Play and Possibility with Ryookyung Kim

Jamee Pineda  0:15  
Hi, I'm Jamee Pineda and this is the decolonizing medicine podcast. I am a queer non binary trans person and my ancestors are Tagalog and Chinoy my healing arts practice is located at fruit camp in Baltimore, Maryland. And virtually today's guests brings sacredness to silliness. This might be one of the most playful conversations I have ever had. And it was an absolute delight. Ryookyung Kim (they/them) is a celebrant, a shapeshifter. Often in a transition of sorts, you means to stay to be with to leave behind, a message or mark to accept a gift to allow to grow. Kyung means fortune, blessing, wealth, auspicious, good luck ceremony, celebration. They currently support humans whose very existence disrupts the status quo by way of celebration that honors their sacred uniqueness through their creative one on one work with folks, they bring a sense of ease, wonder and playfulness into their healing containers.

Jamee Pineda  1:50  
Hi Ryoo

Ryookyung Kim  1:53  
Hi, Jamee.

Jamee Pineda  1:55  
It's so funny to say hello. Like after we've been chatting for like 10 minutes or whatever and then we have like a fake second. Hello.

Ryookyung Kim  2:07  
Is when you said hello. I was like, Oh my gosh, I This is so funny. I love this. Hello.

Jamee Pineda  2:14  
Hello. We have never started a conversation before.

Ryookyung Kim  2:18  
Like we started right now with this Hello. And there was no lead up to any of this. 

Jamee Pineda  2:23  
We didn't we didn't even exist like 40 seconds ago.

Ryookyung Kim  2:27  
We Yeah, we popped into the ether. 

Jamee Pineda  2:31  
Yeah, exactly. We just materialized right now through audio sound waves.

Ryookyung Kim  2:38  
I feel like an alien like with just like my hand up, be like, hello, hello, I'm here.

Jamee Pineda  2:46  
No one can see this because we're not recording visuals. But we were giving each other this the Live long and prosper.

Ryookyung Kim  2:57  
The Vulcan greeting

Jamee Pineda  3:00  
Well, I guess that that, like, very easily leads in to my first question. What Why is play important? And how do we engage in it?

Ryookyung Kim  3:11  
Okay, so this is I love this question because I was thinking about this in the shower. And play, I think is, is something that exists like everywhere, but as we've grown up, or at least my life experience, and I do suspect a lot of people feel this way too is that play becomes like a smaller, smaller, smaller part of our lives to the point where it's very difficult to feel the presence of it because we are so we are operating in this like way of being that is dictated by, you know, this like very oppressive and like one way type of living in this world kind of way, right? And I was thinking about where play pops up for me. And it's important because it's a part of like my re indigenizing process. It's a part of getting to know myself again, it is this ingredient that is like necessary to get to the places where I want to go. I think of it a lot too. As a really important part of inner child healing. cultivating a relationship with your inner child like a lot of that is through play. And most recently, I think I've been playing a lot with my gender, like not even like identity but just like how I want to move through the world and how I want to show up. So I want to play with clothes I want to play with like, the way that I think about The construct and playing with that and seeing what comes up. Playing through queerness, playing through like neurodiversity, like all of it, I think is so important, because if there's no play, like it just gets really stressful and boring, and serious and rigid. Yeah, so that's kind of the that's where I was kind of going with it. I feel like I'm still exploring it. Like, I'm sure that if I listen to this, like three months from now, six months from now, I'm gonna be like, oh, there was so much. I've built on it like because practice, play as a practice. So yeah, I think that's what I've got so far.

Jamee Pineda  5:44  
Okay. I'm so curious about the word re indigenizing. What does that mean to you?

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