British psychologist Donald Winnicott coined the phrase ‘transitional object’, referring to the teddy bear or security blanket that a toddler carries about as a link to the safety of Mummy and Daddy and home. Broadening the concept of the transition, he said that play is a ‘transitional space’, providing a fluid, two way link between the child’s internal world, and the external world of reality. In adults, creativity provides the same function.

So when we play, or engage in creative activities (for their own sake rather than with any goal in mind), we’re letting our inner soul communicate with our sensible thinking self (otherwise known as the ego), and with the outside world.

Why is this important for activists to know?

Because it means that play and creativity are not just opportunities to blow off steam, but rather as vital activities in themselves. They’re the bridge between the world inside of us and the world outside. With the magnitude of the issues facing us, we need to cultivate that bridge for several reasons:

1. For regeneration. We need energy going back into our souls, especially when we’re swimming upstream and trying to change the world for the better. Otherwise we’ll burn out. Creativity and play enable the source inside of us to be replenished. Some of us dance, some make music, some paint, some play with kids–whatever we do to play and unfold our creative soul, it’s essential.

2. So that we’re more likely to come up with generative (rather than limiting) solutions. By this I mean solutions that make the previous problem obsolete, or at least render the old ways so much less attractive than the new way that we don’t have to waste energy trying to legislate against them. In my experience that kind of lateral thinking comes best when you’re in a relaxed, slightly dreamy, playful state. Which often has to be cultivated.

Permaculture is good at this. It actively teaches the art of doing as little as possible for the greatest effect. For example, if you want to dig a swale, redirect your cows along the line of it for a few weeks–they’ll make it for you, by walking a shallow runnel into the earth.

3. To create more pleasure, which creates community, since fun is contagious and attractive. We can’t do a thing without community, not really. And the best way to pull people in is to create something irresistably beautiful or enjoyable or captivating.

4. To enable us to start things without getting put off before we even get going, by the magnitude of what needs to be achieved. Apparently Wangari Matthai started with a vision of planting a tree for every person in Kenya, but I know that for myself, it’s easier to start on a small scale, in a “what if we did this?” kind of way.

One of my favourite ways to play in a way that accesses deep soul is nature art. You go out in the woods or down to the beach and make art–mandalas, or arrangements of twigs and stones, or sculptures of assembled branches, or whatever. It can be anything from mud pies to Andy Goldsworthy, and somehow it doesn’t matter. Everyone can do it, and the inner critic has a hard time getting its teeth in. People don’t have a history of being told they’re not good at nature art, so very few find themselves feeling limited. At the end you visit everyone’s piece and enjoy it.

What other ideas do people have?