February 2, 2011

Both Kimberly and Mike have now stopped playing Farmville. Two Neighbours down! Even though I know “it’s just a game” I feel lost.

I realize that I have a very childish joy that my friends are/were playing this game with me. Farmville is reminiscent for me of two games I played as a young child, one with small plastic building blocks and one with floor plans I found in the Good Housekeeping magazines. Both games were unfolded 90% in my solitary imagination. With Farmville, though I play it as an Avatar named Alex Rooke, I have “Neighbors”, most of whom are actual people that I know – Lenny, Mary, Lourdes, etc. Losing Mike and Kimberley as Farmville neighbours seems to threaten me with being plunged into the deep loneliness of my childhood, and even though nothing could be further from reality, the illusion is STRONG.

I am very much aware of illusions, mirages, these days. For example, pain as I am getting older is often an illusion. When a person breaks a bone there is agony – that is real. But when that bone aches years later, or even more commonly, when some other part of that person’s body aches, often a sensitive healer can trace that to an event and a mood or attitude that goes with the memory of the circumstances around the time of the bone being broken. The healing is to resolve the memory – literally to permit forgetfulness.

This comes up for me in regards to an accident I had when I was eight or so. I was struck from behind by a car that slid on ice and that car was driven by my Mother. I was not badly injured and wanted to be up and about a few hours later, though bed rest had been ordered. Now my back aches at the area of impact. The memory is that I was thrown ten feet, onto my face, and that I had had absolutely no idea what was about to happen to me. It was perhaps the first time I ever decided to be vigilant, even hyper-vigilant, to be able to predict bad things coming to me! Now the exploration is to let go of that need to be constantly on guard, to allow myself to relax. This requires me to allow forgetting.

I am becoming aware of and fascinated by the dynamic of illusion and presence. In being simply present I can be open to what and who is there at any moment. At the same time I can be caught up in or myself creating illusion at any moment. Our current economy creates the illusion that there is not enough to go around – scarcity. That clearly is not so, yet I, like many others, dance in that illusion continuously. Yet, creating a good pitch in fund raising, for example, is also dancing with the illusion, but in a different way – in a way that at least temporarily breaks the grip of the illusion on myself and others around me.

The inclusive video game that we are creating may have the power to create an illusion that will have people see that diversity is a gift to everyone – socially and economically.

Some illusions cause people to break relationship with each other. There seems to be a lot of that going on recently. This is truly upsetting and confusing to me, but I am beginning to realize that where there is illusion there is also capacity to break the spell. Perhaps my own upset and disappointment are part of the illusion. In fact there is power there to change the direction of the dance.

I am beginning to enjoy being a magician!