Jumpstart Your Experience of Beauty and Play

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The way I knew beauty in a ‘past life' was through being a middle school art teacher. I worked with young people and school communities in building social awareness around hunger in the community, creating large scale mosaics, connecting students with local artists, and teaching self-expression and compassion.

We created some beautiful artwork together…but what I deeply believed was that beauty was broader than what something looked like on paper or in clay, but that beauty was in each person and how each uniquely engaged with creation, themselves, and each other.

This video by Alan Watts and David Lindberg magnifies that life is NOT a journey, but a play. That perhaps our purpose is not to get from A to Z (and to suffer and create dis-ease through it) but to experience wonder and be the experience itself. This magnificent video reinvigorates the artful side of me – the side that is captivated by seeing, feeling, and being in beauty.

It draws me to the sound/word Lila (Sanskrit: लीला, lee-lah), loosely meaning divine play. Stephen Nachmanovitch speaks about lila in his book Free Play:

“There is an old Sanskrit word, Lila, which means play, richer than our word, it means divine play, the play of creation, destruction, and re-creation, the folding and unfolding of the cosmos. Lila, free and deep, is both the delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love.”

The way of this universe is Lila; for consciousness to experience and know itself; for our awareness to deepen and become complete by being known; for us to experience all there is to experience. All possibilities moving through us and as us.

It is in our nature for us that the universe moves through us, as us. That we are the spark and vitality that lives in all beings. We are evolving and are here to experience the beauty of all of it… moment to moment. To treasure that we feel and therefore are alive. To love and connect with all of experience the way it unfolds and to allow our connection with the Whole catalyze our responsiveness and action. I am reminded that this moment is all we have to do so.

At this time in my life I am deeper in my joy as a Healing Facilitator. I love seeing and affirming the creative, the art, in each human. I get to witness the beauty in people, their unique stories and souls, and their healing process. I see that their stories are held in their whole body, energy, soul, ancestry, and way of being, not just their words. I see the body as a layered artwork of life energy and love- and I had to start and constantly come back to myself: seeing myself as beauty, as an unfolding artful being.

Through my experience, I recognize that it is not always easy to be in the moment- sometimes a feeling is overwhelming or challenging to be with. I find it an honor to be able to accompany myself and others in acknowledging what is in the present moment (in the senses, body, emotions, impulses and images) over time, we have found an evolving deep inner connection and the capacity to experience more of life experience with ease, wholeness, and gratitude.

So, I share this inquiry and practice that may jumpstart your innate capacity to be in the moment.

How to Jumpstart Your Capacity to Experience Life as Play

  1. Open to your memories of times in the last few days, weeks or months where you have been absorbed in the beauty of yourself and the experience-in Lila. Where you felt like yourself, energized or affirmed in who you are? Recall this moment now.
  2. Notice what you experience in all of your senses: Sounds, taste, touch, smell, sight. Where in your body do you feel this now? What does your body want to do? Notice and allow. Be with this experience and allow your receptors for enjoying (in-joy-ing) expand.
  3. Explore a moment that you might consider mildly or moderately “unpleasant”.
  4. Repeat step 2. Begin to develop equanimity to both experiences by going back and forth to modulate the nervous system. Get support from a loved one, healer, or therapist if it becomes overwhelming.
  5. Align yourself with this moment and immerse yourself in this moment! Repeat Step 2.

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