A Child’s Song

In so many ways, we need not worry so much for our children; and this is an easy message to send, if we just remember back to how we ourselves were back then. Sure, we felt a little dependent at times, and a little helpless of course, but the times we felt best were when we were boldly and blindly atop our imaginative horse. Flying toward the hopes and dreams of our future by night and by day, wherever they were, come however they may.

Children know the feeling; what it’s like to be an independent somebody, tuned in to something, someplace far beyond thee. And just like we were then, no child really believes,
that our future so great is someone else’s responsibility. In each child’s pure, even wild lack of concession, they show how they hold the seed of our species’ innate expression. Theirs it is, not ours, and better than us, they are surely to play, so that this seed may truly grow, even though they don’t know, what it will become or how it’ll all go. And so they play with a passion, knowing full well that without this they will not find their feet, nor the way nor the beat, to open and face and traverse the great deep. Some call it the scary unknown, others call it the Great Freedom written on every birth stone.

Joseph Chilton Pearce once said, the great secret to life is play. And play is not easily defined, but rather exhibited by those who do it best, living in love and in closeness with the divine in their chest. Every child born into the world with an open palm, offers a great symbol of life’s eternal song. An open hand shows the openness of the nervous system, connecting every child, woman, and man. Where each little hand is a big, vital part, of our indomitable, whispering, and powerful heart. It’s about something far more significant than health or well-being—it’s a symbol of our higher reach, a connection to life and to the source that is speaking:

Life is a gift! Hold it without keeping. Emulate it by all your courageous births, and the adventure that’s seeking that thrust to give yourself freely to life with a bold open trust.

In every encounter, in every goodbye, this life’s ever-fleeting. Though no life ever ends, it just creates a new meeting. So children trust by design and that’s how they activate the spirit of play, in their eyes and their hands and in every joyful expression and way that they tell a great story without any discretion or worry, they just trust in us parents to impress them the best and to help guide them along. But what ends up mattering most is how happy they are in the song. And equally so, how happy are we? Because they care immensely about us, and this lasts forever, in life, and long ever after. So from Earth to the stars, this message they send: It’s time, yes it’s time, to return to the playpen!

Play was and always is the secret to life. Young, old, curled or unfurled, we need only find out how to do it while immersed in the world; competing or creating, loving or hating. Yet always that something above us aglow. The voice of our story, the wisdom to know. That the best way to play is to row down the stream, seeing the truth that it’s all but a dream. Though the water feels real and the rocks appear hard, there’s always the ethereal light of each luminous star, and the sun and the moon that guides to and fro wherever we go, always within us, as above so below.

There’s a power that takes the first step in our life, and all the steps after. And the last step it takes, though it’s a hard one to face, is the one that brings us right back to the song’s youthful pace. So each child must sing, remembering the song: What are we afraid of? Let’s imitate the life that we are forever made of! And let’s catch up to speed with what each one of us hath. An innate intelligence, and a free open path.

Play was and always is the secret to life.