Our most potent muse is our inner child.
- Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play
“The
creative mind plays with the objects it loves,” said Carl Jung. An earnest man
at one of my lectures once asked me to summarize what I consider essential
practice. I said, “Remember to play.” He carefully wrote down those three words
as if he was marking a schedule. I don't think he quite got the message.
The child inside him — and in each of us — knows. Like puppies or lion cubs or dolphins spinning silver lariats of bubbles, children play for the joy of playing. Young children are masters of imagination, since they know the magic of making things up. Our first and best teacher of conscious living is our inner child.
But that inner child may have gone into hiding, under a glass dome or in a room in Grandma’s house, because of shame or abuse, ridicule or loneliness, because the world wasn’t safe or it wasn’t fun. If we have lost our dreams, if our imaginations are stuck in a groove, it’s because we have lost our inner child. To live as active dreamers in everyday life, we have to bring that child home. This requires a quest, a negotiation, and fulfillment of a promise.
The quest will lead us down halls of memory to a place and time where our wonder-child went missing. We can embark on the quest as a guided journey (through an exercise at the end of this chapter) to a real place in the imaginal realm.
The negotiation requires us to convince our child selves that we are safe and we are fun to be around. Fulfilling the promises we make will require us to remember to play without scheduling it.
Play first, work later, the child that is with us will insist. The cautious, dutiful adult self will protest. But if we are to keep our inner child at home in our bodies and our lives, we’ll need to fulfill our promise to be fun as well as safe. If we play well enough, then before we quite know it we’ll fall in love with our work, because it will be our play.
The child inside him — and in each of us — knows. Like puppies or lion cubs or dolphins spinning silver lariats of bubbles, children play for the joy of playing. Young children are masters of imagination, since they know the magic of making things up. Our first and best teacher of conscious living is our inner child.
But that inner child may have gone into hiding, under a glass dome or in a room in Grandma’s house, because of shame or abuse, ridicule or loneliness, because the world wasn’t safe or it wasn’t fun. If we have lost our dreams, if our imaginations are stuck in a groove, it’s because we have lost our inner child. To live as active dreamers in everyday life, we have to bring that child home. This requires a quest, a negotiation, and fulfillment of a promise.
The quest will lead us down halls of memory to a place and time where our wonder-child went missing. We can embark on the quest as a guided journey (through an exercise at the end of this chapter) to a real place in the imaginal realm.
The negotiation requires us to convince our child selves that we are safe and we are fun to be around. Fulfilling the promises we make will require us to remember to play without scheduling it.
Play first, work later, the child that is with us will insist. The cautious, dutiful adult self will protest. But if we are to keep our inner child at home in our bodies and our lives, we’ll need to fulfill our promise to be fun as well as safe. If we play well enough, then before we quite know it we’ll fall in love with our work, because it will be our play.
Text adapted from Active Dreaming: Journeying beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.
Art: "Children Dancing on the Strand" by AE (George Russell)
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