A Year of Play
Nearly every morning when I was in Tokyo, I would do “the full Ueno.” No, this isn’t the Japanese version of the Full Monty. It’s a walk I would do—from the apartment to Ueno Park, to the French patisserie for a chocolate croissant, and back home.
It was almost five miles, and I did it so often, the things I passed by each morning began to feel like familiar friends.
There was the white bulldog whose back legs were paralyzed, so his owner would strap him into a wheelchair and off he’d go.
There was the iron, life-sized baleen whale poised mid-breach outside the Science Museum. His small left eye (the only one I could see) pierced me like a drill sergeant demanding I push myself to see what I was made of.
And the hawk in a cage at the zoo who would sometimes proudly show me a stick from her nest.
But one of my favorite things I passed was a group of women in their 70’s and 80’s. They seemed to be doing some kind of tai chi—but with bright and shining silver swords.
It’s almost impossible to capture in words the mixture of power and grace those women exuded in the early morning light. It was everything you read about “flow” or “being in the zone.” Every move arose from a deep, light, and grounded way of being in the body. Allowing the radiance inside to move them, they were joyfully alive.
It was a perfect example of the Japanese concept Shin-Gi-Tai, which translates as “mind, technique, body.” I take this to mean that the mind chooses to use some sort of technique or practice to create a strong and radiant connection to the body.
I never worked up the courage to ask the women if I could join. I wasn’t sure if any of them spoke English. Plus, I wasn’t sure I could bring the right energy to that practice.
Not yet.
But I have been intent on finding my own way into that kind of energy ever since.
It took me far longer than it should have to realize that I don’t have to go to the other side of the world to find a way to do this. I have two ready and willing friends to help: yoga and meditation.
I’ve obviously done these practices for years, so shouldn’t I already be finding this ease and radiance? Well, sometimes, but I was reading recently about how we can bring two kinds of energy to a practice—martyr or trickster. Martyr energy can often be motivated by all kinds of shoulds. It’s a way of pushing (and often punishing) the self for “the higher good.”
While it might help us accomplish a great many things, there’s an ickiness and a stickiness in that energy, isn’t there? And I’ll admit, I often practice yoga and meditation from that space—and body, mind, and spirit know it.
Trickster energy, on the other hand, is light and playful.
Ever ready to get out there and muck things up, it’s what the yogis call “sponda”—which is the energy that gathers in your center right before you laugh.
The start of a new year feels like the perfect time to lean into this idea. Rather than living out of the martyr energy of forcing and fixing, what if this year is one of playing? Of moving into and with the luminescence rather than burying it or fighting against it or telling it what it should and shouldn’t do?
What if we try softer?
What if we do what brings life and light and more life and more light?
What would life look like—what might be possible—if we choose to get up and get out there, wielding our own shining sword each and every new day?
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