October 17, 2016

The Landscape Game [Bumped -- SPOILERS "Answers" NOW AVAILABLE]

moonscapeinscenter.jpg

Once Only

almost at the equator
almost at the equinox
exactly at midnight
from a ship
the full

moon

in the center of the sky.
--- Gary Snyder, 1958


I don't remember who first played "The Landscape Game" with me. It would have been many, many years ago. I also don't remember what my answers were to the game's ten questions, but I wish I had written them down. Played once the game is played forever. Once the first answers are lost, they are lost forever.

You can only play The Landscape Game once in your life. Once you know the questions and the interpretations any chance of replying honestly and openly is gone. It is one of those things that, if you know the "solution," makes any further revelation impossible. "The Landscape Game" is true once and once only.

So no peeking by any means. There's no "win" in the game and the only player you can cheat is yourself.

Next Monday you will see why....

For the questions.... AND ANSWERS. WARNING. ANSWERS AT THE END OF THE JUMP.


The good thing about the game is that once it has been played with you, you can then play it with others. The only provision is that those you play it with can never have played it before. If that has happened, the game is not just spoiled, there's no real point to it.

That is because "The Landscape Game" is all about getting to the Real Point; about the revelation of yourself to yourself and to one another. It can be played in groups if the group is trusting of all the people in it. It is often good for there to be a glass or two of wine before playing, but that's not strictly speaking necessary -- giving a massage or making love will do just fine in the absence of wine.

I don't really know the provenance and the origins of "The Landscape Game" with any certainty. I can only repeat here what I was told when it was first given to me. It sounds a bit pat and I'm sure others will know better where it came from, or even the other names by which the game is known. But it is very much a part of the oral tradition, so all I can do is pass along what I know.

"The Landscape Game" is a variation of an ancient Chinese "thought experiment," or means of self-examination and revelation. It is thought to predate the I-Ching ( +/- 2700 BC ), perhaps as a precursor, but nobody is sure exactly when it came into being. It is seldom written down, but is instead passed from person to person across the generations. Those with whom it is played take it and play it with others. And so it goes on.

Like many of the deeper things in this life, "The Landscape Game" is very simple on the surface, but like a stone dropped into the center of a still pond its ripples will spread out.

It takes a minimum of two to play but beyond that any number can play. It could, conceivably, be played in a stadium holding a hundred thousand if one person led and none of the 99,999 others had ever played the game before and were each equipped with a pencil and an index card. (Which you might think about getting for yourself just about now.)

The game consists of ten questions which are always asked in the same order.

The one being asked the questions should think calmly about the answers to each and respond in a detailed manner giving the first clear thought that enters his or her mind. These answers can be written down or simply remembered by those playing the game.

Each question must be answered before the next question is given. There is, however, no clock used in "The Landscape Game" so it can be played across hours, days, weeks, etc.

The only rule is that the person being asked the questions must never have been asked the questions before. In this, the questioner relies on the honesty of the person receiving the questions.

Ready? No? No problem. I'll wait.

Ready? Good. Let's play.

The ten questions of "The Landscape Game" are, in order:

1) You are sleeping and you dream. Describe your dream.

2) You wake up in a house. The house can be anywhere within the world. Describe the house and where it is located in the world.

3) When you wake up, what time is it?

4) You get up and go into the kitchen. What kind of kitchen is in this house?

5) You are going out for a walk. As you go to the door, you notice the trees around the house. How many are there and how are they placed in relation to the house?

6) You are following a winding path of stones and sand, past rocks and dry reeds that rattle and hum in the breeze. You crest a rise and start down. Looking around you see, beside the path, a bowl which you pick up and carry with you. Describe the bowl.

7) The path moves on past ruins, there are false turnings everywhere, but you move straight on. Beside the path you see a key which you pick up and carry with you. What is the key like?

8) The path moves out of a forest into the open. It grows hot. You find yourself at a body of water. What kind of body of water is it and what do you do when you come up to it?

9) You move on along the path and, after some time you come to a wall. What is the wall made of? What you do when you come to it?

10) What lies beyond the wall?

Again, the ten questions are always the same and always given in the same order.

What the ten answers to the ten questions represent is always stated in the same fashion and given in the same order.

I'll tell you what the ten questions mean and represent on Monday, October 17.

In the meantime, you might want to play "The Landscape Game" with yourself. You can either write down your answers in a private notebook, or post them here in the comments. I'll be around.
============================

ANSWERS BELOW

What It All Means
[WARNING: Don't scroll down if you haven't answered the questions above. If you see the meanings before you answer the questions, the game will be spoiled for you.]























































The ten questions of "The Landscape Game" with their meanings are, in order:

1) You are sleeping and you dream. Describe your dream Your dream represents, in some manner, the way you are in the deepest core of your being.

2) You wake up in a house. The house can be anywhere within the world. Describe the house and where it is in the world.
The house represents your self. The location is how you see yourself in relation to the rest of the world.

3) When you wake up, what time is it?
The time you wake up is the time in your life you feel you are at right now.

4) You get up and go into the kitchen. What kind of kitchen is in this house?
The kitchen represents your ideal view of the family -- size and type.

5) You are going out for a walk. As you go to the door, you notice the trees around the house. How many are there and how are they placed in relation to the house?
Trees represent what you like in the way of friends both in number and how many you like close, in the middle distance or far away.

6) You are following a winding path of stones and sand, past rocks and dry reeds that rattle and hum in the breeze. You crest a rise and start down. Looking around you see, beside the path, a bowl which you pick up and carry with you. Describe the bowl.
The bowl is indicative of your aesthetic sensibility, your feeling for art, for what is beautiful.

7) The path moves on past ruins, there are false turnings everywhere, but you move straight on. Beside the path you see a key which you pick up and carry with you. What is the key like?
The key signifies religion and spirituality.

8) The path moves out of a forest into the open. It grows hot. You find yourself at a body of water. What kind of body of water is it and what do you do when you come up to it?
The body of water represents sexuality. What you do when you come up to it represents how you act on that sexuality.

9) You move on along the path and, after some time you come to a wall. What is the wall made of? What you do when you come to it?
The wall stands for death. How you act when you come up to it indicates how you view death.

10) What lies beyond the wall?
What lies beyond death is your view of the afterlife.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 17, 2016 1:49 PM
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10) What lies beyond the wall?

Nothing.
The wall is made of bricks and it goes on forever and you are just one of the bricks in that wall. The wall represents time, and eternity, and numbers 1-9 represent your birth, your big bang theory, and the beginning of eternity in your life.

Posted by: ghostsniper at October 13, 2016 10:46 AM

Ok I'm in.
1. Falling.
2. A cabin in the forest.
3. 3 AM.
4. A small galley kitchen with oak cabinets.
5. Crowded with 100' cedars there are too many to count.
6. A stone bowl, like the Indians used to grind acorns in.
7. A simple, large, tarnished with verdigris, brass key.
8. A small stream, I drink from it.
9. A dry stacked stone wall, I climb over it.
10 A small meadow with tall grass.

Posted by: Allen at October 13, 2016 11:25 PM

@Allen: Inneresting. As I read down through those questions the answers in my mind were almost identical to yours. Then I realized, it ain't a dream - it's real! So I dug deeper.

Posted by: ghostsniper at October 14, 2016 6:35 AM

Weird - I feel like a copycat, and a boring one at that
1) On a ladder underneath an old girlfriend :)
2) Suburban house
3) 5 AM
4) Smallish kitchen with light wood cabinetry
5) Mowed yard ringed with many tall trees - mixed variety
6) Earthenware - brownish/blue, small but thick-walled
7) Tarnished brass skeleton, filigree handle
8) Stream with a deep clear pool, drink and get in
9) Low stacked stone, waste high - sit on it for a bit then cross over
10) Overgrown meadow with more forest beyond - deciduous and evergreen

Posted by: Right makes might at October 14, 2016 6:57 AM

I was napping and dreaming, woke up and read this post. So the first three anwers are my actual dream.
1. I realize I am living in a beautiful house. My husband is holding a sweet baby (I realize it is our grandchild) in his lap. The baby has been crying and his eyelashes are wet. Then out of the blue he says a complete sentence in very distinct words. I laugh.
2. A beautiful house on a hill in the neighborhood where I currently reside (which has no hills).
3. 1:30 p.m.
4. Very old world traditional.
5. There are three trees, two to the right of the door and one to the left. They are small and one is flowering.
6. Large porcelain blue willow.
7. Large heavy antique brass.
8. The ocean. Stop and look.
9. Old sun-warmed brick. Sit on it a while.
10. A flower filled meadow.

Posted by: Bunny at October 14, 2016 10:31 AM

Ooh, interesting! My answers are totally different from everyone else's!

1. I've just committed a murder. The police investigate, I lie very calmly and fluently, and get away with it. Years go by, and I am forever haunted by the knowledge that I am a murderer. (This is an actual recurring dream I used to have.)

2. An old stone house in the heart of the old town of Freiburg in Germany.

3. 7:00 AM

4. Big, and very old with big yellow flagstones, and an unused large fireplace on one side of the wall.

5. There are no trees; this house is in the center of the town. But there are trees on the mountain that rises behind the town.

6. Polished cherrywood; it's large enough to hold with both hands.

7. Large, black iron.

8. It's a river, with a small pool fed by a small waterfall. I kneel down to drink.

9. It's tall, made of large grey stones and mortar. I back up to try to see where it ends.

10. A garden.

Posted by: Dr. Mabuse at October 14, 2016 12:57 PM

Interesting dream and moniker, Dr. Mabuse.

Posted by: Bunny at October 14, 2016 3:54 PM

I dream that I am swimming in clear, deep sunlit water and I can breathe.
I am in a small Japanese house, on a hillside overlooking a partly misty, rural valley.
From the light, it seems to be about 8am.
The kitchen is simple and in keeping with the style of the house. There is a wooden table.
I exit the front door on to a porch. Four medium-sized pine trees grow near the house; two on each side of the door, towards the corners of the house.
The bowl looks Asian; it is matte black and a little larger than a typical rice bowl.
The key is a large, ornate old iron skeleton key.
I come to a large pond. I step to the edge to try to spot any life in the clear water.
Ahead there is a wall of large grey weathered stone, like a castle.
Beyond the wall lies a beach and the sea.

Posted by: rigeldog at October 16, 2016 11:17 AM

1) I am trying to drive a car but I cannot move my feet or arms or open my eyes – sometimes I discover that I am in the backseat
2) an empty mid 20th century house, split level, on a cliff above the Atlantic ocean. White walls, no furniture. Billowing curtains blow inward through open windows. No lights are on, just a early morning glow from outside
3) five am
4) Basic modern kitchen, counter with stools, breakfast nook beyond that. Electric coffee maker is on and full
5) 60 or so very tall oaks, elms, birches, maples and so on planted away from the house- like a natural fence around a cleared space
6) Japanese pottery. A cream colored bowl with gray and green washes- a black jagged crack
7) Enormous heavy old-fashioned key encrusted with sand. It has a trefoil handle as big as my palm
8) a deep, clear, cold glacial pool near a visible waterfall surrounded by trees and boulders. I dive in and swim.
9) natural stone, New England style. I sit on the wall, rest, and look around
10) a clearing with a huge old apple tree with red apples. I did not climb over the wall in question #9 but now I might

Posted by: Ekavenaugh at October 17, 2016 10:52 AM

1) It’s my recurring Opa dream. He comes to me in a dream (a dream within the dream), telling me that the gold coins that he left when they moved out of the old house are buried in the back yard, but that I need to hurry and go retrieve them tonight, as the current owners of the house will discover them tomorrow. I go to the old house, into the backyard, and to the flagstone patio and fireplace on the north side of the small yard. There is a wood bin on the right side of the fireplace, and in a hidden compartment in the bottom, I find an old tin box, containing the gold, plus Opa’s old German uniform from WWII (only it is an officer’s uniform, not an enlisted man’s), and his old Luger pistol.
2) I’m in an old white, two-story farmhouse, with clapboard siding and a fairly steep, green roof. The kind of 100-year-old house with high ceilings and a wrap-around porch. It’s somewhere in farm country, flat land surrounded by fields.
3) I wake up at 9:00 a.m.
4) The kitchen is white, with well-maintained painted cabinets and tile countertops, circa 1940s or 1950s, with clean, well-maintained appliances of the same age, and a large farm table in the middle of the room.
5) There are windbreak trees, tall poplars or cottonwoods, on the right side of the house, with an enormous oak or cottonwood tree in the front and to the right of the door, at least 6 feet in diameter.
6) It is a plain, round, shallow bowl made of dark wood, with just an oil finish.
7) The key is a large iron skeleton key.
8) It is a small pond, maybe 30 yards across, surrounded by grass and reeds. I stand on the edge of the pond, listening to the insects and frogs.
9) It is a 5 foot tall stone wall, dry-fitted cut grey stones with rough faces.
10) A wild meadow, with pine forest beyond.

Posted by: The Hammertoss at October 17, 2016 3:13 PM

1. I dream that I am in a place that I recognize in the dream but not in real life, doing nothing very interesting.
2. A medium-sized cedar cabin, not remodeled since the early '70s.
3. 7:30 AM
4. '70s-type kitchen; neat and clean.
5. A dense pine forest with a thick layer of needles on the ground.
6. A tan-colored stoneware bowl; thin walls, about the size of a cereal bowl, and bearing a dark reddish-brown zigzag around the outside.
7. A large, rusty and somewhat ornate iron key.
8. An irregular coastline with a few rocky islands nearby. I do some beachcombing and return to the path.
9. A 7-foot-high wall made of irregularly-sized stones and mortar. I turn right and follow it to see where it goes.
10. There is an open landscaped area beyond the wall, like a park or a terraced lawn.

Posted by: Golem14 at October 17, 2016 3:24 PM

1. I am in the middle of a swinging bridge, with a very deep chasm beneath me. The bridge breaks and I fall. I wake up before I hit bottom.
2. I am in a japanese house, very clean, uncluttered, with beautiful light.
3. It is 11:00 am.
4. It is a simple, clean kitchen, with a small stove and a wooden picnic style table with a bench. There is a kettle on the stove and a tea set on the table.
5. There are three tall trees at the end of a path some distance from the house; there is beautiful shrubbery of differing heights on the path, and surrounding the trees.
6. The bowl is a large, smooth wooden bowl, probably bamboo.
7. It is a big, wooden key, with japanese characters inscribed on it.
8. It is a pond - I look at my reflection. I don't disturb the stillness of the water.
9. The wall is made of stone. I look for an opening.
10. Heaven lies beyond the wall.


Posted by: Lynne Wolfe at October 17, 2016 8:08 PM

1) Dreaming of flying.

2) A beautiful old Victorian in a rural area of the northern midwest; say, Wisconsin or Michigan.

3) Around 10:30. The sun is shining, and it's a beautiful day.

4) Spacious, sunny old-fashioned kitchen (30s-40s) with very large antique stove and a table with many wooden chairs.

5) Several fir trees surround the house at all distances.

6) Large, unadorned, high-fire ceramic bowl with a rich cobalt blue glaze.

7) Simple cloudy tarnished key that proves, on further examination, to be silver or platinum.

8) A serene lake surrounded by trees, birds and vegetation. I sit on the shore and watch the waves come in and the clouds along the horizon in the late afternoon.

9) An old, low stone wall.

10) Sunny green fields.

Posted by: ahem at October 17, 2016 9:50 PM

1) I dream I am on a journey. Walking.
2) I awaken in an isolated house in a rural setting.
3) Dawn
4) The kitchen is lined with cabinets. Stone top counters. Plenty of room to work. An old dinette table to sit for breakfast. Windows beside a back door.
5) Two pecan trees shade the house. Elm trees make wind breaks farther out. Oak and bois d'ark make a woods down the hill on which the home sits.
6) The bowl is a thick walled white ceramic bowl like that a pharmacist would use to mix ingredients.
7) brass skeleton key
8) the water is a cool , clear lake. I drink and we my head and shoulders.
9) The wall is a stone wall. I walk along it until I find the gate and pass through.
10) Beyond the wall is more landscape that turns to mountains and fades to blue and great distance.

Posted by: Odins Acolyte at October 18, 2016 9:34 AM

Wow. Interesting.

I ain't so bad.

Posted by: Odins Acolyte at October 18, 2016 9:43 AM

well now ... that was interesting. thanks G

Posted by: DeAnn at October 19, 2016 11:23 AM

1. I often dream of attempting to prove my credibility to others, and I fail.
2. I wake up early morning in a sun-drenched room in the Philippines. Roosters are crowing and there's wind in the trees.
3. I wake about 8:00 am.
4. Minimal cement kitchen with bare essentials.
5. Coconut trees are plentiful and everywhere.
6. The bowl is an old discarded coconut husk.
7. The key is rusting and primitive.
8. The water is the ocean. I wade in waist deep.
9. The wall is mostly cement embedded with crusty rocks. I admire the green lichen, moss, sea shells and vines w/flowers. Birds live within the wall.
10. A path winds upwards to an uppermost cliff offering a wide view of the ocean.

Posted by: Tom Hyland at October 19, 2016 9:27 PM

Thank you sir. I'll play:

1. Am dreaming that a woman I knew in college is visiting our home and admiring the paintings we have on our walls. She is drawn in particular to a painting by another woman we know, who was victimized in her youth. I know that this is a dream because my wife and I do not actually own any works by this painter. I marvel at the perceptiveness of our visitor, who I knew as a laughing, mischievous girl in our teens. Now she is thoughtful, reflective. In the dream I think that she must be very good at her profession as a psychologist.
2. I wake in a beach bungalow beside the Pacific Ocean in southern California.
3. It is ten a.m. when I awaken.
4. The kitchen has a double glass door facing the beach. The counter is reddish, is open to both the kitchen and the front-room.
5. As I go out for a walk I look at the three palm trees in front of the house, two between the sidewalk and the street, and one at the north edge of the lawn in front of the house.
6. As I go along the path I see what looks like a bowl. It is a half coconut shell. I pick it up.
7. Beside the path I see a very old, large metal key, encrusted with corrosion from having been in the ocean, but still functional.
8. I find that the path leads by the Pacific. I take off my shoes and dip my toes in the water.
9. The path leads to a low wall of large, loosely piled stones. I sit on it facing the ocean.
10. Beyond the wall, to my back, is a farmer’s field, plowed, seeded, but not yet sprouted.

Grew up near the beach in So Cal but haven't lived there since '62. Thanks for letting me play the Landscape Game. Thanks to the others who played.

Posted by: Walt Gottesman at October 21, 2016 4:29 PM

Excellent. I trust the answers as given above have brought some interesting reflections.

Posted by: Vanderleun at October 21, 2016 5:15 PM