Day 17: For the Journey!

Saturday eve and Day 17! Did you get to spend some time in NATURE last night or during the day today? Did you discover anything new about the NATURE of your play or perhaps about the NATURE of the world against your play that we are starting to change?

I have been spending today living in the intersection of my kinesthete / explorer / observer / collector with a little artist-creator sprinkled in. I woke up on some farmland filled with 10 goats, over 100 chickens, 3 pigs, and a dozen or so guinea hens. This was a little weekend getaway locally in MA to change up my playful environments and in search of some of my favorite things. I spent the morning immersed in Purgatory Chasm exploring the intersection of massive boulders, rock slides, and slabs with enormous and ancient root systems of the trees. It was refreshing to give my kinesthete such a different NATURAL terrain to jump around, using both hands and feet to navigate climbing down into the chasm and back out. A huge contrast to my regular urban experience!

My collector was hard at work gathering rocks for my future artist-creator to draw on. I find that I am endlessly inspired by NATURE as both material and subject for my painting to flow from. My explorer found as many little "cave" like areas to duck in to, within which my storyteller intersected to imagine a world in which I live among the rocks and forage in the forest. What kinds of adventures would stem from this life? It reminded me of a lot of my favorite fantasy novels and movies where the protagonist finds a doorway in the woods that leads to a magical land of wonder and possibility.

During my walk in the woods today, as we foraged for mushrooms and explored the area, I began to feel as if the idea of this golden mushroom for our risotto dinner tonight felt like a QUEST, born out of the NATURE of our environment and where the day had NATURALLY led us.

Do it for the Journey!

The thing that I find most central to today's play theme is the idea of letting go. Getting spontaneous, and allowing a sense of the unknown to seep in to your consciousness. What is a play moment that may be off the beaten path, hidden in a cave, just awaiting the perfect adventurer to run in to it and be presented with opportunity?

All good QUESTS begin with a rough idea of what you want to find. You may know the exact ingredient you need, the most ideal conditions to strike, or the general path to your object of desire. But what you don't know is how the journey itself will Play out. And let me tell you, the journey is frequently the very best part of any QUEST. Because what can intersect your path is completely unknown and limitless. The important thing is just setting out in the first place, and

In our QUEST for mushrooms today, what we found was a brown jelly mushroom that wasn't quite our ideal vision of the Miatake that we wanted to find for our risotto, but the act of foraging them that was the real piece of golden experience!

So as you head in to your evening's I'm asking you : what is involved in your QUEST for Play? Use this theme as inspiration for the next 24 hours to go out, or in, and explore how the spontaneity of a QUEST can result in a Journey with unexpected positive ripples for your play personalities. Or, allow yourself some time to playfully relax and explore a ready-made QUEST online or in media space. Video games are great here, and if you are looking for a particularly low-investment QUEST for the day check out Window-Swap which allows you to "open a new window somewhere in the world" and stream a live view. But seriously, check out the inspiration below! You might just be surprised where you are inspired to QUEST :)

Happy Questing! Catch you back here at 6pm tomorrow for Day 18 Play Prompt drop.