Ea Ea (Craige Schensted)
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Game inventor: Ea Ea (Craige Schensted)
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In 1953, physicist Craige Schensted and mathematician Charles Titus, researchers at the University of Michigan, developed Y and other games. Y was finally published in 1970 in the book Mudcrack Y and Poly-Y. Shortly thereafter, Y was included in The Last Whole Earth Catalog and in Materials for the Open Classroom by Skip Ascheim. In 1983 Craige was featured in Games Magazine, along with his new game, Star, a descendant of Y. Life moves on. In 1994 Craige's friend Mariah read a description of the Sumerian god Enki in the book Descent to the Goddess: "Enki is the generative, creative, playful, empathetic male. He includes the opposites and has no abstract boundedness to the principle of law. His order is creative, not static and preservative. He is the culture bringer, not the preserver of the status quo. His wisdom is that of improvisation and empathy. Endlessly, he improvises to create what the moment needs."On reading this, Mariah said, "I know him!" On January 3, 1995, Craige Schensted became simply Ea, which is what the Babylonians called Enki. At the end of 1999, anticipating millennium computer glitches, Ea added a second name, becoming Ea Ea. For forty-plus years Ea nourished his soul by sun bathing on the rocky shore of Peaks Island, Maine; let his soul speak through drum, dance and song (see the picture below); and pondered the remarkable implications of quantum mechanics for "miracles" which many rational "scientific" people claim are impossible (based on 19th century science). All the while his former partner Mariah, an energy and bodywork practitioner, has seen many such occurrences with her clients. In 2002, Ea retired to an apartment overlooking the Passagassawakeag River in Belfast, Maine, where he lived independently with the assistance of caregivers until January 2021, when, at age 93, he passed into the great beyond. Ea's archived homepage is as nourishing of the spirit as all his other endeavors. While no longer active, it is of profound biographical interest. Be sure to visit it, and be prepared to be astonished and moved. |
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