wear some sassy, pro-aging buttons or give a friend a kit that contains upbeat, life-affirming messages about aging? Great for birthdays, retirement or just because...... Learn more at our website....


Beauties of the Garden, an Ongoing Saga

The poppies are finishing their bloom, the roses are out in full flower, and penstemons, feverfew, snapdragons, daylillies are among the delicious sights right now in the south-facing garden. I am still working on moving the rest of the 3 yards of compost I had delivered to various beds.

Playfulness and the Art of Aging

I'm giving a talk on playfulness on Monday at the  Ashland Food Co-op. Well, it will be more/other than a talk, depending upon how willing the audience is.

Being playful, spontaneous, creative, silly, inventive, outrageous, letting go of one's ordinary persona and behavior--all of that is so refreshing and delightful, freeing, instructive and just plain fun.  I love doing this with groups, and would like to do more of it!

I presented The Poetry of Aging the other day at OLLI. Poetry and playfulness---two of my favorite things to share with others.... Both allow us to take a vacation from ordinary reality and enter other parts of our psyche. I enjoyed sharing what many poets have written about aging, and we had a marvelous conversation about aging afterwards, too.

A NEW WRINKLE

I just finished writing "Organ Recital," a very funny song about physical complaints that composer Laura Rich is now setting to music. One of its verses goes like this:
 

"We have to go to Thailand for our teeth

Getting work done there is much more cheap

the dentists are quite gentle

they’re never temperamental

Thai food is just delightful

We relish every bite full

what’s more, there is also the beach."

Oh, what a wonderful day it will be when the revue is ready for production. I am very ready to see that day arrive.  Well, that is a little of what is going on here in my life as an artist/entrepreneur/social change activist.  

Of course, my life is full of a great many other things, too. I have been happy to see protests against Monsanto arise in so many cities and countries. I pray for the bees, for the whales, for the humans.  Living in a body right now takes a lot of courage and heart.

Perhaps it has always been true. Wishing all of us the courage and heart to meet and engage with life in ways that are fruitful.

After the poetry, more poetry

In the midst of the poetry, out in the wild blue yonder

Yesterday I did a performance reading titled The Poetry of Aging at the Ashland Library.

It went very well, with an enthusiastic audience of 15 or 20 people. Some of them were avid poetry buffs, and knew many of the poems I shared.

The poems were quite varied. Some were reflective, some were humorous or sardonic, some lyrical, and some were laments.


I thoroughly enjoyed sharing that feast of  poetry,  as you can see from the photo here which shows the truth of something Stanley Kunitz said, how "The poem comes in the form of a blessing...like rapture breaking on the mind."

One of the folks who attended asked me to share the titles and authors of some of the poems I presented, and I am doing so here.

I read several poems by W.B. Yeats, including Sailing to Byzantium, When You are Old and John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore.

I sang Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. I set that poem to music many years ago and always love to share it with others. Poetry was sung or chanted in the old days, and even today, when you hear poets "read' their work, many still do it in a musical, bardic way. I think that's even more true in places outside of the US, where we have adopted a rather flat-earth relationship to language.

One woman left while I sang Fern Hill. I wish I could have asked her whether it was just too much for her, too strange or difficult. This kind of singing is so different from the style of vocal presentation we are familiar with. I suppose that is one reason why I like it. I long for more variety, subtlety, more open and expansive voice that can lead us into deeper regions of the psyche. Bardic poetry. People used to sit for hours together and hear the deep songs. I am happy that some of us kindred spirits gathered to commune in that way yesterday.

I shared the humorous and poignant poem Forgetfulness by Billy Collins. You can listen to it while watching a  You Tube video.

I shared several poems by Polish poet Anna Swir, from her book Talking to My Body.

I presented Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare, some poems by May Sarton about becoming 80, the wonderful poem Otherwise by Jane Kenyon, Affirmation by Donald Hall, In View of the Fact by A. R. Ammons, With a Wave of Her Old Hand by Kathleen Raine, Touch Me and Passing Through by Stanley Kunitz, Past by Pablo Neruda, Lines on Retirement, After Reading Lear, by David Wright. I shared Break the Mirror by Nanao Sakaki and Maya Angelou's poem On Aging.

We did call and response for the poem Ancestors, the choral piece which begins my musical revue, A New Wrinkle. That was lovely, too. It gave me a glimpse of what that poem may sound like set to music and sung by a chorus.

I learned, as one often does in doing things. I felt fine about the way I shared the poems, but afterwards, I realized that I did not give the audience enough introduction to me or my work with creative aging, or tell them enough about the musical revue I'm working to finish and produce.  I was a bit disappointed in that and I will do better next time.


Playfulness and Wellness
The other day, I somehow (did someone send it to me?) found a video about Stephen Jepson, an active elder who likes relating to life as one big playground, as you will see from this video on Growing Bolder, an Internet community that focuses on positive aging.

Jepson is passionate about playfulness and physical activity and their role in happiness, health and wellbeing. I hope that he succeeds in sharing his methods and philosophy widely. Playful physical activity can build a set of skills that help coordination and prevent falls. Not only that, look at this fellow. He is having a wonderful time. His happiness is quite contagious. He has a Never Leave the Playground website you will enjoy, too.

Here we are in December!