Thresholds of Self and Other
The Ferus Tel Mood Deck is a simple collection of animals that can evoke emotional fluency.
Play it with children to honor the feelings (Ferus) that rise and fall each day.
Thresholds is a game expansion designed for adults. By “adults” we mean: those of us ready to accept accountability for hidden Ferus within. They contain forces that are complex, glorious, and dangerous. I see them also as tools through which we bring ourselves to the precipice of transformation.
We come to Thresholds to attend to their powers,
to befriend our demons,
and declare ourselves whole.
In these 27 Quests (nine designed by yours truly), we dare to meet these Ferus directly and learn to call them by name. Behold as they conspire among themselves to achieve secret purposes The World itself requires of them, of us. I will meet you here in Ferus Tel, at our Thresholds of transformation.
Honing the Saber of
Emotional Intelligence
To understand The World, we must first objectify it. Only by picturing The World in our mind, do we position ourselves in ways to give us some distance, some time, some dimensionality to this experience. As babies, our first Saber quest was to read the cues of our Caretakers. Each and every coo a cue to our own place in an uncertain World. The mind is a Saber that makes The World something each of us alone can fathom.
We objectify the World, as we objectify the Others within it.
Another word for objectifying is “Naming”.
We give names to the multiple feelings we witness in other’s feelings. By objectifying the incongruous parts we find in others, we learn the mysterious signals to turn them toward and away from us. It’s a way of knowing, taming, and owning them so that we can enter the World.
Enter the Ferus Tel Menagerie
Level One Initiation Quest: The Saber
Imagine a person with whom you are currently experiencing conflict. Ask yourself:
“What remains unnamed in what I see in others?”
Scan the Menagerie and observe the names of the moods you might ascribe to that person.
Now give your own personal names to the emotions of the chosen FERUS for that person .
These FERUS are now having a conversation within you. What are they saying to each other?
What conflicts are they experiencing between themselves?
What are the conflicts between them and their world?
What changes does each FERA need to make to resolve their conflicts?
How does this story pertain to the person with whom you are in conflict?
What actions can you offer to help address these internal conflicts?
We come to The World equipped to place our most difficult feelings outside of our bodies and into those of Others. This helps us to create the necessary space to see each feeling’s fuller expression. Occasionally we place the best within us in Others as well; easier to watch the best in an Other become betrayed than to experience that same betrayal as our own. This distance created between Self and Other allows us access to the Saber of Emotional Intelligence.
We wield these sabers intuitively … but The World requires we also learn, when ready, to lay our sabers down.
Projecting our worst onto Others continues until finally a false World is made for the playing out of unchecked, relentless aggressors. An opposite but equally false World of idealistic saviors can arise as we project our best on to Others. These false Worlds, populated by the Dopplegangers of our own true selves, are the quintessential results of unchecked, relentless saber rattling.
The Angels and Demons you find living outside of you, first lived within. Discover the names of the feelings that motivate them and learn to locate them once again within. Only there, can you feed them the Sacred Innocence they crave.