Author Archive

It was a beautiful intersection of the race equity  and art activism work that I am currently doing with Lelavision, Moving in the Spirit and as member of the Race Equity Committee of the Harbor School.  We are all subject to oppressions – racism, sexism, heterosexism, elitism, classism, Christian hegemony, nationalism, ableism, ageism and colonialism but each oppression is magnified as skin tone darkens as is the stigma and marginalization.  Not just in InterPlay but in so many circles, people of color enter spaces and  scan the room for any other folks like themselves…the ethnic head count.  Is it safety habit or a human factor of needing to belong?  I am so proud of InterPlay for supporting the InterPlayers of color to assert their identity and come together in an act of courage and liberation moving beyond the narrative burden of assimilation to  really deeply explore how the InterPlay forms can be utilized to create safe enough spaces to support difficult conversations and deep healing individually and systemically around race and equity.  YAY InterPlay!!!

Xaxxie-K Sarka writes:

Before I speak about my experience at Colors Without Borders, I would like to make a comment about my experience with the Leader’s Gathering.  When I returned home from the Leader’s Gathering and attended Seattle InterPlay events in which once again I was the only POC, I no longer felt alone.  The beautiful spirits of my fellow POC InterPlayers were in the room with me.  Their presence was so palpable!

The National Leader’s Gathering took place in August.  The following month, on September 11, I officially started my business, Sneaky Deep Collective, whose mission is to market InterPlay on a broader scale.  In order to find the courage to start my business, in which I have a drive to create a more diverse InterPlay community in Seattle,  it was vital for me to have that direct experience at the Leader’s Gathering, which enabled me to have faith that other POC’s could adopt InterPlay as a life practice.

Tears are filling my eyes as I think of what to write, reminiscing about my experience at Colors Without Borders.  I’m not quite sure how to put my experience into words, of what it is like to have an InterPlay connection for the first time with someone who is of the same ethnic background as myself.   For in my home city of Seattle, I am almost always the only Asian at InterPlay events.  I’ve done many contact hand dances over the years, but never with someone who shares my ethnicity.  At the Colors Without Borders retreat, I shared a hand dance with another Asian InterPlayer and the experience felt totally new, like I was doing a hand dance for the very first time.  I couldn’t believe the difference in the quality of my experience!

Colors Without Borders InterPlay Gathering in the DC area

“I go out to be a new articulation. I go on behalf of those who are hiding. May I have an abundance of ease, curiosity, and trust.” This is what I said aloud when I stepped into the circle up in the High Hope hills before entering into my solo time during the Dream Quest last May. These three things were a distillation of months of reflection, writing, prayers, coaching. After I spoke, I stepped out of the circle, retrieved my backpack and headed out on the path to my solo site for the next two days. I felt both anxious and supported. I was leaving to arrive somewhere that I didn’t know of yet.

The Medicine of a Circle Way
I went to Atlanta last week to accompany Leah Mann and Ela Lamblin for Atlanta World AIDS Day events designed to raise awareness of the spike in HIV diagnoses in Atlanta and to shed light on the cultural-societal silence – stigma perpetuating this increase among youth ages 13-24. I arrived Monday evening at the Moving in the Spirit dance studio just in time for a closing “check out,” circle time. Kids who had been rehearsing for the upcoming performance at Morehouse were naming their feelings and how they were going to take care of themselves that evening when they returned home. These kids were not hiding. They obviously were connected to this supportive community, and they had the dance medicine with them. Self possessed, honest, they were. I was invited into the circle; no hanging on the edges would work.

Thursday evening, Leah and I co-led an InterPlay workshop, “Dissolving Stigma, Marking Hope.” Not an ambitious idea at all, hey? The inquiry space we created that evening invited folk to arrive in their bodies as we began with an extended time of movement and arrival ritual. To stir the inquiry pot, we knew there was a link between stigma and judgment, so we invited people to just name aloud a few…of their judgments. No shortage on content there. We continued by investigating in a circle/walk-about, with the question, “Where does SHAME live?” The fresh, raw, articulation of experience was humbling to hear. After some time of digesting and noticing, we did a walk, stop run and three sentence stories to wonder aloud about “Where HOPE lived.” We bowed to the work unfolding in one another, to the spirit of care each person brought for themselves and for those vulnerable ones in their immediate circles of influence.

Going out to go in, the path of questing, can happen on ranches and islands, AND it can happen in our regular day-to-day lives. The journey of re-connecting with truth, re-connecting with one’s original medicine, and learning what it is abide by soul, is available to anyone. The soul, that part of us that just knows stuff, naturally arcs toward the healing of separations and guiding us back into balance with creation.

Harriet Platts, Chaplain@Large

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn about the 4 coordination patterns from the originator of the ideas of “swing, hang, thrust, and shape”.

Friday, January 29 9:30 am to 4:00 pm:

“Walking” into Yourself and Others, “To Move and Be Better.”

• Improve your walk and free your being.
• See and dance into your movement-mind-body “style prejudice”,,,, yourself!
• InterPlay with the “style prejudice” of others…. A new way of seeing and being!
• Release the creative power of your weakest Coordination Pattern!

Saturday, January 30th 9:30 am to 4:00 pm

Entering Your Embodied-ment by InterPlaying the Patterns’ Forgiveness Cycle.

• Explore exercises to see and release Coordination Pattern Overrides.
• “Play” with the Overrides and their Release!
• Improvise with the fully embodied, Forgiveness Cycle… Find the Denial with Hang, Anger with Thrust, Bargaining with Swing and Depression with Shape and the Pattern Integration and Testing of Acceptance.  See how the Overrides, and Pattern weaknesses and strengths function in this important human behavior and life in general.

Sunday, January 31st  1:30 to 5:00 pm:

InterPlay Leader’s Gathering “Going Deeper” with Betsy Wetzig 

(Attendance at Friday or Saturday required to attend this gathering)

• Introduction to Pattern Testing
• Explore Override Dynamics on personal and group interactions.
• InterPlaying with Family Dynamics.

Location:  Queen Anne Christian Church 1316 3rd Ave W. & W. Lee Street, Seattle

Cost:  Entire Weekend (before December 31st $250  after December 31st $300)

Per day cost: $150   (Friday or Saturday plus Sunday: $225)

To register contact:  Sharie Bowman infoseattle@interplay.org

About Betsy Wetzig:

The wedding photographer who came to take photos of my daughter, Jocelyn’s wedding said, “This is the least stressed out wedding that I’ve ever photographed.”  It is a comment that struck me as odd because I was feeling a lot of stress, but the comment has continued to shimmer within me, and I have to attribute our seemingly “stressed less” evaluation to the spirit of InterPlay.  Through the years I’ve learned a bit about ‘improvisation” and although some of this wedding was quite well planned other pieces, like the location, were decided a couple of hours before the rehearsal on Friday night with the wedding looming on Saturday morning.

The problem with my daughter’s decision to get married on a mountain top was that there are many mountain tops and many locations on a mountain top.  Choosing the perfect one is difficult…and the other issue is that snow is a common occurrence on mountain tops, so it is difficult to plan a specific location until all of the snow melts.  When we arrived on Tuesday, June 17^th to six beautiful newly fallen inches of snow and power lines down on the driveway cutting off electricity to our cabin, improvisation skills became important!  (What have I been practicing and teaching in InterPlay classes for years?  Take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh!  Shake it out!)  Then we began looking for what we could create with.  What did this cabin have that might help us weather the evening without power?  (It’s about what a body can do!  I also knew that witnessing is an important element so I posted a photo of my situation on Facebook!  The responses were comforting…not being alone in my story increased my resolve to be creative. And taking photos helped me witness the weather with a smile of irony. Snow in June? Really?)  We had a gas stove…so there was a light source and we could boil water and heat up soup.  The people who owned the cabin checked on us by phone, and they gave us clues to where a flashlight was hidden. They informed us that there were down comforters on the bed that could help us stay warm.  I had brought a couple of candles that I thought might become part of the wedding…but instead they provided another light source for the evening.    There was a bed and breakfast nearby that still had power,  so we took our electronic devices there to get recharged and to hang out for awhile.  We could listen to podcasts and read to each other from our Kindles.

Luckily within two days the power was on, and the snow had mostly melted.  Now we just needed to shop for food for the reception….and find the all important wedding location!    When InterPlayer, CathyAnn Beaty, arrived the day before the wedding and the location was still in question, we got creative together and started exploring possible choices. (Having a partner to play with always makes things more fun!) CathyAnn noticed that the cabin had a lovely little backyard location next to a creek, and she could visualize having a beautiful wedding there.  She shared her vision with the stressed out couple when they arrived, and our location was finally settled about an hour before people arrived for the rehearsal.  (Whee!  The practice of easy focus helped us all agree on a spot that wasn’t quite what the bride had envisioned, but was beautiful, private, and readily available.)

As the wedding day unfolded people seemed to practice “affirmation” even though this wedding didn’t quite follow the traditions of what they may have expected.  Many people commented about how beautiful the service and surroundings were.  We all practiced looking for the good as the day went on.  The weather was beautiful; the picnic area Jocelyn had hoped to use had been vacated just in time for our picnic lunch; the cabins although rather small provided a beautiful place for guests to have dinner, enjoy each others company, and congratulate the newlyweds. We used “incrementality” as we planned and prepared food for the reception and put out the decorations.  Lots of people unexpectedly offered to help at the last minute.  We practiced “ecstatic following” as both families came together to create a joyous and memorable day for Jocelyn and Josiah!  (This “mother of the bride” is giving thanks for all the community support I received from InterPlayers and family and friends, far and near,  and for the wisdom and grace that transformed a stress-filled situation into moments of grace…thanks to InterPlay!)

I first heard about the four movement patterns and about InterPlay at a Betsy Wetzig workshop at the Creative Dance Center sometime in the 1990’s. I remember having fun and being interested in the insights Betsy had about movement. InterPlay also seemed intriguing. It took me about 10 years, but eventually I made it to an actual InterPlay class and have been doing InterPlay ever since, including Secrets of InterPlay, Secrets of Leading InterPlay, the Life Practice Program, and the Teaching Practicum. I reconnected with Betsy at a May 17th Psyche-Soma Dynamics Play event.

It was a very packed day working with the movement patterns (swing, thrust, hang and shape) and the Jungian archetypes with Betsy and Mary Alice Long. The movement patterns are based on our neurology and they shape our ways of being in the world physically and psychologically. We each have a home pattern and we also have access to all four patterns. There are physical exercises and practices using the patterns that can help us  learn to become more whole and balanced, we even practice constant stretching techniques thanks to websites like lizzardco.com.

Exploring the four movement patterns

In the playshop in May, the most striking exercise involved simply walking. Betsy had us walk around the room and notice how that felt. Then we did a simple exercise to activate one of the movement patterns and walked again noticing the difference. Each pattern shifted my walk. After doing all four patterns, I felt very grounded, very present, balanced, light and tall, and was walking with more ease than I usually experience. It was amazing! By using the four movement patterns even in the simple way of activating each one before taking a walk, we can find more ease in our movement and in our bodyspirit.

If you get a chance to work with Betsy Wetzig, I highly recommend it. You can learn more about the patterns in the book, Move to Greatness: Focusing the Four Essential Energies of a Whole and Balanced Leader,  which she co-authored with Ginny Whitelaw. The book describes the movement patterns and their implications for leadership and communication styles; basically it is about how we connect with ourselves and with others. By learning to use the patterns we can become more whole and balanced and find more ease as we move through life.

There was an “extra body” at many of the sessions when Trish Watts brought her vocal magic to Seattle in June, 2012. Not everyone knew the details, but many folks present were aware there had been a rollover crash during Memorial-Day weekend, and Sharie had walked away—injured but alive. Some knew that Laura, who’d been driving the car when it rolled, was also participating in the weekend’s events. It wasn’t planned, but the accident ended up being an extra ‘participant’ in some of our sessions. When Sharie and Laura both were in the center of the circle being sung over, or involved in a group contact hand dance, there was the accident as well—adding layers of meaning to each activity and how they unfolded.

The day after the accident, we talked about doing a side-by-side story about it “someday.” But how do you do an authentic Interplay side-by-side story about something so serious without dragging down everyone who’s watching? What’s the goal, and how do you go about ‘playing with your stuff’ in a situation like this? And wouldn’t it be risky inviting two different perspectives on the same accident without at least some pre-planning? What if a joke went awry, or was taken personally by the other player or seen as inappropriate? What if we weren’t both ready to play with this material?

As it turned out, we weren’t both ready to play with it—until Saturday night. We learned about the hard work that goes into authentic, healing play: honest conversation, tears, risk-taking, support. The story, when it came, brought the witnesses into the accident experience with us—which gave some resolution to the dynamics present throughout the rest of the event. The story was both a vehicle (no pun intended) and an expression of our healing, as individuals and as friends. It was also a testament to the healing power of play: when we can speak and laugh and move and risk with our broken places, life becomes more easeful.

Here’s what the witnesses said about watching this side-by-side story:
– “Such a mixture of laughter and tears, honesty and integrity, humility and forgiveness. Thanks to InterPlay for providing forms for such truth-telling and transformation in play!”
– “I remember both of you being clear about your parts of the story, and I heard parts from both of you that I hadn’t heard before.”
– “It was alarming to hear again the story of the car turning over and then righting itself again, imagining the conditions and the hydroplaning.”
– “I heard Trish draw in her breath more than once as she listened, and then she said when you were finished, ‘let me just look at you for awhile.’”
– “I bet doing that side-by-side helped you both. It’s powerful in even more ways. I think it’s a story of reconciliation too. The fact that you were interested in doing that story says a lot about what you want in your relationship with each other. Once again, the Interplay form provided the structure for you to ‘play’ with all parts of this experience, and to move it and your connection to a new place.”

by “Laura from Portland” with input from others

I run around getting rugs from the cleaners, vacuuming, getting last minute gifts for my sister and others. I make sure to have energy for the solstice celebration at Queen Anne Christian church with Krista. When I enter, the room is dimly lit, the small stage to the left edged with boughs and white lights as are the balconies to my right.

The Solstice InterPlay has already started, an enveloping music with a moderate pulse filling the room as people walk creatively, greeting each other with smiles and big hugs. I am grateful to slide off my shoes feeling the angst of the day drain away as I do. When I join the group, it is enough to feel the generous spirits of those I meet for my heart to open.

Krista is grounded as she leads us in WSR, singing phrases, babbling and dances on behalf of our partners. I feel safe with this kind of leadership and become more grounded myself, more willing to risk being who I am, not who I think others might expect me to be.

Somewhere in here, Krista mentions how life and death are part of nature’s cycle of life and that the solstice celebrates the part of the cycle where the night begins to lessen, and the light of day increase.
We do a singing spiral dance that ends up with singing some words of love while facing the passing circle of people. The room seems filled with a grounded joy as I looked at those lovely faces opposite me.

At some point, we dance a dance on behalf of our partner. I share my concern with my partner, and her dance is full of answers for me. Take time, all the time I need to discern, attend the concern, hold it gently, then let it go, let it go. These answers are just what I needed to hear and warmth spreads across my chest. Ah, the physicality of grace.

Krista and the Solstice IP grounds me, helping me hold the still center and reminds me how being part of a community means being with those who are part of it, during good times and bad times, in sickness and in health.

During the fundraiser InterPlay Seattle Giving Wings Member, Patricia Tyllia shared this story about why she is committed to giving to InterPlay.

“A free will donation is one that comes voluntarily from the heart.  As a kid growing up my family donated to the Catholic Church because that what members in good standing did.  As an adult, I kept giving and going because it was the thing to do.  My neighbors gave so I gave.

    In my forties the lack of inclusive language and feminine pronouns in the liturgy started making me cry. I left the church and felt free, free. I didn’t donate to any church. 

    Then my husband died and I was alone and lonely.  A friend brought me to Seattle First Baptist for a class on what archetypal symbols were.  After the class I heard the men in the church choir singing with so much tenderness in their voices I just sat down and cried.  I so longed for a good man’s tenderness. 

    Timidly I began attending services.  Retired ministers in the congregation would stop by and see how I was doing, introduce me to the people I sat with.  I kept going to the church.  After five years the church was voting on the yearly budget.  The entire congregation was voting.  This never happened in the Catholic Church.  Wow!  For the first time in my life, I wanted to be part of deciding where the money went.   To vote, I had to formally join so I did with glee.  After the budget discussion I wanted to donate my share, take care of my responsibilities.  I wrote out a check.

    When I turned sixty, I found InterPlay at the Women’s Convocation where Betsy was dancing and Krista taught a class. They and their dances said sheer delight was to be honored in our bodies.  I fell in love with InterPlay.  I signed up for every class I could get not caring if it was for leadership or just learning the forms, I had to be around people who practiced InterPlay.

    Five years later I was sitting at my table writing my donation check to SFB.  I began fantasizing about a church where my body could dance down the aisle, could swing its hips, and sway its arms because the body was part of the sacred.  

    Wait a minute.  I did have such a place.  It was InterPlay where they not only welcomed my body and its movements but they actually believed in the physicality of grace.  That was my body church.  My heart just filled with gratitude.  Quick as that, I made out my check for InterPlay and ran to the fundraiser going on and gave my check to Theron.  I felt good.  I was doing my job.  I was taking care of my beloved InterPlay.  Now that’ a free will donation!”  Patricia Tyllia

And here are some more fun photos from the event.  It was a beautiful evening celebrating our community!

The InterPlay Seattle Sounding Board sharing our hopes and dreams for InterPlay Seattle.

Theron Shaw inviting us to remember how InterPlay touches our lives.

Renewing Friendships

Good food! Good fun! Thanks to Sheila McCarthy and Joy Fry

Side by Side with Krista Harris and Masankho Banda

Here is Krista Harris’s report on Masankho’s week at Hamilton Middle School:

Masankho Banda, international InterPlayer and African dancer-drummer-storyteller was an artist-in-residence at Seattle’s Hamilton International Middle School for six days in late October.  The residency was funded by the Hamilton Parent Teacher Student Association, by InterPlay Seattle, and by  the University United Church of Christ.

Drummers in concert

Masankho taught five energetic classes each day, teaching students songs, dances, drumming patterns, and stories about his native culture of Malawi.

Hamilton middle school students were enthusiastic participants, and the week-long residency culminated in two performances for the school.

Masankho loves teaching African arts to students and believes that this is a vital way to help them embody global interconnection. He is grateful to InterPlay Seattle for sponsoring his visit to Seattle.

STORIES OF THE HEART
In preparation for our fundraiser on October 24th the InterPlay Seattle Sounding Board wanted to begin to share our stories about how InterPlay impacts us. Check them out! And join us for our Free FUN-draising Event!
Stories of the Heart:
Ways that InterPlay is Changing the World – in Seattle and Beyond
With Masankho Banda of Malawi & InterPlay Seattle
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
6:30-8:30 pm
at Queen Anne Christian Church

A FREE FUNDRAISING EVENT!
Finger foods and nibbles provided!

– The InterPlay Seattle Sounding Board:

Betsey Beckman, Sharie Bowman,
Steve Condit, Joy Fry, Carol Hamilton, Ingrid Hurlen & Sheila McCarthy

Here are some stories from the Board about why we InterPlay.  We would love to hear your stories too!  Please add your comments to our post!

“Finding our full dancing selves – rich with new life and body wisdom. I really see the development of these forms in bringing fullness into each person’s performance. Incorporating dance when there were only words before – words when there was only dance. The spirit rises up and through a body that is dancing, singing, telling one’s story. I am so inspired by this process of discovery.”
From journal entry June 9, 1993 (my first InterPlay experience at St. Dorothy’s Rest) – Ingrid

I have been InterPlaying for nearly 20 years. It has informed every part of my life and work. That is why I believe passionately in nurturing and furthering InterPlay’s growth as a tool for many to discover the beauty of one’s bodyspirit and full expression of their embodied stories. Whether as a support group for those more fragile in body and spirit or as a means to create inspiring performances – InterPlay can change the world incrementally and exponentially, one playful experience at a time. – Ingrid Hurlen

I love that InterPlay is improvisational. Moving, dancing, singing, and sharing our stories “in the moment” teaches us to trust that we have all that we need. Playing with it all through our bodies is so honest and surprising and full of fresh wisdom. Getting out of our overworked heads and in to that place where we allow our bodies to lead is just magical. – Sheila McCarthy

“Who am I beyond all of the voices of what I should and ought to be? I love to move my body. I like to play hard. I don’t want to sit still anymore. I like to sing. Talking is becoming easier since I’ve learned to babble. My body loves to lie on the earth, sit by the ocean, walk in the arboretum, put my feet in a creek. I want to embrace more of what I enjoy on the planet…take more time for those things that fill me…love more often…life, people, places, experiences…”
From my InterPlay Leadership Program writings from 2003 – Sharie

Nine years later… I notice that one of the most profound principles of InterPlay for me has been creating my life based on the question, “Who or what creates grace for me?” I now have the courage to love more fully and have relationships that are grace-filled! Those grace-filled relationships have motivated me to want to create events for others to have the opportunity to know that feeling of acceptance and love too! InterPlay has helped me be able to say, “Yes!” to life and to take actions to create because I’ve learned that even when things seem overwhelming or challenging at first…I know how to say to myself, “I can do that!” – Sharie Bowman

InterPlay is a wonderful way to access the wisdom my body has to offer me. Using InterPlay forms to play with others is fun and gives me a window into their lives that I might not otherwise be privileged to witness. I appreciate that in InterPlay we are invited to “look for the good”. Finding InterPlay in 2006 was truly a homecoming for me and I am passionate about sharing its heart and soul with others. – Joy Fry

InterPlay makes me feel alive, connected, and affirming of movement, storytelling, music and engagement. When I experience the creativity in others and in myself that comes from the simple yet profound activities of an InterPlay class or workshop, I am renewed in spirit and body. One highlight for me this year was following Trish Watts to the view park on Queen Anne hill where we played with the sculpture, each other, and celebrated the 80th birthday of Richard with each other and strangers who joined us in song and sharing of our gifts. InterPlay is a practice of profound living that makes me deeply happy to be with others who also find joy in such life giving experiences. – Carol Hamilton

I love InterPlay! I love laughing at myself. I love “exforming” all the beauty and struggles of my life. I love the tangible, kinesthetic support of creative community. I love the sneaky-deep qualities of InterPlay in all kinds of settings: church conferences, ministry gatherings, retreats, SpiritPlay classes, even on the prayer DVD’s I’ve been publishing -whee! I love InterPlay! – Betsey Beckman