We don't stop playing because we grow old.
We grow old because we stop playing.
-George Bernard Shaw
My fondest memories of childhood are long summer days filled with swimming, jump-roping, hide-and-seek, roller-skating, bicycling, softball and badminton. Our neighborhood was filled with children, and we all seemed to be in constant motion from one unsupervised activity to another.
My recollection is that if we did keep score, we kept a running score—that the games would last the entire summer—every day we would just pick up the game where it left off the day before—that no one ever "won" or "lost." We played for the sheer joy of playing.
That is what our current focus in practice constantly brings me back to—the inexpressible joy of play and the increasing expansiveness of belonging to a larger and larger team. We're playing the game of life and not keeping score—we just keep picking up the game wherever we left off the day before.
I'm turning 62 this year—the perfect age for a birthday-age triathlon: running 6.2 miles (10k), swimming 62 laps (1500 yards) and bicycling 62 miles (100k). My current focus is bringing the spirit of play to whatever activity I'm practicing—an invitation to offer myself up wholeheartedly and enthusiastically to each training/playing session. The result of that focus is that I get to experience the magic that my favorite activity to do is the thing I'm doing right now. And each day I pick up where I left off the day before, one day running, the next day swimming, the next day biking, and so on...
And along with age comes the opening for deep unconditional love and devotion in caring for an incredibly gifted body that now takes a little longer to cover the distances and a little longer to recover afterward. I recall asking the Guide about aging and she assured me that what animates us is ageless and the only thing that fears growing older is ego. So what I truly am is still playing the way I did as an open-hearted child—joyfully riding my bike along tree-lined streets, peacefully swimming in a deep turquoise-colored pool and happily running the winding dirt trails in the wooded hills above my home.
And in this spirit, every activity becomes a rite. Every activity is accompanied by wonder and deep gratitude for being alive and able to participate in the game in this way. I am truly and deeply blessed.
Gassho,
Carolyn