Refurbishing the Sand Box

by Richard Reeve on April 20, 2009

in Sand Box

img00277-20090419-1309One of our family values is the Imaginal.  In order to cultivate the imagination in ourselves and in our children, it is crucial to create specific locations where reverie might find free play. There’s the play room, the painting studio, the study…Yesterday was spent refurbishing the sand box out back for our youngest.

It’s amazing how we can shape spaces.  Nothing but white sand and some four by fours.  The sand a stage floor that invites a visceral engagement not to be found outside the wooden ties that define the boundary of the sacred space.  Though she had never played in one before, she took to it immediately.

I think it’s time to re-read Peter Brook’s The Empty Space.

(One joyous side note: yesterday we greeted a mink that has taken up residence here with us.  All day this little fellow was scurrying around, popping his/her(?) head out of the most curious crevices.)

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  • Hey Sid, I look forward to further discussions about Brook with you.

  • The notion of the sandbox as an empty space in Brook's sense is interesting, His theater which many see as intensely intellectual is in fact rooted inour childhood sense of play. Is the sandbox our first stage in which we begin to find our roles in the world?

  • We moved into our current home about 5 years ago and have intended ever since to decorate our living room. In reading this I realized why we haven't - it is our white space for imagination. Sometimes it has a big tent in it where our daughter will play with her dolls and her friends for a few weeks in a row. It has been a gymnastics studio, an art room, and a game room. The furniture is easily moved out of the way, the windows are large and the ceilin gis high. A perfect place to imagine

  • Hey Susan,
    That's a neat revelation. Amazing how sometimes our unconscious resistance to change is well founded.

  • Hi Fred...
    For teenagers my mind first goes to the garage band...or the basement. It's tough, as the at-risk teens I work with struggle to engage the imagination in a healthy way. The tendency is to only see as a tool for escape instead of a pathway to a wider reality.

  • Yea! Simple spaces. Room to think. No Play Rules (other than don't throw the sand.) Now just need to think up the equivalent for my teenagers.

    <abbr>Fred H Schlegel´s last blog post..Physics and Ideation: When Does A Breakthrough Idea Become An Acceptable Idea?</abbr>

  • Richard...

    Thank you for sharing this and reminding us of the simple pleasures that are bigger than the beautiful expanse of the universe! :~)

    Your little one in deep contemplation of discovery is a state we as adults forget to visit anymore. :~)

    (Interesting that my photo post today is about "spaces" albeit, this one of the long ago past)

    <abbr>Henie´s last blog post..Sliver of Past</abbr>

  • Hi Henie,

    next up on this home front...a rope swing...

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