Shaman of Play

Au Revoir and Shalom

  Au Revoir and Shalom

By | November 6, 2017 | 0

Well, my friend, it’s time. I’m not going to be posting on http://deepfun.com or on https://aplayfulpath.com for the foreseeable future. There’s enough already here for a lifetime of play, and the rest of my life needs attention. It’s a good time, considering. There’s so much love waiting for me.

I also want to see what it’s like if I spend more…

L'hitraot and Au Revoir

  Shalom and Au Revoir By | November 7, 2017 | 0 Well, my friend, it’s time. I’m not going to be posting on http://deepfun.com or on http://aplayfulpath.com for the foreseeable future. There’s enough already here for a lifetime of play, and the rest of my life needs attention. It’s a good time, considering. There’s so much love waiting for me. I also want to see what it’s like if I spend more of…

New Games and the Table Top

My good friend Stephen Conway of The Spiel and I were invited to present at the Champagne-Urbana campus of Illinois University. Stephen presented one evening, I the next. Stephen brought a great bag or several full of games, and began by placing a few games, one on each table. He’d teach each game and leave the rest to the players. What occurred to me only later was that Stephen’s process created…

The Kiss of the Frog: a Performance Game

The sacred ritual known as the Kiss of the Frog is performed as follows: Players (those with sufficient mastery of the Way of the Frog) first create their own frog and then let it nest on top of their heads (a goodly place for your average hand frog). Thus beginneth the performance of the Kiss of the Frog. Once their frogs are properly settled, players walk backwards seeking another from with…

Fearful and Fearless By | October 31, 2017 | 0 Imagine two people: one you can call “Fearful,” the other “Fearless.” You have to hand it to both of them – Fearful and Fearless – how they can be such intimate friends and yet also live in fear, all day, all the time. Full or less. Or less full than that. Empty of hope, maybe, even. Lacking in the all together… Fearless and Fearful, each all about…

Imagine a Person By | October 30, 2017 | 0 Imagine a person imagining a person Homage to Ken Feit Imagine a person: could be young, could be old, could be very of either, or both. Imagine someone -male and/or fe- , both and/or either. That’s the one. Let’s call this person Fred. Old Fred. Wise Fred. Very, very old wise, grouchy, old Fred. Let’s imagine Fred, alternately. Let’s imagine Fred as…

  Making Belief By | July 10, 2017 | 0 Maybe it’s not about proof or truth after all, this wisdom thing, this knowing of things that we sometimes ascribe to the old and weathered. Maybe it’s about pretending, acting, maybe about assuming that things are already the way we want them to be, the way we want to believe they are. Like, for example, fun: of things being fundamentally fun, of it all…

The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch

The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch By | June 8, 2017 | 0 Start here. Now, watch and listen. Pausch concludes: – “It’s kind like a fish trying to give a talk about the importance of water. I don’t know how not to have fun. I’m dying, and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to play it.”

  Collective Joy By | July 7, 2017 | 0 So, the idea is that everyone, young and old, abled and differently abled, fit and unfit, conservative and liberal, tall and short…well, you know what I mean: everyone – plays together. That’s the challenge and that’s what makes the experience called “collective joy” seem something very much like a miracle. Everyone. Plays. Together. There are many, though…

Playing Dead On The Fun-Death Continuum

  Playing Dead On The Fun-Death Continuum By | September 3, 2017 | 0 Why is it so much fun to play dead? Even when you’re an animal? Or a kid? Else, why would you ever admit that you got killed? OK. Forget the question. Let us begin, rather, with the observation: It’s fun to play dead. Within certain parameters, of course. Universally-speaking, it’s only fun for a while. Twenty seconds, maybe.…

In Which I Muse About Musing About Fun and Death

In Which I Muse About Musing About Fun and Death By | June 26, 2017 | 0 I am hoping you will find the (image) (above) of Death sufficiently thought-provoking. It appears to me that Death is entertaining itself by blowing floating marble bubbles. Floating marble bubbles, for death’s sake! How profoundly playful is that? It has also become clear to me that I, unfortunately, will not be able to…

All of Us Healers

All of Us Healers By | August 20, 2017 | 0 1) Wherein I reach a conclusion: So, my cancer and I have reached a stage. I think we’re both ready to acknowledge who’s going to be the winner here. In the mean time, having been so thoroughly and intimately exposed to a gamut of medical practices, I find myself thinking less about cancer, for example, than about something you could very well call the…

  Healing Together By | August 21, 2017 | 0 Healing together is like annealing together. Like creating a bond between us. As durable as life itself. Is what happens when we play a game that makes us laugh together. Shared joy. Shared acceptance, openness, understanding. We heal together until there are no divisions left, and we are one. And all it took was a game. A silly game. A game we could…

  The Healing Community By | September 1, 2017 | 0 We heal each other of separation, isolation. We become healers in a community of healers. By virtue of our very presence, we make things more fun. By virtue of something as easy playing a game, we make the heart lighter, the soul more free, the body more capable, the mind sometimes extraordinary. There are certain kinds of things – healing…

Fun, Death, Rebirth and Dying again

  Fun, Death, Rebirth and Dying again By | September 1, 2017 | 0 According to the Wikipedia, this is a picture of Paul, the octopus, playing dead. Bizarre, come to think about it, playing dead. Dying isn’t fun. Being dead, in all likelihood, is not fun. Someone else’s death, even a pet’s death, is not fun. And yet, and yet playing dead is immensely fun. Fun of such immense immensity that we have…