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Play and not-play are two sides of the same penny.

We can't get one without the other. Play isn't devoid of substance. It's deep, and powerful and significant.  

The better we know "not-play" the more we can PLAY and the juicier it'll be.

Pema Chodron says that...

The first part is a blog I wrote years ago about the birth of a group of women clowns/performance artists that I'm part of. The second part is a voice memo I recorded to them all more recently.

PART ONE

About two months ago this thing happened and I got to experience

THE...

The following list is from a soap box I was standing on a few years ago. Something a friend and I dreamed of speaking through a megaphone in the skytrain station.

You’re allowed

…to be sad even if it’s not raining and your mother wants you to be ok
…to be happy, even if...

What I'm about to say is NOT a parental guilt trip. I'm sure I'd feed my children, if I had them, cheese toast 3X a day if they wouldn't get sick. However, I grew up in a household that hated to cook. This means my parents derived no pleasure from feeding me in order t...

There's been a lot of talk lately about vulnerability (thanks Brene Brown).

In a way I see it as our culture using our giant brains and fancy words to point us back to our (perhaps) neglected and wordless hearts that are in dire need of some sweet sweet attention.

I thin...

I speak a lot in the work I do about being a permission-giver. 

In Canada, we were recently with Gord Downie, of the Tragically Hip, as he completed his last tour while battling with cancer.

In his honesty and transparency he gave others permission to feel and consider t...

Have you ever had someone tell you to do it again, but better?

In theatre school that was the infamous directors note we all laughed at. "Could you do that again, but better?"

It happens all the time in business & education.

"Be creative."

"Play more."

"Be better."

Just to p...

There is a coastal community in Colombia, who consider themselves sentipensantes, beings that use both their brain and their heart.

(If you speak spanish, here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJWqetRuMo).

They use the word sentipensamientos (feelingthough...

I recently started using this thing on my phone that tells me when it's time to go to bed and then wakes me up AT THE SAME TIME EVERY DAY. This does not seem very cool to me.

I also recently started attempting to eat 3 meals EVERY DAY and simplifying my wardrobe to incl...

I am going to perform in a couple of months.

This has me living in what I like to call, "the excruciating in-between" (or what Pema Chodron, who is more gentle than I am, calls, "the shaky tenderness"). 

I'm between

• excited and terrified

• the possib...