High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘play’

“Hey, Momma!  Put your Sunday shoes on and let’s take the chicks for a stroll.  The grass is sweet, the sun is bright, and these fuzz balls are ready to roll.

“What do you say?  A day at the park?  Tell me now, does that sound like a lark?”

“No, it sounds like a gander, you big, silly goose, with deep goosey bark, or it might be a moose.”

But she went for it, quite gladly, of course.  And later, they went for a swim.

He knew how to play.  She’d give him that.  It was one thing (of many) she loved about him.

So they strolled through the grass and swam in the stream, and the whole day seemed like a beautiful dream.

Then, when the sun sank, it was back to the nest, where gander and goose put the goslings to rest.

Then they cuddled and cooed as mated geese do.  “ I feel so blessed, my sweetheart, don’t you?”

.

.

Giggle, wiggle, wink, jig.  Holler, whistle, toot.

It’s not the how that matters, it’s the getting in the game.

It’s finding a little minute for a tickle now and then, for tapping and clapping and slip-sliding away.

The power of perspective is hidden (whoot-whoot!) in play.

Bam! You’re a kid again with a wide open mind, where all the magic is free to roll in (giggling) and grab you (tickling) and where every circumstance is your rabbit-in-a-hat ally just waiting for a wave of your wand.

As I’ve mentioned, the color elementals train for long eons to dance slowly enough to join the ranks of flower petals, leaves, the fur of bees and so forth.  It’s no small accomplishment to earn a turn on the Earth stage.  And this year’s review was widely acclaimed as a grand success.

Shortly, the graduates will return to training to learn their next, more complex routines.

But before the start of their classes, as a reward for performing so well, they are free to play as they please.  In great waves, they rush off to the sky resorts, thrilled to fly unfettered at full speed once more.

As they swoop and soar to their hearts’ content, their laughter paints the sky with a symphony of gladness.

And we who remain on Earth’s shores look up and say to one another “Just look at that sunset!” and we hold each other’s hands, our own hearts filled with pleasure and joy.

.

The pumpkins are ripe; it’s playtime.  Quick! Get your giddiness on!

Fall into life’s arms laughing. With all this bright gladness about, what else is there to do?

Play is the child of wisdom, you know, the melody of the Yes.  It’s the best teacher and the highest art all rolled into one ball of wax.

Put your cares on the shelf and whisk yourself to the world where imagination reigns.  Pull your dreams from your attic’s trunks and wear them, dancing, in the sun.

Skip down the sidewalks; whistle in the streets.

Live from the place where every pretend is possible and all possibilities are but a wisp of thought away.

The mated geese swam slowly across the green, smooth lake chatting leisurely in their mind-meld kind of way.

Breakfast treats had been plentiful, and although the morning was warming, the water was still cool and felt like liquid satin as it washed against their webbed feet.

They could hear their offspring, down at the northern end of the lake, honking boisterously as they played their games with the other young geese.

They had, the pair agreed, grown into magnificent creatures over the course of the summer, so  powerful and strong.   They chuckled together as they remembered what fuzzy, funny goslings they had been at first, and how gangly their legs seemed as they went through that awkward stage between babyhood and youth.

“Remember teaching them to fly?” the gander asked his mate.  “I thought Bruce would never get it!” The two of them laughed as they pictured the young goose belly flopping into the lake.

They swam quietly then through the citron and emerald water, savoring the warmth of pride that parents feel as they watch their children grow.

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” the mother goosed said.

“Yes, it is,” replied the gander.  “Yes, it is, indeed.”

In that beautiful, timeless place where hours run past unheeded, where you’re fully engaged in what needs to be done, and doing it well, life sings.

Some call it work; some call it play.   They’re both the same when you’re there.  You get in your rhythm, find your stride, and nothing exists but the doing.   Hunger disappears, emotion vanishes, context becomes invisible.

All that exists is the doing–skilled, focused, as natural as breathing, and freeing you somehow, buoying you above all distractions.

It’s only afterwards you feel it, only when it’s over.  And then the satisfaction rushes in, and the joy, and you know it’s what you live for.

Emerald and sapphire sang in the summer to the merry tune of waters tumbling over stones, to the rustle of leaves in the trees, to the leaping of tadpoles and fishes, and the orange flicker of oriel wings overhead.  Nothing could contain their joy.

“Oh, summer,” they sang, “we proclaim you the victor.

“Though hard and unyielding, the ice and snow could not stand against you.  Oh, summer, you melt the coldest hearts and return to us the splendor of your colors.

“Your grasses buzz with insects and welcome the round feet of children.  Your breezes caress their bare arms.  You bid them play and spread your light long across the hours.  You nurture the young of all the species and call them to grow.”

And so the creek’s litany went on, singing the summer’s starry heavens and whipped cream clouds, its misty mornings and sultry nights, and all the joys and passions it evoked in the creatures of the earth in all their forms, and all the rest and leisure it provided them.

And summer laughed and poured out her love unstintingly.

.

.

What if each task was a privilege and joy, and you accomplished it with ease?
What if you decided there was no one you had to please?

What if you let your work be play?  What if you thought it was fun?

Wouldn’t it wow you?
Wouldn’t it wow them?
Wouldn’t it get things done?

Imagine the magic you could perform if you took on each job with pleasure, if you dug right in as if you thought you were digging for wondrous treasure?

If you slipped into each moment with confidence and delight, imagine how smoothly things would flow, how many things would go right.

It’s all a matter of attitude. You can make things tough, you know.  Or you can dance through the minutes gracefully, like grasses in the snow.

Jack came back and painted “Play!” all over the morning’s windows.  You could tell that’s what he was saying, the way he poked feathers from every sparkling heap like that.  It set the tone for my whole day.

Good thing, too, considering the string of events that unfolded.  Murphy showed up wielding his sledge hammer law first thing and it all went down hill from there.

But playfulness had come with the dawn and pushed my perspective firmly to the light side.  So I skated through the rubble passing out smiles like lollipops, tucking feathers in its heaps, laughing in the halls.

Playfulness has power, I tell you.  It takes the gravity out of things, lets you float right up and grab the silver linings of the clouds.  It’s good medicine.  That Jack was right on target.

Every millennium, when it opened its door for admissions, the Water School found tens of billions of applicants waiting at its gates.

Of course all the schools of the renowned College of Elementals were popular, but the training at the Water School was known across the universe for its fun.

Before graduation, the trainees got to practice grouping themselves as mists and rivers, as towering clouds, rainbows and whirlpools, as oceans and as rain. They learned how to stand still enough to become ice and snowflakes, and how to dance so fast they lost their boundaries completely and only their thoughts remained until they collected themselves again.

They loved to frolic on the Earth and called its oceans Mother.  They called the heavens Father Sky and were thrilled to rise to his heights.  When they were with Father, they got to fill the whole atmosphere, bending sunlight into the colors of sunset and dawn.  They got to make art as clouds, and to ride down as raindrops from way, way up high.

That was the coolest thing, the falling raindrop ride.  The trees and flowers and animals would look up from earth as they tumbled closer and closer and sing to each other, “Here come the sky-kids!  Here come the sky-kids!”  It was grand.

You never knew where you would land when you were a raindrop or what kind of adventure you would have once you did.  You’d slide down petals and rocks and leaves, slither down stalks or skin or fur, or end up on a tongue.  You might get to join the elementals playing snow-on-the-mountain, or hit a desert and burst right back into the sky.  But sooner or later, you’d find yourself home in your mother’s vast arms, rocking and rocking until Father’s voice would call again, inviting you to come outside and play.

It was a very thorough course of training.  And even though they got to be in the College for ten thousand years, the little elementals never tired of their classes.  When they graduated, they were proud, and glad, and they vowed to send their kids to the Water School someday to study with Mother Ocean and Father Sky.  And you know what?  Many of them did just that.  Wouldn’t you?