The Play Ceremony Aesthetic

The aesthetic event is a dynamic interplay between self and other. An aesthetic event is an unexpected experience of an other in front of one... a new unexplained otherness to the all-encompassing everything of one’s self. This new awareness of an other in front of one triggers an awareness, a confrontation, with the other within and our very idea of self. We become aware of our “created me” as a defense from the awe of our universality and the pain of our uniqueness. 

During the aesthetic event, we use the gifts of perception and feeling to acquire and work the human tools of listening and feeling. We do so to uncover and learn awareness, compassion, and play. In this way, play becomes ceremony... and the play of art is understood as skill, the skill of uncovering and learning awareness and compassion.

-Paul Rude, ©2007

Paul Rude ©2012, All Rights Reserved