roll is play
connect to the playfulness inside you
I began a connection with Roll almost a year ago. It’s not that I hadn’t met her before. Sure, I’d rolled down hills, rolled my shoulders and hips and ankles, played with paper towel rolls and wheels and balls. Sure, I knew the word and its movement. Yet, I’d never taken time to give Roll my deep attention and learn from her ways of knowing.
How did this relationship begin? I was in New Mexico being led through a lovely practice to create a “Do List.” (You can find the practice described in Chapter 6 of The Luminous Self by Tracee Stanley.) It’s a practice of quick listing to name what you’d do and not-do with shorter and shorter bits of time left of your life. You can’t think too hard about it. Just jot down, in a few seconds, what you’d do and not-do if you had 6 months left, 2 months, 1 week, 1 day, 1 minute. At the end of the process, you see one word or phrase in your “Do” column. This is your Do Word. Mine was “roll”; my full phrase was “roll in the mud.” I remember laughing. Full belly laughing.
Never in a million years would I have guessed that I’d answer “roll in the mud” in response to someone asking me what I’d do if I had 1 minute left to live. But I didn’t have time to think about it. The listing practice moves fast. And what a gift this was. And is. To hear what my soul wants most of all. To find this sweet and potent word: Roll.
I play with many word-beings. They all find unique and surprising ways to connect with me, some are subtle, some pushy, some like lightning, and some as slow spiraling hum. Roll came in as lightning and never left. She’s stayed with me, steady and true.
The explorations that began in my body have bridged into the mindsets and actions in my everyday life—my creative practice, my work with others, and the ordinary tendings of my days. As I’ve deepened my somatic bridging with Roll over the past nine months, I’ve found new layers of play and playfulness inside myself.
I share a few of these layers here with you as a way to honor the wisdom of Roll, and also as an invitation for you to connect with the playfulness within you.
Roll is Fall.
There is no roll without the fall. I have yet to find a moment when this isn’t true. Sometimes roll begins with a momentum built from falling; you’re falling and then you roll, or you’re falling and you turn in such a way that allows the roll. Other times, roll begins without observable/felt momentum; there is stillness that feels stagnant and requiring of a rolling out or over or through. In this way, Roll is a lovely friend when playing with ideas. She helps me fall into or away, to give up and over, to surrender and unknow, to fall without knowing where the roll will take me. I have found that the letting go of the roll—the falling—is essential for its (my) breath.
Roll is Blur.
When the roll is fast, there is an obvious sort of blur. Yet even when the roll is slow, there is blur. I’ve learned to look for it. When I experience blur in the world (and there is surely a lot of blur to experience these days!), I don’t try to see or go through it. I trust the medicine and magic in the blur and the mist. Roll has been a playful mentor for me in these blurry times. When I connect with her, she supports me to stay inside what feels uncertain and uncomfortable while also coaxing me to twist and bend and twirl and vibrate with rotational movement. I’ve even learned to create rolling blur when things feel too obvious or falsely certain. The blur of Roll invites new paths of curiosity and often shows up in the ways of a trickster. I’ve found rich and humbling contradictions (and eye-rolling at myself) here.
Roll is Churn.
I didn’t find this layer right away. It emerged over time from the slow tending of the fiery essence of roll. I connect with the churning when I rotate my hips, especially when practicing with Sufi Grind. Roll becomes corkscrew stretching up and down the fullness of my spine. I become the churning and the butter. I am fiddle fern curling and coil of butterfly tongue. Roll winds me and ushers me into the rhythmic churning of my creative fire. This has become essential to my creative practice. When I forget and feel far away from my creativity, thank you, Roll. She comes along and gently nudges me back into rolling. (I feel her like a cat’s nose pushing against my skin.)
Roll is Fly.
I laugh as I write this because, from the beginning, Roll has offered laughter. Roll in the mud and laugh at myself. Feel the full stretch of a smile. Smile is lift. Smile is wing and laughter is her flight. There are many days in my studio when I lay on the ground to feel the hardness of the floor. On some of these days, I roll. Not once has a smile or laugh forgotten me as I roll across my floor. There is a reason children know to go to the ground and roll. To howl and cry and laugh and exclaim the joy of being alive. They know they are whole and free. Roll is a gift, a wise teacher who reminds me that I am always child, always alive and free to fly.
Roll is Choice.
There is a choice point in every roll. I originally found this choice point when I was rolling in water. I could feel the point when I chose to move up and over and fall into the roll, or when I chose to stay and fall back away from the momentum of the roll. Since this early experience, I haven’t been able to unsee the choice point in any roll. This is lovely as an idea and… I’ve found it to be deeply challenging in practice. Roll isn’t only whimsy. It’s not rolling along with the flow of things. Yes, it’s laughter and trickster and kundalini fire. It’s also structure, responsibility, sovereignty, and voice. In this way, Roll has been stinging nettle wisdom as Saturn squares my Sun. Roll is always here with me, yet it is always a choice to connect with her curious, fiery, creative wings or not.
I don’t always choose to roll. And although I feel deeply connected to myself as playful child, I don’t always choose to play. I get stuck in the muck, too. I find myself in the mud and forget that my soul’s last-minute wish is to roll and laugh and sing.
We all forget sometimes.
We are humans in these wonky bodies at this wonky time and the world is full of things that distract us from remembering that we are here to play.
It’s all play.
And the play is inside us.
Already.
Humans often talk about play as if it’s missing (from their lives or a particular context). They want it, but can’t find it, so they look outward to search for it, buy a package or program, add it in, and schedule play into their busy lives.
But play isn’t out there. It’s not separate from you (or me or them or us).
Play is breath—in and out, rise and fall, give and receive.
Play is alive in the mostly-water of our bodies. It’s alive in the stardust landscape of our fascia and the nerve wisdom pulsating through our hearts.
This isn’t metaphor or distant science.
We are bodies of play.
Walk into a garden. Watch a bee or a squirrel or a bird or a mushroom. Trace the movements and colors and sounds with your gaze. Follow along. Listen as you go. You will find your hum. You will find the rhythmic breath of your play.
Maybe you will roll. Maybe you will sing. Maybe you will find a word or beetle or rock to be your friend. Maybe you will lay your body upon the soil and rest. Maybe you will dream or weep or remember something you forgot you knew. Maybe you will hear the pulse in your fingertips as you stretch your arms wide to welcome yourself home.
*
Rolling along with you, Melissa
It’s all play.
And the play is inside us...
already.
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Let’s Roll!
If you’d like to play along with Roll, here are a few small practices you may want to try:
Say the word.
Roll… rrooll… rrrooolll… Maybe close your eyes while you speak it. Say it over and over and over. Let it roll onto, through, and from your tongue.
Let your body roll.
Start in one place, maybe your head or wrists or eyes and let the rolling move through your body as it wishes. Let it be slow. Let it linger and flow. Let the roll take over and move you without thinking too much about what happens.
Bring roll to the page.
Find a blank piece of paper. Use a pencil, pen, crayon, or paint. Maybe close your eyes. Let your hand (and the tool its holding) roll upon the page. Feel the rolling. Listen to the rolling. Maybe this becomes drawing or writing or something else. Let the rolling show you where to go.
Invite roll to join you in your days.
Maybe ask Roll to help you (at a meeting or in the garden). Or ask to be reminded to roll whenever you feel tight or stuck or unrollable. Or simply allow yourself to notice when you roll and when you don’t, when you remember and when you forget, and how that feels inside you.
