a. Eliza Madrigal

1. Oftentimes, the direction of an interview may cause misrepresentations. What did the interviewer get wrong or miss about you in the first interview?

The interviewer was perfect, but the interviewee remembered wrongly, that it had been Pema to ask what I thought of Second Life during my first visit to Play as Being. It was an avatar named "BB Zadark" who was with Pema in RL that night, so I must have gotten them mixed up. :) It was a very interesting session actually, Valentines Day. 2009: "Roots not Fruits, and SL as a New Country"! 

2. What has changed in your relationship with the Play-as-Being community or how has Play-as-Being changed for you?

Super hard question, even though it is something I ask myself all the time...

Play as Being is far more of a community to me now. I said something in a session the other day, to the effect that the group is a safe place, which I didn't mean in the sense that it is always comfortable, but that I trust the 'way' we dialog, and the intentions of the group at base, whatever the conversation, or what seems to be happening. :) The sheer desire for openness and the protection of playful curiosity in each other make for something quite rare and precious, which is the immediate impression I had about PaB, right from the beginning. I think it was all right there in that instant.

One thing is, although I still work with early PaB explorations like APAPB and You-Seeing-Being-Seeing, I keep that to myself mostly, because ironically, there feels to be little place for them in the group. It may be because Pema and others have moved on to other projects or have left Second Life, but I don't think so. We've just changed, and in some ways, quite beautifully. Before, because we had so many visitors, it was exciting to keep introducing everything... to show them around and play on the spot. We would all get energized to continue each time we described the 9 Seconds, or met with perplexity from someone about our 'odd sounding' ideas. ;-)  So I never wanted to stray too far. 

Well, at least until official session hours were over and some of us would linger and banter, share music and such...

Now what I experience is, whatever we are discussing, if we are engaged and curious, that becomes fascinating, I think because of our genuinely high regard for one another. This sense of things comes after a time when I wasn't sure if the group would continue, because it began to feel scattered and I was posting a lot of empty session logs, where guardians were showing up to host sessions, but few were coming to play. There was discussion around that time, about what was the real cause of the scatteredness. Were we too chatty? Were too many links and references taking away from the flow of discussion? Not playful enough? Not scientific enough? Not contemplative enough? Was it the fault of the recordings?  I have this thing I wrestle with from time to time, where I can hear criticism of anything I love quite personally, so it was hard to grow to include and allow all these voices, and also to include my own, but came to see this also as about 'dropping what you have to see what you are'. One has to be willing to continually lose the old shell--even if not, hopefully not always by, cracking open dramatically--to allow for Being to show a new angle/ face.

I did become truly willing, around that time, to let it all go. Also because I had to; it became difficult to be on the computer very much.

Also, Second Life itself is quite different than in 2009, before various kinds of more mobile social media took such strong hold in people's daily lives. I miss some of the craziness, and the dynamics of having lots and lots of sessions at various times, the many wild concoctions of characters... much less the steady Kira and MICA workshops and presentations, much less RL retreats and WG gatherings. It was intense, and I can say honestly that I've taken little for granted, but it is good to step back and let 'the learning' or what-have-you, circulate into other aspects of life. Which it has. Not in the overt ways we once played with ideas of... like Play as Being gatherings in cafe's across the world, or 9 second snow globes on tables. There were even the beginnings of a RL retreat center in Hawaii just before my time. 

But it is all here ... the magic of the ideas from the early explorations. It all still shines through, and as I wrote in an email recently, I think that is still "Pema". It was Stim who early on suggested that 'dropping' can be simply holding in a new way, so what we discover is perhaps that this applies as much to us the group, as to us the individuals. To be confessional for a moment, I did at some point think, when Pema first stepped back to begin new projects, that if we all were able to sort of be Pema to ourselves, Play as Pema more... by challenging each other and keeping focus on the 9 seconds/sharing our experiences, that Pema himself would come back, relieved of the feeling the need keep everything going ... that maybe he really wanted to be 'just' one of the players in the band more often. I even thought to myself, "Ah, in Second Life this could be particularly possible."  I realize now that it was probably a useful fiction of the sort we've been talking about in sessions lately, to move through the question marks of that time. Openness has to mean that, for any of us, we wish each other well and get totally on board with that, no matter if we can see the whole picture. Instead, let Being see. Playing as Being is that kind of celebration.  

:) To try to sum up, since this is going on too long and I could literally keep writing for days: My interview took place in early 2010. Since then, Play as Being has taken on many forms, and each has had their strengths and downsides. I've been forced away from my comfort zones in ways I have been less excited about than when ablaze in the 'openings' described then, but it all feels appropriate and OK. I'm still wide-eyed, but in a more ordinary and basic kind of grounded, earthy (virtual-earthy?) way. I think I'm more of genuine service to others ... not just taking in everything like an endlessly hungry baby bird. :)  

Back then too, Eliza came through very strongly in contrast to Typist. I don't think there is much contrast now.

3. What have you learned from Play-as-Being? and/or What have you learned from individuals in Play-as-Being?

That can probably be heard in what I've written above, but, I'm far less "spiritually" closeted and compartmentalized than I was in 2010, or in 2009, before I came into Second Life and Play as Being. I've never felt to fit in anywhere I wanted to belong, but Play as Being is perfect in this sense. I honestly feel with this group, that "I" can and does go through any number of transformations and it is fine, because that is so central to our core exploration. That's what I mean about 'safe place'. There are always more aspects to everyone popping up! There are also people I didn't think I could go without hearing from for even one day, who then disappear for long stretches, but I hear their voices at the (literal, virtual, metaphorical) fountain anyway, or people who suddenly become more involved again and you start seeing what you missed with them before. People who you come to expect one thing of who suddenly turn those expectations upside down. 

If I begin to write more directly about individuals, you will never receive these responses at all. Tears come when I even consider doing so. :) So what I'm hoping is that in pulling together my Art of Being exhibit in August, I can highlight a few images to convey more of what I cannot say. Of course, it is hard to find a stand out photo of Agatha looking out for my energies and offering help, or the stunned-into-stillness wonder of everyone listening to Eden's poems and book reports...

It is a very strange group - you really can't pin it down!

4. Please list and/or describe any events you organized or participated in during the last two years. This question is one way to record these events for the Chronicles. (Photographs welcome).

The main thing I've done over the last few years has been to organize the Time Space Knowledge, and (ongoing as I type this) Wisdom of Lived Experience - Views from Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, Philosophy and Metaphysics, book sessions. It is weird to call them book sessions, because again, they become about the group, about how each other experiences the shared endeavor. Both books are especially meaningful to Play as Being in ways that someone who is just meeting us might not realize at first. TSK, because the phrase Play-as-Being came about from a line in the book (as well as Piet and Steven's longtime Ways of Knowing/Kira collaborations), and Wisdom of Lived Experience because Maxine wrote the book while in the very midst of Play as Being involvement. We are even mentioned there. :) 

If I feel any loose ends, it is in the vicinity of TIME.  Even though Pema wrote us this wonderful book, Exploring the Magic of Time, and even though some of us recently went through TSK in a rather focused and devoted way, I still feel that time, or rather timelessness, hasn't come through as intimate knowledge yet (for me). Like Being, Time isn't so easy to talk about. However, one thing I love about PaB is that, although there may be some areas, especially deeply personal areas, where we come to a place of 'not having words', I haven't seen us give up the attempt to come from new angles, like art especially, or to pick something up later and see whether it might be more accessible in a new light. Bleu recently shared that making her (fantastic) TSK avatar helped her to relate to the concepts in the book more; Riddle made a virtual giant body!  I've recently toyed with the idea of making a 'soothing cortex' t-shirt. 

Another thing I've really loved, is hosting retreats. All but a few of the in-world retreats were hosted by me with Eos, who has an especially nice way with setting up our meditations, as well as opening and closing the time/overall intention. Each has had such a distinct texture and impact. It has been quite a while since the last one in July of 2015, even though the group does keep a beautiful retreat house, with design elements by both SophiaSharon and Sunshine. Thankfully, the Original Face group meets there weekly so it stays well tended. :) Probably few people know that in-world PaB retreats were actually started by you, Adams, so that while the first RL retreat was going on, those of us unable to attend, were able to gather somewhat parallel. Back then, the setting was just a few cushions under a few pleasant trees... the seed of an intention. 

To give a taste, during one retreat, we began some of the meditations with poems from a quite interesting Japanese figure named Muso Soseki... someone Hana introduced us to...

Toki-no-Ge

(satori poem)

Year after year
dug in the earth
looking for the blue of heaven
only to feel
the pile of dirt
choking me
until once in the dead of night
I tripped on a broken brick
and kicked it into the air
and saw that without a thought
I had smashed the bones
of the empty sky

-Muso Soseki

5. What has kept you as an active member of the Play-as-Being community?

I started to write something about hope for the world, in ways of dialog and openness, but that's a little lofty and and probably not true, even though there is a strong case that could be made in 'times like these'. :)  I just like it here... fish to water. I like the people I've met, and am still continually learning, as well as being surprised and deeply impressed by everyone on a regular basis. Even I show up differently to myself sometimes. And I feel useful, as though what I can offer, simple as may be and riddled with glitches and redundancies, still matters to the playing out of everything. And I don't think any of us knows what that it is exactly. As Eden brought attention to this morning, the exploration is Alive!