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Amor Fati

World Games — Amor Fati — Four Winds — Adinkra — AW Crossing-Borders

Amor Fati is a board game for 2 to 8 people, in which you embark on a journey through a colourful landscape full of symbolism, picking up intercultural visions and mythical wisdom about the journey of life along the way. How the picked wisdoms enrich your vision on life, you share with your travel group, so that you deepen each other’s insights.

The intercultural art of living

With the help of a Game Guide, a group of friends, family or team can make a journey across the game board — a colourful landscape full of happiness in life — if one of the players wants to be the guide as a game and dialogue facilitator.

 It is also possible to practice the art of living of Amor Fati under the guidance of a game supervisor from the Quest for wisdom foundation.

Amor Fati introduces players to themes of the art of living, captured in symbolic signposts to different wisdom traditions from the four cardinal directions.

Dialogue with oneself and others

Each concentric circle on the playing field represents a theme of life, which is addressed by means of the six symbols in each circle. As a player, you bring the intercultural meaning of the symbolism into a dialogue with your fellow players as a travel group; and you harvest the meaning after each game round on the game sheet.

The power of play lies in the dynamics that arise from the dialogue with oneself and in exchange with the travel group. The symbolism appeals to the imagination and the game assignments are appealing to harmonize the moral compass. This dynamics contributes to a deepened understanding. It is precisely the tapping of all the sources within oneself that forms the basis for a wise handling of the questions that life asks us!

Finding your destiny between freedom and determination

Players practice Amor Fati as they wander along the paths in the game to the elemental happiness of the quintessence, in the centre of the game board. The journey meanders in the existential tension between the coercion of destiny and the freedom to shape life yourself.
The art of living consists of the call to reconcile these two poles and to embrace being ‘thrown’ into life: one does this by throwing the dice, giving meaning to the assigned symbol as a significant place in the labyrinth of life.

Around the gaming table, one goes from outside to inside through seven stages (game rounds):

  1. Pregame Round; players choose one of the four natural elements and a basic attitude in life, visible in the figure with the arms down for an alert following or the arms raised for a sensitive entrepreneurial life-based attitude.
  2. The outer circle of Authenticity shows eight starting positions in the game as frames of thinking with a principle of happiness. These positions connect the roads in the game to one of the natural elements and the corresponding basic symbol eye, heart, spiral, hand.
  3. The orange circle of Bildung (Education): to find a good course in the dynamics between nature and culture, players are given philosophical tool, by means of six symbols that depict intercultural perspectives from different wisdom traditions.
  4. The green circle of Ups & Downs; heading towards the centre, players pass one of the six mythical places, which connect the good life with the tragic side of life, in order to align the inner compass.
  5. The purple circle of Ordeal; players continue their journey and find themselves in one of six landscapes of elemental imbalance, where they are tested with a moral dilemma.
  6. In-between Round of Encountering ‘the strange other’: here, the question at stake is whether you tend to ‘keep everything under control’ in a crisis situation or whether you are willing to accept help. Do you want to meet the mythical creature or animal that lives here and can offer you a different perspective on the journey of life?
  7. The inner circle of Destination. What does it mean to you that the centre with the four quadrants are of the same colours and show the same symbols as the outer circle? Are you back at the beginning or is your perspective tilting from having to being: how does your basic element opens the gateway to the quintessence?

    Game and book

    Amor Fati is a board game with 7 card sets, playing figures, rings, lucky elements, dice, hourglass, spinning top and a game guide: ISBN: 9789492127167

    Duration: depending on your wishes and possibilities, two to eight half-days, in a small group of 4 to 8 players.

    The book of the same name provides background to the game about the art of living for global citizenship

    Playful wisdom for world citizenship

    Amor Fati (game and book) wants to appeal to people with an open mind and a warm heart for the world. People with an interest in wisdom in traditions and wisdom that arises from good conversation, meeting and teamwork. Encounters between people ensure cross-pollination between their cultures: a vital lifeline for the cosmopolis. This ideal of ‘the cosmic city’ – the ‘polis’ of citizens connected as a community across national borders – has ancient roots. It is the city of and for people who feel connected to a larger whole. Global citizens who, in the words of freedom fighter Rosa Luxemburg, “feel at home in the whole world” and are touched by human tears and the ‘small’ good and beautiful. People who feel that we need the wisdom from cultures worldwide for the questions of life in the global city – and who want to contribute with dedication and love for this ideal.
    Amor Fati is the motto of the classical art of living to bow to one’s fate. Although the name seems to indicate a fatalistic attitude to life and wallowing in fate, this ancient philosophical art rather aims to strengthen the good life as a community and mastery in life as an individual: by mildly greeting whatever comes your way – it is not neither to combat nor to appropriate, but to embrace and let go with love and inquiry. This requires people to open their hearts to full life, including tragedy – the ‘counterpart’ that is inextricably linked to happiness in life, like shadows in the light.

    In the book of the same name, Amor Fati: Playing wisdom for the cosmopolis, Heidi Muijen provides background to the game about the art of living as a world citizen and sheds light on the QfWf philosophy about the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of Living. This full-colour edition of 499 pages with English intercultural reflections by Greg Suffanti on his watercolour series gives the reader – together with the visual work of other artists around the mythical-philosophical themes of Amor Fati – a surprising route of the imagination through the book.

    Amor Fati is a co-production with publisher Garant
    NL/EN 2024, ISBN 978-90-441-3970-9

Update 2024-12

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Four Winds

World Games — Amor Fati — Four Winds — Adinkra — AW 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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Quintessence-Game

World Games — Amor Fati — Four Winds — Adinkra — Quintessence-Game

Quintessence

Playing with wisdom from all corners of the world to help us find the good life in the cosmopolis!

The Quintessence game is a card game with wisdom from all corners of the world for practicing the art of living as a global citizen. The name refers to the intercultural symbolism of the natural elements and literally means the fifth element or the ‘quinta essencia’.

The goal is to have meaningful conversations in a small group on the basis of three described game forms and card readings with the 20 playing cards.
Duration is one hour to half a day per game form.

1. QUINTET
Cultures from all corners of the world know the elements of nature as the basis of existence and as symbolism in mythical stories. In African, European, Indian and Native American wisdom traditions, these are earth, water, air, fire and an energetic and spatial element, the ether or quintessence.

In this game, the goal is to have a conversation as a group around the wisdom spells while placing a quintet on the table together.

2. WHOSE QUEST?
In all corners of the world, the labyrinth appears as a symbol of the journey of life, which is symbolized as a meandering path around the center. According to mythical wisdom, there the path and purpose, life and death, above and below coincide in the generation-spanning life cycle.

The aim of the game is to explore an issue by letting the wisdom spells speak and thus enrich the issue into a quest. The introducer chooses cards from the fan on the table as needed and explores with the company the hidden eye, heart, spiral and hand power in the wisdom proverb by addressing everyone’s wisdom (of pathos, ethos, mythos and logos) in combination.

3. ORACLES
Cultures from all corners of the world know creatures that mediate between humans and the world of gods and spirits, such as angels, shamans, ancestors, demigods and mythical beasts. The mythical connection of the four cardinal directions, four elements of nature, four seasons, etc., by seeing analogous patterns, forms the basis for the art of oracles.

The aim of this game is to obtain advice on a personal question (wish or problem) with wisdom from the four cardinal directions. To this end, an oracle is chosen from the circle of players to appeal to the wisdom of the group by interpreting the drawn card as an oracle spell in the light of the question.

© Quest for wisdom foundation (QFWF), Weesp 2024,
Intercultural enriched edition of the Quintessence game, introducing the board game Amor Fati: for the cosmopolitan art of living!
Author & concept development:
dr. Heidi S.C.A. Muijen
Graphic design:
Pé de Wit/ Ir. Joke Koppius

ISBN: 978 94 92 127 235

Update 2024-12

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World games — for the cosmopolis 

World Games — Amor Fati — Four Winds — Adinkra — Quintessence-game

Pillar 1 World Games — playful wisdom for the cosmopolis

The Quest for wisdom foundation develops intercultural play and dialogue tables for celebrating life in the cosmopolis. These can be used also for both individual and group counselling.

With this educational material, the foundation aims to contribute to the intercultural art of living in training, education and developmental processes.

The German philosopher Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) wrote in his Aesthetic Letters that when people play they are human in the full sense of the word, and they are wholly human only if they play; and the Dutch philosopher Huizinga (1872-1945) regarded the ambivalent social and competitive nature of play as culture-building for societal domains such as justice, education and warfare.

Game forms also reflect specific cultural and social characteristics ― such as the game Monopoly, which reflects Western market ideology, the originally Persian game of chess, which is an exercise in strategic insight and martial art, whereas oracle games, such as the Chinese Yijing and the Ghanaian Ifa oracle ― exist in all corners of the world. Both gaming and playing are a powerful means, together with dialogue, for establishing connections between cultures.

The World Games series is derived from (inter)cultural wisdom traditions and they are developed with intercultural perspectives and transcultural means for the good life in the cosmopolis.

Amor Fati

The board game Man, know thyself! has been enriched with intercultural perspectives and mythical symbolism in a series of try outs 2022-2023.

Amor Fati is a board game for 2 to 8 people, in which you embark on a journey through a colourful landscape full of symbolism, picking up intercultural visions and mythical wisdom about the journey of life along the way. How the picked wisdoms enrich your vision on life, you always share with your travel group, so that you deepen each other’s insights.

Four Winds

Four Winds is a dialogic game around a colourful dialogue tablecloth, full of symbolism from the four corners of the world, with which you address a life theme or a social issue, using one set of cards with European philosophies and one set of cards with intercultural perspectives.

The playing time is at least half a day and it is suitable for a group of 2 to 8 people. Using a Dialogue Guide, you will explore as a group of friends, family or team the issue at stake in four rounds. It is also possible to be guided by a game and dialogue facilitator from the Quest for wisdom foundation.

Adinkra

Adinkra is a contemplative and educative game

With this game for intercultural communication people get acquainted with a high context culture, especially the Ghanaian wisdom tradition.

With the Play guide it is possible to play the game as family, group of friends or team. When you want a facilitator who can introduce the Ghanaian wisdom tradition, ask for a Quest for Wisdom-facilitator.

Quintessence

Playing with wisdom from all corners of the world to help us find the good life in the cosmopolis!

The Quintessence game is a card game with wisdom from all corners of the world for practicing the art of living as a global citizen. The name refers to the intercultural symbolism of the natural elements and literally means the fifth element or the ‘quinta essencia’.

The goal is to have meaningful conversations in a small group on the basis of three described game forms and card readings with the 20 playing cards.
Duration is one hour to half a day per game form.

Animal Wisdom Crossing-Boarders

The game Animal Wisdom Crossing-Borders is under construction: Mythical symbolism which plays with wisdom and pranks of animals from all corners of the world, in order to find the good life!

Purchase of Educative Materials

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

Update 2024-12

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