Most of us think of play as a respite or an indulgence but having fun is no trivial pursuit. Play is crucial to our creativity, physical and mental health and overall happiness. Play helps us build community and it encourages personal and spiritual growth.

Everyone agrees that play relieves stress. It refreshes and recharges us, it restores our optimism, it changes our perspectives and stimulates creativity, it renews our ability to accomplish the work of the world. By anyone's reckoning, these are remarkably worthy achievements.

But there is new evidence that play does much more. It may, in fact, be the highest expression of our humanity, both imitating and advancing the evolutionary process. Play appears to allow the brain to exercise its flexibility, to maintain and even renew the neural connections that embody our human potential to adapt and to meet a wide variety of environmental conditions. Even in the animal kingdom, play increases, rather than decreases, with increasing brain complexity.

We are made for play -- after all, humans are among the very few animals that play even as adults. What the evidence tells us is this: We are most human when we play and because we play.

This tribe is intended to encourage play among people of all ages. Join us as we build community, create art, share and consciously evolve. It's going to be great fun. Let's play!