philosophical

Four Winds

World GamesAmor FatiFour WindsAdinkraAW Crossing-Borders

Dialogue guide

The ‘Four Winds’ take you on a journey of discovery in four rounds, around the colourful dialogue tablecloth, full of symbolism. These symbols enrich your conversation with mythological wisdom and intercultural perspectives.

Through a dialogue guide, you explore a challenging issue as group of friends, family or team, or, each individual can investigate their own question with the group.

Depending on the size of the group (2 to 8 players), the game will be completed in two hours, half a day or a full day.

It is also possible to engage a host dialogue coach from the Quest for wisdom foundation.

The art of listening, asking questions and answering authentically

In four rounds of dialogue ― visible as the four circles on the dialogue tablecloth ― participants move from the outside in, to the inner circle in which the Four Winds are depicted.

Images tell a story

The colours on the dialogue table refer to the four elements earth, water, air and fire. These are connected in the game with a basic symbol, which opens a space for encounter, such as the eye as a ‘mirror of the soul’.

“I dreamed I was a butterfly… or am I a butterfly dreaming of being a human?”
Zhuang Zi (369-286 BCE)

The four rounds

  1. Dialogue tablecloth Four Winds
    In the first round, the images (and rich objects) in the outer circle of the dialogue tablecloth invite participants to imagine the theme they want to investigate.
  2. In the second round you are given one of the eight symbols for philosophical tools with intercultural perspectives: these represent qualities for the art of living to be able to deal with the issue more wisely.
  3. In the third round, you roll the coloured dice and see which creature or animal you encounter in the mythical landscape on the dialogue tablecloth. How could the virtues and vices, as well as divine qualities that they embody, help you to realise the good life?
  4. For the fourth round, the wind rose in the four elementary colours on the dialogue tablecloth visualizes the four cardinal directions, from which the harvest of the game might help to get the issue in the right direction. Participants describe their harvest from the dialogue on the Game Fill-in form as a quatrain.
  • Cards with intercultural perspectives, rich objects around the playful dialogue table.
    Rich objects to enrich the dialogue
  • Duration: 2 hours to one (half) day in a small group up to 8 players.

Playing material

  • ISBN: 9789492127150 Four Winds

Also in a Dutch version:

  • ISBN: 9789492127143 Vier Winden

Box with:

  • Dialogue Guide:
    explaining the game and the symbols
  • Playing Field:
    1 Dialogue table cloth
  • Game attributes:
    1 mirror;
    1 key;
    1 hourglass as rich object on the Dialogue table;
    Small weights;
    1 quintessence marble;
    1 small talking stick;
    1 hour glass
  • Playing Cards:
    8 Philosophical Tools with Western perspectives
    8 Philosophical Tools with intercultural perspectives
  • Fill-in forms:
    Double sided with instructions for writing a quatrain

Revised edition of the Beeldendialoogspel
Purchase: Vier Winden (NL)

Purchase: Four Winds (EN)
Inquire info@questforwisdom.org

Update 2022-09

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Masquerade Game: Meeting Strange Others!

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Masks and the wisdom in live encounters: the strange other — within yourself

Jester (Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto, Italy) — photo by Joke Koppius

With the masquerade game you explore the social masks that we all wear and the art of meeting each other in a small group. The game lets you play with kingly wisdom and foolish tricks! It invites you to see the interplay between people as a masquerade and to meet the strange other (in yourself) and thereby unmask yourself and others.

Playing with masks teaches one to find a good balance between identification with functional role(s) and total detachment to your own form of social engagement.

ISBN: 978-90-822774-5-6 — Masquerade Game: meeting strange others!

  • Playing with social masks and tapping into your own jester and king to wisdom
  • The Masquerade Game provides an introduction to the Hero Game: play yourself!
  • Duration: at least one half day, for 3 to 6 players.
  • A workshop ‘demasqué’, also available an in-company program, with a multitude of the game material for groups of teams of up to 24 people: to strengthen relational qualities and developmental processes by giving attention to nasty encounters, bad feelings in collaboration and confrontations in work contexts.

Playing Materials

Part of  Masquerade Game: Meeting Strange Others!

Box containing:

  • Playing field:
    1 Nasty Encounters
  • Play Attributes:
    1 Hourglass (of about 3 minutes);
    1 six Colour Dice;
    6 Coloured Pencils;
    8 mask holders
  • Playing Cards:
    8 Nasty creaturers;
    8 Royal Wisdom
  • Playing tokens:
    8 Symbols of Encountering

Working Materials:

  • 1 Instruction Guide with
    8 Fill-in form for the exercises in the game;
    8 Format for making the mask;

Inquire: info@questforwisdom.org.

Update 2022-07

Masquerade Game: Meeting Strange Others! Read More »

Compassion Game: The Good Life!

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Passion as wisdom on elementary paths of research in order to develop the good (working) life

The Compassion Game appeals to the passions of players to align their course in life and career with their own inner compass. The game assignments are aimed at imagining and articulating the meaning of the good life in relation to tragedy. A playful introduction to research traditions from the perspective of philosophical counseling.

Using the symbolism of the four elements and mythological stories, you are invited to explore a personal fascination hand in hand with a theme from your own professional practice.

Compassion Game: the good life!

In the 6th century BCE natural philosophers debated which of the four elements contains the origin of life.

An investigative approach to this question marks the transition from a magical-mythical experience of the world to a rational worldview.

ISBN: 978-94-92127-05-1 — Kompassiespel: het goede leven!

  • The Compassion Game for developing the good (working) life provides a playful introduction to research paradigms and to Levensvisiespel: Visualize your inner compass!
  • Duration: two half-days, for 3 to 6 players.

Playing materials

Box contains:

  • Playing Field:
    1 the Labyrinth
  • Playing Attributes:
    1 six Colour Dice;
    1 Hourglass (of about 10- 15 minutes)
    1 CD Dream travelling and Heroic Dreams (Droomreizen en Heldendromen) with 22 songs
  • Playing Cards and Tokens:
    4*5 Cards with Elementary Ways;
    4*6 Cards with Places of Destination;
    2*4 Tokens with Symbols of Power
  • Working Materials:
    1 Instruction Guide with
    8 Fill-in form for the exercises in the game

Purchase: Compassion Game

Inquire and purchase: info@questforwisdom.org.

Art Dialogue Methods (ADM)

ADM is the research variant of the board game Know Yourself, the Compassion Game, and has contributed to the development of the Body of Knowledge and Skills of the master’s degree program in counselling at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and at Arnhem and Nijmegen Universities of Applied Sciences.

By playing the game with the involvement of teachers, the symbolism of the game has co-creatively led to the development of concepts of research qualities; such as the dynamic interplay between the ‘power symbols’ of the eye, the heart, the spiral and the hand, which has been interpreted as the methodical interplay of different voices inside oneself: mythos, pathos, logos and ethos.

This methodology has been developed into the Art Dialogue Methods (ADM), a developmental oriented approach in change processes and action research. A forthcoming textbook will be published about ADM, and there have been articles published in professional magazines (in NL): een artikelen reeksBegeleidingskundig-Handelingsonderzoek-MBK

Update 2022-07

Compassion Game: The Good Life! Read More »

Hero Game (also outdoors): Play Yourself!

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Play yourself in the mirror of an inspiring role model

SPlayers look in the Mirror of Life with their own heroes and favorite fairy tales. What motivational figure or story do you remember from your childhood? Is there a living hero that inspires you right now? Following the path of an inspiring person (a living, legendary or fictional hero or heroine) in the game enables players to (re)orient themselves on their own path of life.

ISBN: 978-90-822774-6-3 — Heldenspel: speel je zelf!

  • Dynamic Game for discovering your motives and drives by following the way of living of your hero
  • Duration: two half-days, for 3 to 6 players.

Playing Materials

Box contains:

Hero Game: play yourself!
  • Playing fields:
    1 Mirror of Hero’s;
    1 Field of Ordeals
  • Playing attributes:
    1 Six Colours Dice;
    1 Sand Glass;
    8 Quintessence drops;
    2*4 Elements of Happiness;
    1 CD Dream travelling and Heroic Dreams (Droomreizen en Heldendromen) with 22 songs
  • Playing Cards and Tokens:
    8 Cards with Principles of Happiness;
    8 Cards with Weapons;
    8 Cards with Magical Helpers;
    8 Tokens with symbols of power of the way chosen;
    8 Rings with Hope and Fear;
    8 Tokens with Quintessence Qualities
  • Working Materials:
    1 Instruction Guide with
    8 Fill-in form for the exercises in the game

Purchase: Hero Game

Inquire and purchase: info@questforwisdom.org.

Live-give, a rap from Henry Muldrow — Stichting Culturele Droomwevers! Listen:

Read (NL): Heldenspel-workshop


Hero Game Outdoors: Play Yourself!

Outside in nature or inside in a special location

ISBN: 978-94-92127-01-3 — Heldenbuitenspel: speel je zelf!

  • Outdoor Hero Game for teambuilding as well as for developing personal and collective values
  • Duration: two half-days, for 6 to 16 players, for groups of up to 24 players per team.
  • Also as activity for children!

Playing Materials

Comparable to the Hero Game

The Hero Game taps into the power to dream about life.

I dreamed I was a butterfly …
or maybe I am a butterfly dreaming of … ?

Inquire and purchase: info@questforwisdom.org

Update 2022-07

Hero Game (also outdoors): Play Yourself! Read More »

Dream Game: Follow your Wish!

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Board Game to follow your wish in a dreamlike landscape

Game Board of Dream Game: Follow your Wish!

A preliminary round is based on a creative exercise that depicts the dream wish of the players and determines their starting position, linked to their chosen element (earth, water, air, fire) and their chosen attitude in life. Players then place their pawn on one of the eight frames with principles of happiness through which they enter the dreamlike landscape on the game board. They choose a game supervisor from among themselves who will guide the group through the game on the basis of the Instruction Guide.

The journey then begins by following the labyrinthine paths with mythical-philosophical symbols in five rounds, devoted to life themes.

In a ‘harvesting’ seventh round on the elemental Places of Arrival, the players reflect on their individual journies and its significance for their (working) everyday life.

The Power of Interplay and Dialogue

The dialogues around the game board introduce mythical-philosophical perspectives, tapping into the intuitive knowledge of the players. It is precisely the enigmatic questions and symbols that add an out-of-the-box and metaphorical language about everyone’s dreams and wishes, while the game cards shed light on the insights gleaned from the philosophical art of living. Players are invited to give meaning to what is at stake, and explore the situation into which they have been thrown by the dice (symbolic of chance or destiny). What leeway do you see and how do you give direction on your path of life?

In-between space …

Workshop Dream Game: Follow your wish!

Playing the game calls for some self-reflection, and yet at the same time it is appealing to meet each other in the ‘in-between space’ which is created. Both individually and in a small group, you wander a labyrinthine path across the game board: a landscape full of symbolism. By letting the visual language and the myths speak, an ‘as if’ space is created. While travelling, your own life feels like a dream and your dreams come true…

The game rounds are devoted to basic life themes: authenticity, education, ups and downs, crises and tragedy, encounters on life’s journey and finding your destiny (the centre of the game board). While making choices in the game, players will experience the existential tension between the power of destiny and following your own course, necessary to find your own true orientation in life.

ISBN: 978-90-822774-7-0 — Droomspel: doe je droomwens!

  • Wisdom game for investigating a personal motivation and guiding values in life and work contexts, by playfully practicing the philosophical and mythical art of living.
  • Duration: 1 day to six half-days, for 3 to 8 players.
  • Also applicable for groups and teams of up to 24 people (with a counsellor and suitable working materials) to explore the interplay between personal and professional values and to empower relational qualities and enhance developmental processes.

Playing Materials

2 Boxes containing:

Dream Game: Follow your wish!
  • Board game, Playing Fields en Overview:
    1 game board Landscape of happiness;
    1 playing field Dreaming in the Mirror of Myths;
    1 playing field Alchemy of the Soul;
    1 playing field Temple of Life’s Riddles;
    1 Overview per round of playing cards and rings
  • Playing cards and rings:
    3*32 Cards of rounds;
    3*4 Cards of Elementary way’s;
    6 rings with forces of prosperity and adversary;
    20 Cards of Destiny
  • Playing attributes:
    1 sic coloured dice;
    1 whirlabout;
    1 hourglass (of about 3 minutes);
    1 CD Dream travelling and Heroic Dreams (Droomreizen en Heldendromen) with 22 songs
  • Playing figures/ pawns:
    2 green, 2 red, 2 yellow en 2 blue wooden playing figures;
    2 green, 2 red, 2 yellow en 2 blue hats for the playing figures
  • 120 Elements of happiness:
    30 green — Earth;
    30 red — Fire;
    30 yellow — Air;
    30 blue — Water
  • Working materials:
    1 Instruction Guide with
    8 Fill-in form for the exercises in the game My Life’s Myth.

Inquire: info@questforwisdom.org

Explore the motivational power of dreams!

Read more (NL): Het innerlijk kompas door Heidi Muijen, supervisie en coaching
See (NL): Workshop cyclus met het Droomspel
Video (NL) over de filosofie van het spel en de opbouw van de spelronden.

Philosophical Lantern in the Round of Education

Update 2022-07

Dream Game: Follow your Wish! Read More »

Vision game: Visualize your inner compass!

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Wisdom for tuning your inner compass

In a preliminary round, players become acquainted with the symbolism of the natural elements and the philosophical art of living as the basis of the game. This is expressed on the cards and playing fields with pithy sayings, such as those of Herakleitos of Ephesus (in present-day Turkey, around 600 BC):

Boundaries of the soul you will not find, however far you go and whatever road you walk, so deep is its ground.

Players choose a game leader from among themselves who will lead the tour group through the game using the Game Guide. Then the journey starts with the five game rounds on the game board and a final (seventh) afterplay round, in which players harvest from the game.

Each round of the game allows players to reflect on an important theme of the philosophical art of living. The game counsellor encourages the players to reflect on their own life themes and questions, enriched by the philosophical and mythical perspectives on the playing cards. As a result, philosophical insights come to life and personal themes are deepened in a dialogue with each other.

Playing figures Vision game

After each game round with dialogic exchange around mythical and philosophical perspectives, players express and imagine their own vision of the (life) theme that has been raised. Rolling the dice leaves players interested in a situation, symbolic of being ‘thrown into life’. Conducting a dialogue with each other is an exercise in giving meaning to life and being aware of the scope for designing life as a work of art according to the philosophical art of living. The symbols on the game board invite to associative thinking and thus to confront one’s own view in a playful way and to make a connection with questions in life.

At the end of the journey across the game board, participants have visualized and expressed their own vision on the themes addressed on the Game Form.

Tune your inner compass and develop your vision in life by means of the philosophical art of living!

ISBN: 978-90-822774-9-4 — Levensvisiespel: stem je innerlijk kompas!

  • Wisdom game for developing the art of living by tuning your inner compass.
  • Duration: 3 to 9 half-days, for 3 to 8 players.
  • With a multitude of game material also applicable for groups and teams of up to 24 people: in work contexts to empower and develop ethical perspectives on working issues and to get acquainted with a philosophical art of living.

Playing materials

Box containing:

  • Board game, Playing fields, Overview:
    1 Board game of the Art of Living;
    1 Playing field Philosophical Compass;
    2 Playing field Alchemie of Collaboration;
    2 Playing field Ethical Perspectives;
    1 Overview Tokens of Qualities
  • Playing Cards and RIngs:
    2*32 Cards of Rounds;
    20 Cards of Elementaire Way’s;
    6 Rings with Moral Motives;
    24 k Cards of Destiny
  • Working materials:
    1 Instruction Guide with
    8 double Fill-in form for the exercises in the game ‘Research form’ en ‘Visualizing my life vision’;
  • Tokens with elementary qualities:
    4*4 Course in life (green, red, yellow and blue);
    4*4 Education (green, red, yellow and blue);
    4*4 Reflection (green, red, yellow and blue);
    4*4 Crisis (green, red, yellow and blue)
Vision Game: visualise your inner compass!!
  • Playing attributes:
    1 CD Dream travelling and Heroic Dreams (Droomreizen en Heldendromen) with 22 songs;
    1 six coloured dice;
    1 whirlabout;
    1 hourglass (of about 3 minutes)
  • Playing figures:
    2 green, 2 red, 2 yellow and 2 blue Playing figures with symbol; respectively eye, hand, head and heart

Inquire: info@questforwisdom.org

Read more (NL): Levensvisiespel-workshopcyclus 

Update 2022-07

Vision game: Visualize your inner compass! Read More »

Existential Play: follow your own path!

Playful DialoguesDialogue Table  — Playful Dialogue Table — Quintessence PlayQuest PlayPythia PlayExistential Play

Dialogue on existential questions with ethical perspectives

Four sets of cards accompanying the four rounds in the dialogue

The Existential play introduces philosophical and mythological perspectives for conducting a moral dialogue within a small group. In a preliminary round, one chooses who will guide the game as a dialogue facilitator. All other participants enter the game with their chosen personal dilemma, existential question or theme in life and/or in their career.

The game and dialogue facilitator ensures that in each round everyone’s problem, theme or question is addressed. At the same time, there will be a collective dialogical exploration in which players ask each other in-depth questions and reflect on the different symbols in the game that are linked to mythological and philosophical narratives.

During the four dialogical rounds, the players enrich their insights to the question or theme at stake, as well as critically examine their normative beliefs on the basis of:

  • the philosophy on the art of living and the good life
  • the morality of obedience versus the ideal of mastery in life
  • the morality of autonomy and makeability of life
  • the existential loyalty to oneself and the ability to play with a plurality of perspectives

By examining your theme in the game as a moral issue, you are introduced to ethical perspectives in a playful manner. Playing the game will not provide a univocal answer, but rather, players will spin off their problem, theme or question as a moral thread on life’s journey.

ISBN: 978-90-822774-4-9 — Existentiespel: volg je weg!

  • Duration: one (half) to one full day, for 4 to 6 players.

Playing material

Box contains:

  • 4 Playing fields in the instruction guide:
    1 Elementary happiness;
    1 Existential motives;
    1 Temple of moral riddles;
    1 Inner compass;
  • Playing attributes:
    1 colour dice;
    1 hourglass of about 5 minutes;
    1 whirl about
  • Playing cards:
    2*8 Good and evil;
    2*8 Mythical signs;
    2*8 Philosophical signs;
    2*8 Philosophical tools
  • Working materials:
    1 instruction guide with dialogical exercises and
    8 Fill-in forms (double sided)
Playing cards, fill-in form and playing attributes for the Existential Play

Inquire: info@questforwisdom.org

Update 2022-07

Existential Play: follow your own path! Read More »

Quest 1: Wisdom Web

The Wisdom Web is a forum dedicated to the intercultural art of living.

At its core are values of inclusion of different cultures and the beauty of being different.

Quest 1 Wisdomweb

At the Wisdom Web, wisdom from all over the world is collected and presented in a special symbolic way.

In this sense, collecting, arranging, developing and presenting — via the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living — takes place in a very unique way, emphatically distinguished and handled differently than, for example, Wikipedia and other (open source) encyclopedias do.

In doing so, the QFWF wants to contribute to intercultural connections based on the realization that these:

  • grow through awareness of the historical roots of cultures,
  • thrive on interest in other cultures and wisdom traditions and
  • bear fruit through encounters and cross-cultural perspectives.

The Wisdom Web continues to grow organically, with a rich palette of philosophical, artistic and spiritual expression and reflections, which concretize the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living.
This is accomplished thanks to the input of various QFWF-authors[1]

update 2022-07

[1] QFWF authors are authors, actors, artists, designers, drafters, photographers, illustrators, video and film makers and other producers of text, images, sound, and stakeholders who make the texts and other materials available to a QFWF-site have made.

Quest 1: Wisdom Web Read More »

Quest 2: Golden Ratio

Wisdom gathered from all over the world for the benefit of diversity and inclusion are offered as educational materials:

  • to get to know other cultures and wisdom traditions
  • to promote intercultural communication, art forms and philosophies
  • to develop unifying cultural practices.

Through these materials, functioning as a Golden Ratio — partly published on the Wisdom Web (Quest 1) and also shared on the Encounter Days, through Workshops and Masterclasses as well as being documented on the QFWF video channel (Quest 3) — personal growth and community building are facilitated.
The Golden Ratio consists of an artistically designed and culturally diverse palette of materials that are grouped around particular themes of the intercultural art of living; such as the wisdom taught through play, proverbs, myths and animal stories.

The QFWF sees the realization of an Intercultural Meeting House for the promotion of the Golden Ratio as a promising future project.

The Three Pillars of Quest 2: Golden Ratio

Golden Ratio Playfulness — Board Games and Dialogue Tables

Golden Ratio Digital — Digital Games, Animations, etc.

Golden Ratio Collections — (E) Books of Wisdom

Purchase of Educative Materials

One hundred percent of the money raised by the sale of all of the products will be used in realising our upcoming QFWF educational projects, all of which are non-profit and run by volunteers.

Update 2022-07

Quest 2: Golden Ratio Read More »

Gnosis game

Know yourselfGnosis GameMasquerade GameHero GameCompassion GameDream GameVision game

Elementary wisdom to reflect on happiness through the philosophical art of living

The Gnosis game encourages players to explore their own views of life and happiness in life and to give them shape through words and images.

Gnosis game: a quest for wisdom!

The word gnosis is an ancient Greek word for wisdom associated with self-knowledge. With this game you develop your knowledge about the full life from within.

Against the background of classical concepts on the art of living and mythical themes, players conduct a dialogue about the meaning of a personal moment of happiness and reflect on their own life orientation. How could your view on happiness be enriched? This game offers classical perspectives on the art of living by being aware of the tragedy and shadow sides of life, to develop a vision of the full potential of the happiness of life!

ISBN: 978-90-822774-8-7 — Gnosisspel (NL) Quest for Wisdom!

  • The Gnosis Game offers the basic explanation of the game concept Know Yourself, specifically the Dream Game (Droomspel): Follow your Wish!
  • Duration: half a day, for 3 to 6 players.

ISBN: 978-94-92127-00-6 — Gnosis Game (EN) Quest for Wisdom

English version: Gnosis Game: a quest for wisdom

Dynamic game based on the philosophy of the art of living to facilitate dialogues on inclusive happiness to enrich your personal view on happiness in life

Playing Materials

Box contains:

  • Playing Fields:
    1 Elementary Directions to Happiness;
    1 Mythical Red Thread
  • Playing Attributes:
    1 hourglass (about 2 minutes);
    1 six colour dice;
    2*5 Elements of Happiness;
    1 CD Dream travelling and Heroic Dreams (Droomreizen en Heldendromen) with 22 songs
  • Playing Cards:
    2*5 Cards of Elementary Paths
  • Working Materials:
    1 Instruction Guide with
    8 Fill-in form for the exercises in the game ‘My Way to Happiness’
  • Overview:
    of the steps in the game on the bottom of the box.

info@questforwisdom.org

Update 2022-07

Gnosis game Read More »