| Playfulness 1

Adult play is not just meant to be passively watching a movie, television or screen, or going to a restaurant occasionally, drinking with friends, participating in formalised games, or having sex. It naturally has much more to do with the activity of simplicity, innocence, openness, naturalness and wildness.
When we play unconditionally, we lose much of our serious self-controlling image, and with it the defensive, judgmental and censuring barriers that largely form adult inhibition and suppression in our socialised existence. These barriers are abandoned for the spontaneous and informal intimacy of play; so that we do not fear being wrong, or undergo performance anxiety, serious competitiveness, or guilt.
The body/mind is liberated from daily work routines and habits, and allowed to re-enter an unfettered domain of fun, freedom, fantasy and aliveness. In the rapture of pastime, we are transported beyond the confines of time and into the active life of the present.
Play tends to be more social than solitary, and often the best play outside of the individual creative process, involves two or more people, in which we mutually accept and support our playmates in the happiness of play.
We are renewed by playfulness, our expression is opened, our spirit skylarks into the open spaces once again. We are energised with an increase in joy and wellbeing, which is reflected in our relationships to make all things graced with ease, simplicity, as well as greater possibility. And we see and remember, that many aspects of nature are immersed in creative play.

© Aaron John Beth’el