The Alchemy of Gratitude and Intent

Have you ever considered how gratitude can be a social adhesive, bringing us together to co-create the world we envision? Join us, as we leap into a profound conversation and art installation centered on democracy and empathy with the Japanese American National Museum and the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. The partners of Gratitude Blooming open up about our journey of stepping into new roles and the power of learning through the process. There's a goldmine here about the development of empathy and coherence that you don’t want to miss.

Our discussion takes an interesting twist as we turn our focus onto the art of intention and the fuel it provides to realize our dreams. Get ready for an inspiring story about harnessing the power of intention, attracting the right people and opportunities to create flourishing opportunities. We dive into practical ways of integrating gratitude into your life, from daily meditation to the use of Joy candles. And as we wrap up, we reflect on the symbol of tenacity: the dandelion, card number six from our deck. The resilience it portrays is not just in its ability to grow anywhere, but also in its healing properties. Will you join us as we explore the art, collaboration, and the extraordinary synergy of intention and gratitude?

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Chapters

• 0:11 Exploring Art, Collaboration, and Experimentation
• 12:12 Intention and Abundance With Dandelion
• 24:01 The Power of Energy and Intention

Transcript

Omar Brownson: 0:11

Hello Belinda.

Belinda Liu : 0:13

Hi, omar, it's so wonderful to be with you all today and have the artist, arlene Kimsuda with us again.

Omar Brownson: 0:23

I've been enjoying these shorter practices where we just pull two cards each week one for us as a team and then one for you the listeners and just in real time getting to explore the many sort of elements of gratitude and then also take you kind of behind the scenes where gratitude blooming is just jumping off with all kinds of collaborations. The most current one is with the Japanese American National Museum and the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, where we're launching a four-part series where we're reimagining the voting booth and sacred space, diving into sort of the topic of empathy and democracy, because really it's about how do we get along, and gratitude is this social glue, and so we feel like it has an important element and there's this sort of poetic imagination that we each are kind of hearing and trying to sort of bring into the world, and so it's been fun to do this with you.

Belinda Liu : 1:31

Yeah, I feel like with our collaboration with Jim, who's the director of the Center for the Preservation of Democracy. He was a podcast guest for our Curiosity episode last season and it's so cool to see us co-creating the world we want to live in with real people, real leaders in community, and it's been an interesting also opportunity to reimagine our own identities. So I love that Arlene, you, me and Omar are now experimenting with new hats, like Arlene's always been the artist and now Omar, you are the poet and I get to kind of play the role of the land steward, which we've talked about a lot throughout the seasons of the podcast. But really like how do these three different threads come together for the plants and the messages that nature has to tell us right now about the times that we live in and what are our hopes, and maybe helping us also transmute some of the grief and the fear that we all feel too?

Omar Brownson: 2:36

And I think the key word for me and what you said was experiment. I was just reading an article about when is your optimal kind of learning, and you know, and it says that when you're younger you tend to be more of a conceptual thinker. Like conceptual thinking, really in sort of weaving different ideas, has a lot of impact, but over time what is more enduring is experimental thinking, so thinking that is applied in the world and is tested, so not just sort of broad theoretical frameworks, but really like what holds true in the world. And this is what I've really always loved about gratitude blooming is that it's like how are we in the world? Right, Like not just in our journal, not just on our own, but together, right, you know, everybody can be like perfectly content within their own container, but it's us having to share and be a part. And you know I'm a little under the weather right now if you can't tell by my voice like how are we when we show up, when we're not at our best? Right? And that's really where I think gratitude shines.

Belinda Liu : 3:48

Yeah, it was so lovely to hear you speak out that beautiful poem that was kind of riffing off of just Arlene's vision of this experience, this pop up experience that we're going to have with a live podcast conversation. So, our listeners, you're going to get to actually hear the conversation that we have in LA on July 15th. Hopefully some of you will come and participate, if you're living near LA to be live with us. Meet us in person on the 15th at five o'clock, and so, arlene, I would love you know you're starting to uncover a lot of things and you are an experimental artist Like you bring in music, you bring in poetry, you bring in these conversations with plants and you mix them together into something amazing. And this time it's actually going to be an experience, you know, a multi-dimensional experience. So we'd love to have you unpack a little bit for us this week what's emerging in that creative exploration and what's inspiring you and what you're learning in real time.

Arlene Kim Suda: 4:55

Yeah, I love, omar, what you were saying about experimenting is so important. It's like a little bit like getting your hands dirty, and I think it's really these days, you know, we're not doing that as much right. We're all kind of maybe scared of like things not working out or, you know, there's like a lot of fear we're going to be embarrassed, you know. So I think there is something about experimenting that is good for the soul. So I wrote a little bit about. You know, I guess I'm journaling through this experience of creating the art in collaboration with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, and it's funny how I often journal and then it feels like just the right topic, based on how you, to start the podcast. So here's something I wrote recently based on the experience so far. So I'm someone who always likes to have a project going. Often it's in the background, like gardening or piano, or lately it's been knitting like the scarf.

Arlene Kim Suda: 6:07

The art collaboration with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy Allows the project to be in the foreground again, and I forgot how exciting it can be to build something with your own hands. What I wasn't expecting was that there's also a lesson in relating to others in the process of building something bigger than you can do yourself. I've had to talk to multiple people at the hardware store to learn the difference between electric conduit and plumbing pipe and to figure out how to cut steel pipes, and I've forgotten how amazing and helpful people working at the hardware stores can be. I've had to reach out for help, taking site photos for sewing curtains and even support drawing schematic drawings.

Arlene Kim Suda: 6:55

I believe building something, a real thing that requires our hands and our touch, could be a secret way to build empathy the topic of our collaborative series with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy and for coherence, because it provides a lost practice on how to relate to others, including strangers, in the age of social media. We think relating is posting a comment, liking or sometimes trashing something somebody else posts. Technology has often led us to trade efficiency for taking the time to learn how to treat each other with decency and respect. It feels like a good time to reclaim our lives and invest in our communities again, and I can't think of a better way to do that than to try to build something. So if you want to get involved, please reach out and let us know.

Omar Brownson: 7:57

That's wonderful, arlene, and you know, I think, as you are talking, the image of head-heart hand came to me right and how we just hold that balance between the three. You know just not what we're just thinking or those conceptual frameworks that are in our head, not just our feelings and our emotions and what we're might be feeling in any given moment, but also just our hands, like how are we physically showing up and being present in the world? And you keep inspiring me. You know I've taken one of the voting booths that we picked up from the LA County voting registrar, which they've generously donated for our series, and like it's sitting in my hallway now and and I put a plant in it and I put one of our gratitude blooming cards, wholeness, and it's just been this beautiful sort of experience to walk by this plant and just really how it changes how I look at this voting booth.

Omar Brownson: 8:56

And so I've actually went and bought four more voting booth screens because I actually now want to like experiment with just like what is it like what would happen if we showed up at a voting booth and there was a message that said hope. You know trust, you know coherence. You know like how might we vote differently if it wasn't just this like sterile kind of environment. And I know that we want neutrality, you know, in terms of like political positions, but in some ways we don't want neutrality of like how we want to show up in the world. Right, we actually want people to show up, we want to encourage participation, and so what are those messages that we can really get at? And I think art is just an incredible way to like to speak to some of those unspoken truths and I so resonated with your story about just stepping into that role of being a maker.

Belinda Liu : 9:48

I mean, I'm having flashbacks of when I first was moved, you know, traveling from Oakland to Mount Shasta, california, and starting to kind of embody the lifestyle of a land steward. And you know, for many years it was coming to the land a month at a time, so it's kind of small steps. But you know, at this point I'm living in a small town with not great internet, you know where our retreat center is, kind of spotty cell service and having to really understand how to take care of plants, trees and yurts, and it is different to, you know, even like the act of like learning how to make a fire. And I remember when I learned how to make a fire for the first time was on the land and how hard it was to build the structure for to ignite that flame, and initially I would stack all the big ones, all the big wooden pieces first, and and then I would put some paper in and then I would light the match and you know, at first it would just get really nice and big and then very quickly it started to diminish and it taught me so much about creating and and what nature has to say about it.

Belinda Liu : 10:57

Because what I saw from that experience was like wow I like to take on too much sometimes and it's exciting to start something new and and just layer on all these big things and it's, it's. It feels like wow, powerful. But real power comes from the small sticks that you stack intentionally and you put lots and lots of paper to catalyze that flame so it can stay alive. And in many ways, I feel like that's been our journey the three of us learning to steadily create the fire, ignite the flame, tend to the flame, rebuild the fire again sometimes yeah, I love.

Omar Brownson: 11:37

I feel like we could have a whole episode on just fire making, like that would be fantastic. We should find someone who's like an expert actually know someone who's like an expert fire maker who can like do it from like scratch with like no like instruments, like no matches, nothing like that, and and it's and there's a cradling experience. You know at the very beginning where you have just this little ember before it's even a flame. You know, and sometimes we think of fires like this flash. You know, but it really when you're working with the basic tools you don't have kerosene like it's.

Belinda Liu : 12:12

No, it is a slow build, so I can't wait to see what this week's card is for our practice, set an intention before we pull, because I remember last week I was, I had that question. So I'm curious if Arlene, you or Omar would be interested in planting the inquiry or the intention before we pick a card.

Arlene Kim Suda: 12:34

I don't know if anything is coming up for me, omar. How about you? Well?

Omar Brownson: 12:39

I'll just say how can we continue to bring our head, hearts and hands together in this experiment we call gratitude blooming? And if a number is coming to you, arlene, well, seven rows hands.

Arlene Kim Suda: 12:57

It feels like three. Right, those are three, feels like a number. And then I don't know what's the other dimension.

Omar Brownson: 13:08

We have three, six, one yeah, well, this is yeah, let's go. I feel like six sounds good so three six all right, we got card number six, the dandelion representing the theme of tenacity. Can you appreciate the time and effort required to nurture the things you truly love? And so, just as you look at the art, you know what? What do you see?

Belinda Liu : 13:41

Well, I love that there is one dandelion flower that is super open and looking out into the world and dynasties, like kind of head to head with it, with an exclamation mark, and then below it you kind of have this little bud that hasn't opened yet and it's kind of just like, you know, waiting for the right time. So, and it's interesting that this prompt is all about time and effort. And so when is that readiness, when is that energy right for that opening, and when is it still time to germinate and kind of keep your energy close to you and conserve?

Belinda Liu : 14:20

I feel like I'm learning a lot about conservation, you know, because I do tend to like to. You know like let's do it, let's, you know, make that fire big, let's take the biggest log, and then, you know, you have to tend to that fire all night long because you don't want it to, you know, be put out. You want to really like let it go on its own. So I feel like that's kind of the lesson for me. Seeing this is like, okay, the head and the heart and the hands, they all have to communicate and sometimes one needs to take a break and another needs to be more in the foreground. So a little bit of coordination in those aspects of creating.

Omar Brownson: 15:00

How about for you, Arlene? Anything come up.

Arlene Kim Suda: 15:03

Well, just the word effort. I feel like art really takes a lot of effort and it's interesting in the context of like hands, head, heart it actually takes a lot of effort on across all three right. So I'm really feeling this kind of that's why I was talking about like having a project right. The project really focuses your attention. So, but yeah, the word effort really jumped out at me in this card and it's a nice, it's a nice reminder, right that this is where. Why are we doing this? Why do we do this work? It is from our hearts.

Omar Brownson: 15:41

And as we just think about, like Grad 2 Blooming's journey, it really has been, I think, a journey of tenacity, you know, from just like what it takes to sort of create the initial art, to then say like no, let's actually create something with this art, to sustain it over the years has been, you know, a labor of love, right, in so many ways. And just you know, I'm struck too by the dandelion, right Like this is it a flower, is it a weed? You know, it's a matter of perspective and you know, and I think Van Gogh had like a line about something about like sidewalks make for easy walking, but they don't grow flowers, except dandelions often find those cracks in the sidewalk and grow, you know. And so even if something is literally pedestrian as a sidewalk, nature can kind of emerge. Right, and it is. We have the wildflower, but in some ways the dandelion is like the ultimate wildflower, it's like the pigeon of flowers, right, like they just thrive no matter what happens.

Omar Brownson: 16:56

And there's something about like the leaves on this one I feel like are even more pronounced than the flowers, Like they're just, they feel like ancient, like ferns, like they're like they feel like they could have come out of like dinosaurs, almost the dinosaur age, and so there's a timelessness about tenacity, like what does it take to be enduring over time? Right, like you know, maybe you can do something quick and fast, but what does it take to really be around for the long haul?

Belinda Liu : 17:32

And I'm just thinking about some of our season one episodes on the dandelion and some of the other plants, and it's reminding me too of how this is one of the few in the card deck where literally you can consume every single part and it is healing and it's kind of like honoring all the parts right, the head, the heart, the hands, like not one trumps the other, it's like they all have healing powers or superpowers and feel like maybe that's what the dandelion saying too, even the puffballs kind of got it's own magical, you know, energy.

Omar Brownson: 18:07

I'm reading this book right now about the curious history of the heart and it goes back the first. One of the first drawings of the heart was 20,000 years ago on a cave wall and it was a mammoth with its heart drawn and and so you know it's been this center of attention. Greek, egyptian have really sort of looked at Chinese cultures like the heart was the center of an intelligence and it wasn't until Literally on the last four or five hundred years that people really started saying like well, maybe the mind has a role and it's in the brain, not in the heart. And it's been this like fascinating, like where do we center ourselves? And I think the reality is that we don't center in one place, we center in many places and that that's what I love, that you really evoked this idea of the, the head, the heart and the hand. Arlene is like we experiment. It's not about compartmentalizing, but like integration.

Belinda Liu : 19:13

Mmm. Going back to that theme of season three, building, coherence with the plant is present.

Omar Brownson: 19:22

So are we gonna pull a card for our community?

Belinda Liu : 19:25

We are, and you know, for those of you are listening or watching, you know, take a moment to pause for yourself and just think of what your intention is right now, or something You're curious about, something that's really present for you right now and and we are going to pick the card for you from nature- and just you know, and we've said it before, but like, sometimes people get a little stumbled on what is their intention and it's just a seed that you want to plant Right, and it could be a seed that you want to plant further.

Omar Brownson: 19:55

You know, the year, the month, a day, the next hour, you know. See, foo Paul, who's been on a, I guess on our podcast, reminds us that like 1% of your day is about 14 minutes. And so just even holding, with Intention, 14 minutes throughout your day, like what is that thing that you want to grow within your head, your heart or your hands? Or all the above.

Belinda Liu : 20:22

And I'm feeling like we should just go with card number six. All right the number of the dandelion, so I think it's the last one here in this row.

Omar Brownson: 20:30

Oh Snap number 22, the flower is the rose of Sharon, representing the theme of abundance. You already have everything you need, do you believe it? Well, it comes up for you, as you sort of encourage our listeners to think about how they might be planting abundance in their lives.

Belinda Liu : 20:57

Well, immediately makes me think of Arlene, our design meeting with Anka just on Monday, when it was a full moon and on a whim. I was like let's pick cards for each of us. You know just what do we need to know right now. And, arlene, do you remember that? You're, you know you were talking about just like there's so much of your life right now that's coming out of hibernation and you're it's, the pace is pretty quick. And then here we are, you pick this card about how to manage all of it.

Arlene Kim Suda: 21:29

Yeah, what came up for me immediately is like I need an abundance of energy and maybe, maybe that's all we really need. I mean, you know, I think about like when you have your health right, you really do have everything you need. So it's almost like abundance. If you think about it energetically, it's like you have everything. You just have to like gather your energy, whether To do what you need to do.

Omar Brownson: 21:56

Well, that's, I think, a great reminder is that so often we end up spending our energy on things that don't sort of serve us right, that actually end up draining our energy, and so then it becomes even more important, like to have the energy for the things that you actually care about, like, and that means really sometimes saying no to things so you can put your energy into that bigger yes.

Belinda Liu : 22:22

Well, you're gonna say something, belinda yeah, and I just love how open this flower is and ready to receive you know what is here, and it is about just believing that you can receive all that you need and it's already here. It just feels very affirmational. That's what I love about this card is like it's not about looking for it, trying to get it. Like tenacity feels like effort, you know, even in the prompt this is about just like surrendering and just like, oh my, what you're saying about your kind of mantra for this year, right, like yeah, we've done a lot of striving in our lives, you know, especially at this like decade, right. So it's like how can we just magnetize it, just be available to it to come or see that it's already here?

Omar Brownson: 23:15

I love how you brought the two together right tenacity and abundance and it's like tenacity feels like, oh, I gotta go strive, but abundance can be really about receiving. And so I love like, yeah, what does tenacity look like from a practice of receiving? Yeah, I'm gonna sit with that one.

Belinda Liu : 23:35

I appreciate that perspective yeah, and this card is pretty, is pretty present for me, like this week, I was talking to a retreat host who, at this point, has hosted three women's retreats every year with us, and she's one of those people just very charismatic, very just, big and bright energy, and every time she's, you know, brings 25 people to the land, no problem. And I, finally, I was like I need to have a talk with you. What are you doing? Tell me your secrets? And she told me her secret was, you know, in 2017, she was kind of taking all these classes, coaching, marketing classes to you know, help her grow her business and nothing was working, even doing all the steps of the email campaigns and the Instagram and all the things.

Belinda Liu : 24:24

And she literally stopped and paused and she got this message of like you need to drop everything, just stop doing what you're doing right now. And she actually took it to heart and spent three weeks at home not doing any of it and then finally, by the third week, she kind of picked up this like random book and and not so random, and it was basically just about how you can really bring your energy and your intention inward and breathing in this affirmation of like I can like receive this. I can receive 25 women coming to Shasta. I can, you know, make this class the most beautiful offering for the right people. And she, literally she was like 80% of my work is just sitting on the mat and meditating and really co-hering my energy towards attracting the thing. And I, you know, you read about that, oprah talks about that but to have someone who you know, 2017, not that long ago, say that that was the number one thing that they did, that shifted everything, it's it's pretty incredible dream-believe receive.

Omar Brownson: 25:37

There it is. I love it well. Is there anything else that we want to encourage folks in our short but weekly practice? We hope that folks are appreciating this slightly different take on just how we can think about gratitude in our lives, our work, relationships in our art and our creativity each week.

Belinda Liu : 26:01

So yeah, and if you want to, you know, practice with us. Go to the grad to blame blooming comm shop. Get the candle. I've been lighting joy every day. I think it makes a difference because I can smell it listening to the album. The garden we now have the garden of joy with the candle for summer and and for those of you that are based in LA, we'd love to see you there, and Arlene is showcasing, for those watching a video, our new preview of the note cards, all of our LA guests that are coming to the event.

Belinda Liu : 26:35

We're gonna be giving away the garden of curiosity and we're gonna be working with those cards for the live podcast. So it's super exciting to have you all witness our creative process as it unfolds cheers.