“It’s Time!” -The Body

Think of traffic. The faster we go, the harder to avoid collision. We are many. We are diverse. Our empathy mechanisms are on overdrive.

Result? We pull back, shut down, isolate.

Kids do it. Teens do it. Family members do it. Workers do it.

Teamwork? Community? Family? Too tired, too hard, too much!

Think of the economy. “Do more with less.” Work harder for the same or less pay.

Result? Fatigue. Overwhelm. We strive for resiliency, tools, but self-help won’t fix this.

Think of school, health care, work, religion. Sit side by side. Nose in a computer. Face your teacher/Dr./Boss. Concentrate. Get the message. Individual effort and achievement = success.

Result? When we fail, we think something’s wrong with us. Leave education and religion.

Throw in trouble, mental illness, trauma. Governments, lawmakers, school administrators, insurance, and police step in, our least creative, compassionate solutions.

Result? Humans need connection, fun, inspiration, challenge, compassion and noble causes MORE THAN EVER!

The body says….IT’S TIME!  GIVE ME SOMETHING, ANYTHING!

In Teaching Compassion, educator Kimberly Post Rowe for the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development identifies the need to build connection in a classroom to move people from empathy to compassion.

InterPlay is twenty years old. Like a visionary, energetic young adult, its creative methods and simple ideas move people in all kinds of circumstances from overwhelm to ease, isolation to connection, and more importantly than ever, from withdrawal to compassionate engagement! A deep breath and a sigh, a quick round of naming things that we have in common, shaking out whatever we’re sitting on, bringing our fingertips together and lifting up common concerns. It’s the little things that will change the world.

Despair as Liberator

Photo by Don Moseman

Like a lot of non-profit visionary leaders, I’ve been having “a moment.” The economic downturn, changes in the game, it’s having its way with me. One friend literally dreamt of two twisters headed toward a house of InterPlayers AND a plane crashing into the nearby woods AND the house slipping off its foundations into a nearby field. (I think it was intact).

I have few moments of real despair. How lucky is that? But as a non-profit visionary leader, “NPVL,” I recently experienced a big lurch of DESPAIR. Different from depression, despair is that  unmovable well of powerlessness. The gap between one’s vision and the needed resources can look like a chasm. The body does not like this (understatement). Anytime we hit a big UH-OH where we sense failure, doom, gloom, fatigue or hopelessness, the right brain goes crazy. The left brain gets super serious. Our fightin’, flightin’ amygdala and all her little evil twins jump up and down, scream, stab at things, and lose it. (Fortunately, all InterPlay possibilities).

Thank heaven I have more than a right brain or reptilian brain! I’ve got a whole brain, incredible tools, a GREAT community of practice and the special ingredient….a relationship with a higher (HELLO ARE YOU THERE?) Power… (oh, there you are…). Even with tools, FEAR and DESPAIR refuse no dancers. They got me. A pain stabbed my chest.

“Can it be so bad?” I asked. Checking things out with others, they answered back, “Yeah. Hard here too.” Reassuring, but the stab persisted. When it awoke me at 3:30 AM, I went to the altar of Google and entered DESPAIR. Despair, Inc: Demotivation posters appeared, the evil twin version of those corporate posters with motivational sayings. Finding the one on DESPAIR, it said, “It’s always darkest before it turns pitch black!” The laugh that erupted in me was the kind closest to tears. Hysteria? Relief? Truth!  Don’t ask me why pitch black was liberating or funny, but the fear bubble popped when I saw the light, also known as the pitch black. I had no other choice but to release my dread. Wheeeeeee.

Back at the ranch, the InterPlay team is in action using tools, connections and great body wisdom awareness to bridge the chasm. Lucky!

I attended the Applied Improvisation Network Conference in Portland, taught and connected with incredible people who, like me and you, are committed to applying the power of human creativity, interaction, and playful engagement. Perhaps you’ll connect with them too. Lucky!

I got to help launch the first gathering of the Portland InterPlay community, rounded up by Cassandra Sagan. Lucky!

I am strategizing ways InterPlay can move more of us from “I” to “We” in healthy, resourceful ways. Lucky!

I am planting seeds for greater multicultural and global InterPlay connections. Lucky!

I am hoeing the row for a garden where we can mentor 18-25 year olds. Lucky!

Besides all of this I am guided to Listen as much as possible. And to increase my gratitude and affirmation. And always always, to take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

InterPlay hugs Charter for Compassion

Dancing Hand to Hand in India

This Thursday a global dream will be unveiled. Karen Armstrong, after years of writing about world religions, dreams of one thing to unite us all – Compassion. Watch the video.

Once upon a time Phil and I shared a ride with Karen after teaching at an event. There is nothing like getting physically close to a person you admire. She was so human, humorous, and tired from her book tour. In the video above I saw another hero of compassion, Joan Campbell, leader in the National Council of Churches. She and I were in a huddle at a Women’s Gathering at the National Catherdral in Washington DC. On one hand she was in a phone conversation about the crises of an important middle eastern representative, on the other she helped sort out our response to an event participant whose reputed purpose was to disrupt and smear our interfaith gathering.

Compassion might be easy if we are bonded, but when we lose our social glue, compassion gets really tough. Helping diverse and even similar people bond, is a gift of InterPlay. The Charter of Compassion website says, “Compassion manifests itself in the world not by thinking but by doing.”  Doing involves more than words and smiles, it is a condition of bodies connecting.

Compassion is an act of empathy. How do we strengthen empathy, that strange merger of a respectful and wild, loving heart? Some people have a gift for this. The rest of us need help. InterPlay is a tool set that can help. Its active and creative forms allow people to use ancient practices in a new way. We bond when we move, attune in voice and body, witness, receive, and share truths in little everyday stories. To strengthen compassion, groups may need some interplay or at least a deep breath and a sigh.

Will you join in embracing the charter of compassion? Some InterPlayers might celebrate the charter in upcoming events. It’s a perfect fit with our dream of creating a million healthy connections over the next few years.

A playful connection is like gold. It registers in our body as timeless and sustaining. Even damaged relations can become golden again with such good ACTS of compassion. At this time in history that is something to get your whole body around.

Charter for Compassion website

Another Charter for Compassion video

Charter for Compassion on Facebook

One Man’s InterPlay Gratitude

Dyck DeWid has a strong mind, strong heart, and big body spirit. When I met him I felt his strength more prominently than his heart. That has changed. Check out what this big, married contractor guy says about InterPlay in North Carolina. I love you Dyck.

——-

Face Dances in North Carolina

“Right in the middle of a fall day, it seems important to tell how special the InterPlay Community is to me… and maybe how rare it is too.  Looking at my life, I belong to 4 or 5 other groups.  And over time I’ve been in many more than that.

In No Other Community have I observed or felt the broad unconditional acceptance that is so easily fundamental to InterPlayers. This is so important to me, I’ll shout it if you don’t mind:

1.  I’M FINE JUST AS I AM,
2.  I DON’T HAVE TO CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT MYSELF TO BELONG,
3.  IF I WANT TO EXPLORE I’LL BE AFFIRMED AND HAVE FUN DOING IT.

I don’t know if people everywhere don’t have the same problems, humor, insecurities, egos, fears, masks, hopes, grief, guilt, and all the rest a big list?  Don’t these affect one’s energy of accepting diversity and one’s capacity for personal freedom?  Surely looking thru our own lens must affect how we all perveive one another, no?  Yet, in InterPlay these common attributes don’t seem to interfere with our individual abilities to accept and affirm one another in a sincere and honest way.  In InterPlay these don’t seem to interfere with our giving one another what each of us needs or wants.  On the contrary, the fabric of the community is just this.  It has become in me a joy filled willingness, even an importance and urgency to find the precious, the strong, the delightful, the innocent… the God, in everyone.

A more personal accounting, an inner view:  I am somewhat aware of my affect on others.  That in the quest to find who I am, my purpose, and to be true to myself, I can disturb some, can scare them, make them wary or mistrustful.  This places me in a minority or ‘on the fringes’ at best, of most groups.  Naturally, there is a partial number either unaffected or positively affected.  But, the others seem to be greatly affected with my disturbance to their foundations or equalibrium.  This is an accepted, possibly even relished part of my everyday life.  For, though I may not understand completely, I am both confident and full of joy with life.. I’m not sure whether the IP Community came to learn and accept this over time, or whether they are helping create it, or both.

Sincerely,
Dyck
——-

The health, beauty and wisdom of InterPlayers comes in all sizes, sexes, ages and cultures. If you are ready or willing to learn to play again then magic will happen. Give it a few years and Grace and Joy will start coming out your ears, mouth, mind, and heart. I love how this always surprises me. Want to see what twenty years will do? Check out this Wing It! concert Youtube of the four originals dancing their hearts out.

350: dancing to dial up earth’s area code

Want to be inspired? Visit 350.org to witness an incredible global social movement in action! InterPlay joined it by improvising!

Yesterday, October 24th, the International Day of Climate Action, WING IT! and InterPlay celebrated our twentieth birthday in three performances and submitted one of over 15,000 international photos to let people know about the goal to reach 350 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere (we’re currently at 390 and rising).

WING IT’s Dorothy Finnigan instigated a Saturday night piece about MIRROR NEURONS and the 350 CAMPAIGN! Yesterday we took a 350 photo. You can too. Join the fun. As InterPlayers we are part of a global pack. We dive deep. We play hard. We follow wisdom. We take one step at a time. We follow ecstatically. We apologize for our blunders. We enact! I, for one, follow 350-er, Dorothy, and the wave of young pioneers moving us forward! Dorothy says, “If we don’t make a planetary shift towards 350 ppm soon, life as we know it on this planet will be irreparably changed. The GOOD NEWS IS that between existing technology and emerging technology, we have the capacity to make this change. We CAN DO THIS. The issue now is political. That’s why the 350 campaign began: to get people to know and understand the issue so that they could appeal to lawmakers, from local officials to the UN’s highest panel on climate change (which meets in Copenhagen in December!).”

Our bodies may understand the need for survival better than anything else. If survival is what it takes to get our world to dance, sport, sing, and artfully reach out for health, so be it. Spread the word about 350.0rg and the movement to connect people in joyful, healthy ways through InterPlay!

Check out the AMAZING 350 InterPlay performance on YouTube featuring Dorothy, Penny Mann, Sheila Collins, Randy Newswanger, Michelle Jordan and others!

20th Anniversary Bash!

Hey, who knew?

20 years ago, did we imagine that a class of a dozen or so people and a performing group of 4 would turn into a global social movement and a performing company of over 20? Not hardly, although we did admit quietly amongst ourselves that we wanted to change the world.

Did we think we would still be doing it 20 years later? Probably not. But regardless of what we intended, since we have been at it for a long time, we should have a big party to celebrate, don’t you think?

In the InterPlay universe, we’re ready to celebrate the smallest step, the most incremental accomplishment, the tiny act of courage, because we know that if you keep at it, eventually it adds up to something. InterPlay hasn’t spread like wildfire, but by just keepin’-goin’, one small connection at a time.

And yes, we’re gonna celebrate!

This weekend WING IT! will perform three times, including the reunion of all four original company members.

Oct. 23-25, Fri & Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm
at InterPlayce, 2273 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94612

On Saturday evening, November 7, we will have a wonderful free-fundraising-event-birthday-extravaganza with dessert, entertainment, inspiration and hoopla! And we’ll introduce the Million Connections Campaign. That’s how many InterPlay connections we plan to make in just three years! You can help by logging in your connections at interplay.org.

And if you’re in the Bay Area, we’re hoping to make a connection with you on November 7 and at the WING IT! concerts.

Come join the party!

Nika: A “Powered by InterPlay” Coach

Nika Quirk

Nika Quirk, president of the Body Wisdom Board, has interplayed for about 17 years. A dancer, systems thinker, and beekeeper with an M.B.A., she has served both for-profit and non-profit organizations. As a social entrepreneur she is a savvy small business consultant and EveryDay Leadership coach. Being a beneficiary of her coaching, I want Nika to share her work with us because InterPlayers need ‘nuts and bolts’ ongoing support to create InterPlayful work and lives. We need help to continually clarify our purpose, consider our use of time, energy, and money, and garner crucial encouragement to take new steps.

Nika says, “As changemakers (social entrepreneurs, artists, activists, InterPlay leaders, etc.), we often notice the personal wear and tear of holding the center of something new. It takes physical, spiritual, mental and emotional energy to make the new world that we want to live in. We need community that affirms our body wisdom, grounds our life practice, and supports our purposeful work. A circle, sustained over time, in which to witness, babble, shake out, discern.”

Nika is offering unique coaching in affordable small group tele-sessions- “powered by InterPlay” to support EveryDay Leaders who want to sustain a daily life practice and build a creative livelihood.  Wouldn’t it be great to get support from someone who knows what it means to “go the speed of the body” “use easy focus” “get rid of the icky stuff,” and proceed incrementally?

A visionary listener for times of change, Nika muses…

“Our planet shifts
Old structures fall
Feel the urgency?
Time to engage
With all we’ve got.
Notice the rhythm?”

What is your rhythm? Is it time to thrust, swing, shape or hang? Is it time for a solo, duet or ensemble? What do you need for your next clear, strong initiation? Can phone calls work for embodied activities?  Nika says, “Over the years, I’ve been integrating InterPlay into coaching by phone, teaching online, and facilitating groups like the Body Wisdom National Board via teleconference. We all know the joys of being body-to-body together but in casting a wide community web, I believe that maximizing the possibilities of telecommunications strengthens our interconnectedness.  Just like hand-dancing at a distance, we can stretch our kinesthetic imaginations to find the connection.”

Nika is forming coaching groups of 6-8 people. Interested? Email her at NikaQuirk@mac.com to learn how this form might serve you. Are there other people you’d like to form a group with? Let her know. Individual coaching is also available by phone or Skype, at sliding scale fees – you can schedule directly from her website. As she says, “My mission is to inspire both ease and action in these turbulent times, and to offer my services in a way that I hope is more financially accessible for you and still a self-sufficient livelihood for me.”

Nika’s blog, services and other information can be found by visiting Quirky Auntie’s “Sustainable Living” Room.

Are you a coach and InterPlay leader? Let me know how you blend InterPlay with your services at Cynthia@interplay.org.

Global Social Movement Shake Up

Crazy. InterPlay is in a new place.

With one wild taproot in Oakland, California, InterPlay’s 20 Years of connections are running rampant. As fragile as poppies and as tenacious as crab grass, InterPlayers are springing up through the cracks of institutions, families, and common spaces all over the US, Australia, and India, as well as in Europe, Brazil, and Africa. People want to play, find connection, and create better worlds with less angst.

With a new national board, more and more trained leaders, deep breaths and deep body wisdom, we’re offering small world changing practices to create healthy interactions. The in-between-places within ourselves and our groups is getting infused with mirror neuron vitamins. (don’t know what I mean? check out last week’s post.)

Last weekend Phil, Theron, and Nika, Body Wisdom’s board president, played with Seattle InterPlayers to launch the three year Million Connections Campaign. This campaign celebrates healthy connection as one of InterPlay’s greatest contributions to the future of our world. Along with a million connections we’re raising a million dollars to keep the connections flowing among all kinds of people. The Seattle community raised almost 30,000 dollars and counted over 5,000 connections that had been made in the last two months without even trying. WOW.

It turns out that InterPlayers are not just playing around for the heck of it. We are dreaming big. When I closed my eyes in Seattle I saw the planet ringed round with thousands of people moving in friendship. InterPlay does this through story, movement, voice, connection and stillness, under-developed but doable technologies in our busy, modern life.

I am looking forward to having you participate in the campaign in some way. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, you can tune in this Wednesday Oct 7 at 8 AM central time to hear Debra Weir, one of InterPlay’s founding members, share on Wisdom at Hand: Body Intuition with host Dr. Carol Stalcup on Stargazing Stories: Sparking Your Creativity.

As a dancer, dance teacher, improvisational performer and spiritual director, Debra Weir brings a unique perspective to experiences of creative movement, embodied spirituality and life formation. Our bodies persistently offer us information about our surroundings, life circumstances and inner world. Learning how to listen to body intuition and engaging the senses and imagination can help us become more self-aware and take better care of ourselves and others. Living for a number of years in Sri Lanka and Thailand afforded Debra the opportunity to use her improv background in cross -cultural experiences, as well as to develop new ideas for teaching about movement, spirit and the interconnectedness of humanity. Curious to know more about the signals your body sends you? About simple ways to develop body intuition? Join our conversation today!

Amazing T.I.P. technology available through InterPlay

You’ve heard of twitter….amazing!

facebook, myspace, online chats…remarkable!

Now there’s T.I.P. – Talking in Person! (coined by moi)

In five years studies will confirm TIPing as the most high functioning, potent form of communication. Social networkers in InterPlay who use TIP already know this to be true. More than sharing info and selling products TIPers GO DIRECT! Direct communication is one of the most powerful instantaneous CREATORS of body connection (social glue) and wisdom. Body to body communicating faster than the speed of words we can experience interpersonal health or disease, organization or disorganization. We can accelerate and increase shared knowing  We can make a better world in an instant.

InterPlay cultivates the willingness and ability to TIP. TIPing includes movement, vocalization, stillness, words, and actual contact. WHEN THIS HAPPENS BODIES LOVE IT! MINDS LOVE IT! HEARTS LOVE IT! Because InterPlay focuses on affirmation and honoring each person’s experience real time InterPlay is hot, loving, and juicy.

Last Friday I learned that computers want to help us TIP. Dorothy came to the Friday Morning drop in class, opened her laptop to gmail. Her friend Katie was online and waiting. Dorothy “called” her via the internet through video chat. Up came Katie’s live smiling face, (she’s an InterPlayer at Yale Univesity). She was able to see us and we were able to see her. She danced with us, witnessed us, and said her name in the circle in the moment, directly connecting, but from different sides of the US. WOW. It was awkward at times. The computer couldn’t hold the connection and Dorothy had to help it, but it was direct and worth it.

I get energy from TIPing. If I want to make a thing happen, clarify confusion or give to someone, I call or get together. InterPlay allows me incredible opportunity to do this. Add some rest, food, and the ability to stop connecting and Voila…the world looks pretty good.

Want to learn more about how TIP technology works? Check out the NOVA video on Mirror Neurons. The body’s incredibly cool neural network genius. You got it, why not use it.

Keep on TIPin…

InterPlay Published Writers

“Into the emptiness, into the silence, come new ideas, new solutions, new ways to approach the world.  It is from silence that we get our ‘Ah ha!’ moments.”
– Connie Pwll Tyler

Let’s celebrate InterPlayers who write into, around, and through InterPlayful worldviews!

· Alison Luterman of WING IT! Performance Ensemble for her article “Night Swimming” in the September issue of More

· Connie Tyler’s Dancing the Deep Hum book and blog

· Annie LaGanga’s Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints, a memoir told in prose poetry, published by Red Hen Press

· Marcia McFee and Karen Foster’s Spiritual Adventures in the Snow: Skiing & Snowboarding as Renewal for Your Soul, published by SkyLight Paths Publishing Company, and

· my just out book Dance – The Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement as a Spiritual Practice, published by SkyLight Paths Publishing Company