Teresa Distelberger, Austria

My Original Play Experience – International seminar in Warsaw

I always heard Fred saying “Children are the real masters who will teach you how to play.” – Now I know, he’s right. Doing the workshops before was like learning how to swim while still standing on the beach. There was Fred, telling me about the substance of water, how it feels, how to move with it. In Warsaw I finally entered the sea, applying what I learned, learning more and being very grateful for the feeling of safety provided by the presence of Fred and Jola. I know that it was just a beginning and that there is so much more to discover in this ocean that is called Original Play.

Thanks to the guided training with Fred and Jola, I developed the courage and confidence I needed to embark further on the Original Play adventure, look for playmates, take on the responsibility on new playgrounds and start to live life like play.

Steve Heitzer, Austria
The Power of Love. Looking back on 3 days of Original Play in Warsaw.¹

Alone again in Warsaw. The feeling of anxiety has returned. I am sitting at the Central Station of Warsaw. It is half past six and my train won’t leave before 9 p.m.. It is getting dark outside and the people going in and out bring in the cold air from winters end.  I am surrounded by the language I don’t speak and in the midst of people I don’t know. The announcing of trains that leave for Minsk and Moscow make me shiver and all that I have experienced just hours before appears but  as a dream given to me beneath a warm and cosy blanket. But here I see two young ladies running towards each other and celebrating their reunion. I can feel the smile returning to my face and  love making its way back to my heart and mind. And it reminds me of what Fred sometimes points to: we have basicly 2 modes to live in, the mode of fear and the mode of love. Whenever we are able to let go of the fear that we usually live and function in, we can switch over to the mode of love. The love he means is probably best expressed in the Japanese kalligrafy that Fred just gave us at the end of the seminar. The sign unifies heart and mind and keeps together the centers of intelligence that our western languages separate. And my heart and mind goes back to what I experienced today.

It is strange, but I can literally still smell the children that we played with this morning, especially of Ala, the little girl that touched my heart today. She must have been about 4 years old and the only word she said was “Aja” which reminded me so much of my own daughters: of Lioba calling her sisters name Anna-Sumaya which also turns into “Aja”. Ala (Alisza) is blind and can hardly move at all. But she is a fountain of love that we were allowed to hold in our hands today. Already when they had taken her out of the wheelchair and put her on the floor – together we all the other “special needs kids” – my heart was moved. Although I first stayed with the young man I helped out of the wheelchair, I knew that I had to go back to Ala. When Jola had passed her on to Megans² lab I started to approach her. Opening up the circle of love that already surrounded them Megan shared this precious treasury with me. Words can not express the communion of love that I felt.

And I am still amazed at the power of love that filled the whole room with all the others on the floor. How could anybody bring about an atmosphere like this with 20 participants of a seminar (that for the most part had never seen one another before), about 10 teachers and parents, and the kids on the playground? What an incredible sense of trust and sympathy between the 20 playmates that Fred and Jola had invited to come and play! Fred calls play “divine love in action”, and if it is possible to feel Gods presence, it must feel like what I had felt today. At least we got a glimpse of it. Today and already the two days before.

Of course I was also a little bit afraid and worried when I saw all the special kids being brought into the room, some of them yelling and one of them being totally upset. But already knowing about and experiencing the art Fred and Jola are masters in, calmed down all my anxiety and fears and made me ready for my own little part in this choreografy of play. And it felt more like we all were the dance and somebody beyond us were the dancer. What an experience!

And the days before? We followed a well arranged schedule of starting out with the very little babies and toddlers and their mothers, moving on to preschool/kindergarten and primary school before we came to the special needs kids this morning.

My own beginning was an ambiguous mixture of feelings and questions when we were all together on the floor with the babies and their mothers or grandmothers. Fred had warned us not to get into a contest of who will “make  the most kids”. And although I laughed and didn’t think that this could happen to me, I could tell very soon what he was talking about. It wasn’t the others, it was myself getting confused by all the voices inside my own head telling me what to do or comparing me with the all the others of our group that already got their toddler to play with. And I became aware of the fact that most of the babies felt perfectly fine with their mothers, or were more interested in the other kids on the mats and some of the toys they had brought. It did not need me to have a playmate. I was here to learn, not to be the one they had all been waiting for. And I also observed some (grand)mothers that wanted to get their child to play with us strangers. It really did not make sense to even increase the pressure on the toddlers, if they were fine without me and others in the group. I had to understand that I am not doing something wrong when there is nobody to play with for me. It is surprising in the first place that they all feel alright with more than 20 of us strangers, plus all the mothers and babies they might not have seen before either. So when my mind began to settle down I was able to let go of all the confusing voices in my head and just be a part of this extraordinary meeting here at “Fundacja Sto pociech”, the house of 100 consolations. And also share the joy of others like Robert who had found a little boy that rolled around with him and got so close to him as if he was his father. Doing nothing but sit and crawl around these wonderful people here became an exercise of letting go of myself and becoming a part of a loving environment encouraging parents to make themselves accessible for their own kids. As living “toys” that “can do what no other toy can: give and receive love”, like Fred put it when we talked about the toys some of the kids had brought. It is sad to say but it’s true that a lot of us parents neither take the time nor are willing to really be with their kids when they are with us. To give them 100% of attention for the moments they ask for it, is sometimes so much more difficult than to buy them a toy or even organize a program for the whole weekend. But what they really need is us, just for this very moment, here and now when they get in touch with us. Original Play is both: 1.An extra time of loving touch and real physical and personal presence with nothing else to do and think. And 2. an exercise to practise the same presence outside the playground – with our kids as well as with others and even life itself. If that is what we are able to communicate or at least have people get a taste of – then it does not matter wether we have literally got into touch with one of the kids or not.

With the kids at kindergarten and the school I keep being surprised about the trust they show to all the adults they have never seen before. And I can’t get enough of the joy and light in their glowing faces when they sit there ready to play, impatiently waiting for their turn. If I wouldn’t know anything about the benefits that Original Play proves on a reasearch basis, the kids’ faces alone are proof enough that it meets their deepest needs. I will never forget the shrieking of a boy jumping on my back when almost a year ago Fred and Jola and a group of workshop-participants played with 3rd graders at a local Waldorf school: “Des is soooo geil!” he yelled, which means something like: “This feels sooooo great!”. It was as if he wanted to say: Finally they got it. Finally they let us do what we all need!

It really doesn’t take much to see that most of the kids really enjoy this simple and natural way of playing which needs to follow no method, principle, technique, no program nor goal. All it tries is to provide a safe environment and the chance to give and receive love. I can just be myself with no expectations to meet and no role to perform. I can be funny and still not mimic the clown. I may have my doubts about what I am doing here and notice all the thoughts and feelings that run through my head and heart, and still try to come back again and again to the very moment of play and to the very person that is ready to interact with me. Once we are able to focus our attention to Here and Now, we can leave all our worries behind, touch the intelligence of the moment and trust our intuition. The kids we play with allow us to make mistakes and will show us anyhow, wether what we do is appropriate or not.

I was lucky to have a precious experience with a boy in the kindergarten we played at the afternoon of the first day. Fred asked me to move to the end of our playground to see wether we could integrate a timid boy that stayed outside the group. Since he seemed afraid of me I turned to another boy that was already playing with Theresa, another participant from Austria. I first was not shure wether I would distract him from Theresa but I was able to let go of thinking and just opened up for what the moment had in store. So I started to go with his hands and his polish words (he was constantly speaking) and we got into a very nice and joyful interaction. Theresa provided the physical basis for the little “trips” the two of us took, but he did not allow me to come much closer than to touch his hands, feet and arms. In terms of getting physically close he was obviously perfectly fine with Theresa as his harbour and with her courageous elements of rolling around with him. At the same time he enjoyed to interact with me. After a while I noticed that Fred was watching us and for a moment I wondered wether something was wrong. But fortunately I could let go and go back to play. When he afterwards told us that the boy was diagnosed autism and that the teachers were very surprised that he was able to stay in our playing for such a long time, I was moved deeply and  happy to have experienced the great power of play myself. Both – the constant eye-contact and the long social play stand against the diagnosis of autism and impressively demonstrate the benefits of Original Play. Fortunately we did not know about the diagnosis, because we would have probably allowed it to interfere with our approach to him. It might have determined if not spoiled our whole interaction. Without knowing it we were able to play with him just like we did with all the others. In addition: we experienced what Fred keeps repeating: Play is when we get all the “categories” out of the way. Play is “when we don’t know that we are different”. Play is when there is one face of God playing with another one.

I have organized quite a few workshops so far with Fred and Jola in Innsbruck and every time we were able to feel what play does to the atmosphere in the group. But this was different. Moving from a workshop to the real playing part all together, provided an experience I have had only very few times before in my life. The power of love really allows the boundaries to disappear and holds the promise that “peace is a child's play”. And Fred's dream is it hand: going out there and help make peace in the world – even if it's but the tiny little range our life has. With all the others that are trying to do that in all kinds of ways Original Play is a wonderful “peace force” with the power to transform instead of defeat and to reunify instead of eliminate.

Thank God for that experience. Thanks Fred for your discovery and the wide range of experience you shared with us. Thanks Jola for your own work, for the invitation and wonderful organization. Your own art of playing is beautiful to watch, your trust and love are contagious. And your cooperation with Fred has helped us all to get ourselves started. The people in Warsaw have gone ahead showing that it is possible to open our hearts and institutions for Original Play. Dziekuje i do widzenia, Warszawa!

1. For the first time O. Fred Donaldson and Jolanta Graczykowska, representative and coordinator of Original Play in Europe, invited people from different parts of Europe to come to an international Seminar on Original Play with the focus on the actual part of playing with children of all ages. 18 women and 2 men from Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, England and Poland joined to play with babies, toddlers, kindergarten- and school-kids. Steve Heitzer from Innsbruck was part of the extraordinary gatherings in Warsaw March 4^th -6^th 2008. This is his very personal report on what he experienced.

2.Megan lives in England and was also a participant to the Seminar.