Playing Cards for Good 🌳

Ahoy Wizards,

As a commitment to my craft, I'm hosting a weekly IRL Card Meetup and I'd be delighted to have your company.

Each week we'll play with different decks and create cards to bring more joy and delight to our magnificent world. It is also a space to bring your existing ideas and get them cardified together with other Card Wizards.

This is a community event. Bring food to share or a contribution to the Money Pile, and let me know that you want to come (makes hosting sooo much easier). If you want me to let you know about the upcoming meetup, ping me on telegram, twitter, or whatever other channel we're using.

Btw, the meetup is a movable one - it goes wherever I go, which is Amsterdam for now and Berlin right before the New Year.

What follows, is the story from the first Wild Wizards meetup.

Whoever is there is the right person.

Yet, I felt kinda sad that no one responded to my invitation to the first Wild Wizards Card Meetup in Amsterdam. Sad panda 🐼.

And then, as always:

Playa Provides.

Two dear friends from my Sheepy Ship camp at Nowhere dropped into Amsterdam, with no coordination and precisely at the right time. Another wizard (and sheep-in-the-making) followed, perhaps pulled by the interpersonal gravity field, and suddenly four of us convened aboard the historic flatbottom kliperaak Chateauroux to play cards together.

What a team to kickoff the weekly meetup. Baaaaaaaaah!!! 🐑💚

I roasted veg, prepared desserts, and set up the table with Akindado Extended - a deck compiled of cards created by people experiencing Akinado Nada Nissa, which is a magic deck, created together with Jasmeen and Silvia.

Here's the original Akinado:

Akinado Extended is the perfect catalyst to drop into the space of playful depth.

People open up, creative juices start to flow, and the mysterious weaving of the present moment and the stories of each card pulled unfolds. After all, every card comes with a story of its creator and how it was made, which adds another dimension to the experience, especially if there's a clear synchronicity.

Here's a pic of cards created during one session at Somewhere in the Cosmic Feathers Dome - and two of them appeared at the meetup:

Add in the Wild Cards prototype, the Superhero deck, a few gadgets to play with (eg. money - real and fake) and the space to play was ready.

(There was also one more deck present, but I’ll keep it for another story.)

A few moments later the first cards of the evening were being pulled:

And not much later, cards were being made - and that's the moment that always makes me shiver.

Each card pulled and drawn brought a story, a moment of sharing, a playful interaction, a memory. The constant fluctuation between profound soul sharing and joyful play nourished us for the hours ahead.

One of the mechanics I am constantly exploring is how to decentralise my role of a facilitator and make space for people to take the lead.

Each session is an experiment. This time I pulled the Dealer Card from the Roles deck, and asked who wants to become the Dealer for tonight, which came with the responsibility of dealing Blanks, and the possibility to step into the shoes of a funky casino-style card dealer.

(Who made this card? Was this you? Let me know because I need to thank you!)

This stuff is gold, btw, just saying. If you want to learn more pro tips then I wholeheartedly invite you to subscribe to my humble substack for Card Wizards like you.

Here's the picture of the final beautiful mess:

That's it for today! If you want join the Weekly Card Meetup, let me know via telegram or twitter.

Have a wonderful day and thank you for Being ⛵
Michał