Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Inspired by nature, art and gratitude, the Gratitude Blooming co-hosts Belinda Liu and Omar Brownson bring fresh and diverse perspectives to well-being. For us, heartfulness is the new mindfulness. Gratitude Blooming was inspired by the artist Arlene Kim Suda and her 100 Days of Blooming Love art project. Hear from culture keepers, creators, healers, leaders and so many others who share their emergent practices to build the beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Please rate, review and subscribe. New conversations each week. We want to hear what you're grateful for. Learn more at www.gratitudeblooming.com
Gratitude Blooming Podcast
What is nature showing you this season?
As the frost of winter blankets parts of earth, we find ourselves wrapped in the cozy musings of transition and the gentle guidance of nature's rhythm. Based on our recent travels, including to a snow-cloaked Yosemite, we invoke the power of nature's symbolism to inform our reflections on the year gone by. Our conversation meanders through the interplay of presence, intention, and the art of slowing down. We begin with a guided meditation that invites you to feel the essence of change and embrace the unfolding gifts of the coming year.
With each passing story and shared experience, we unearth the profound influence of humility on our journey, mirroring the unassuming strength of Yosemite's ancient sequoias and the steadfast violet. This episode is a tapestry woven with threads of gratitude, intentionality, and the practice of 'Wu Wei'—effortless action that trusts life's currents. As we look forward to a musical tribute to humility with Ariel Loh, we invite you to lend an ear to the harmonies of "Tiger Lily," a melody that cradles the spirit of open-hearted receptivity. Join us for an exploration of how to stand strong yet supple amidst life's ebb and flow, and welcome the new with grace and poise.
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Hello Belinda.
Speaker 2:Hey, omar, it's so nice to have Arlene with us in studio for our January celebration of a new year. How is everyone doing?
Speaker 1:I believe 2024 is here. No kind of mistake that time passes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of interesting timing, also because we follow this Western calendar. That marks this as a new beginning and when I look around the land we very much are still in our winter slumber, getting more and more quiet and dormant. So I've been appreciating reconnecting with my heritage around the lunar cycles, the lunar calendar, the lunar new year, that is more towards the end of Jan, early Feb, and it does feel like spring is kind of a new beginning and winter is still the same season, even if it's December or January.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. We were just in Yosemite with our family my wife, two daughters, two grandmas and really just getting to explore Yosemite, which is 1200 acres of just incredible from El Capitan to Half Dome, iconic national parks, and the first few days, blue skies. And then the last night it snowed, and so we woke up to just a blanket of white snow everywhere, six, seven inches, and it was just beautiful and a great reminder to slow down that even though we're in a new year, we are still in winter.
Speaker 2:Arlene, what about you and San Francisco? What is nature telling you from your part of the world?
Speaker 3:We were just talking about how, in the Bay Area, we really don't experience the seasons other than the change of the length of the day. So it's been generally sunny and warm, and the same hummingbirds are flying up back, and so it really doesn't feel that different, other than the days are shorter.
Speaker 1:And I like that question, belinda, of like what is nature showing you? And might drive down. After the beautiful sort of winter wonderland view, we caught at least three double rainbows and many more rainbows, and then, when we pulled into the driveway at home, this hawk flew overhead here in the middle of LA, and a hawk symbolizes a need to start looking forward and visioning your path ahead and perhaps even preparing for a greater role in life. And so, just, I love these symbols that nature gives us, you know, just like the moon, right, this lunar symbol. I think that's part of what gratitude blooming is is about exploring what are the symbols in our life, right, and sometimes we need to pause and really kind of unpack these things that we can take for granted, right, and that's what gratitude is is like recognizing that when we take things for granted, oftentimes we don't see them, and so how do we pause and really notice what's moving in our lives? And so I think you're going to invite us to pause to start this new calendar year for gratitude blooming, 2024.
Speaker 2:So I was invited to hold a space for a meditation this morning that I thought, wow, this would be kind of cool for our listeners and for the team as we're exploring these big questions. Our last episode we focused on what does an artist, a poet and a land steward have to do together with space being held by gratitude blooming, and felt inspired to kick off this episode with a guided meditation that hopefully helps all of us who are participating to just connect in tune in, look back, look forward and feel that transition. More than think through the transition, feel through the transition. So just invite us all to relax and get comfortable in our bodies, regardless of what time of day this is. Just really bring some awareness to our bodies. And, as we inhale, just imagining that you're kind of sipping in that breath from nature, that vitality from nature, just really receive it, like you're drinking a warm, healing drink, just breathing in energy from the trees, the air, the earth and the sky. And, as you exhale, just really savoring that, letting go that we get to do every moment with our breath, letting go of stress, tension, worry, any emotion that you want to take a break from in this moment, just getting more and more present in this moment as you breathe, letting yourself soften, sending some of that breath to parts of your body that might need a little more love and care. In this moment and for this next round of breath, I invite you to send this energy to your heart and, if it's helpful or feels good, just put a gentle hand to your heart, like a sweet hug to your heart, and take a nourishing breath here, just feeling the rise and fall of your breath as you drop into your heart.
Speaker 2:In this moment, I invite you to journey back to last year. We just made this transition of time and invite your heart to feel what was the feeling of the year behind us? That feeling can come from a sensation in your body, in your heart, maybe even a color or an imagination of a vision or a word, just letting yourself remember what that feeling of last year was like, what was the gift of the lesson of that past. Taking a few more nourishing breaths here to just be with that and if it's still feeling very still in this moment, just trust that that is also a message. And for this next round of breath we're gonna slowly now transition to the present moment of this new beginning, new year ahead, the possibilities of what's to come and what is becoming Now.
Speaker 2:Checking in with your heart as you breathe, inhaling to receive, exhaling to let go. What is the feeling that is most nourishing, life-giving and fulfilling for you, opening yourself up to receive what wants to come to you. What is the gift of 2024 that you would like to receive? Taking a few more breaths here, really taking your time sipping in the air from the earth, letting your body relax with your exhale. One more breath to transition back to the present moment and, if it's helpful, you can pause this podcast to write this down or draw it out, just capturing the moment, or come back to this place anytime. You need to remember how you want to feel at this time of new beginnings and we're gonna practice, live with you all, with our team, just processing what is our heart telling us.
Speaker 1:Thank you, blinda, for the beautiful meditation and just opportunity to transcend time for a moment.
Speaker 1:I think 2023 for me was one of travel, just movement, but at the same time, an appreciation for stillness.
Speaker 1:I remember I was at the common wheel, fall gathering and being led through what felt like a guided meditation, but it was actually a talk about the earth breathing, and I remember the feeling of breathing with the trees and being breathed by the trees, and so that was, for me, just a key moment in memory for 2023, is just to remember, just as much as we are breathing, everything else around us is breathing too right the trees and realizing that give and take that is constantly happening.
Speaker 1:And I think, looking out to 2024, I've been focusing on this Taoist principle called Wu Wei, which is effortless action, and the feeling that I want effortless action to have, which I love that you invited that and you're always so good at bringing us back to that feeling, which is joy. And so then I think about the rainbow that I saw yesterday as this arching in the sky, or the hawk that I saw flying in the sky, and just that feeling of joy, overcoming gravity right, whether it's a bird, or this prism of light, where light and rain all come together in this magical way. And so, yeah, those are the feelings that I want to bring into 2024. How about you, arlene? How are you feeling after this meditation?
Speaker 3:It's reminding me that 2023 for me was really a year of grief and I hadn't really stopped and thought about it like that. But I remember actually in January was when we lost Brian, right, I mean last it was last January. I hadn't really thought about it, but somehow that the meditation brought me back to this year of grief. It really started right after the new year. Last year was so hard, I think I'm still grieving in a lot of ways. I lost my dad and at the end of March, and so it really has been a year of grief. And then what happens after the grief? Right, there's been some of the gifts that came, or like a new relationship with my mom, right, I mean, it's just changed so. So that's been, that's been a gift. It's reminding me of just how, how precious life is. So, and the fact that grief takes a while Like if you had asked me whether or not I felt grief like before we did this meditation, I probably would have said no, but I think it's a very slow thing that lives in you and I wonder how many other people are feeling that too.
Speaker 3:In the meditation, when I look forward, I really felt like 2024 for me is it's a year of creating. I feel like that was another gift of being in. This year of grief is I'm. I just made a lot of things I learned to. I started knitting, I started I'm learning to sew, and there's nothing like knitting to really make you feel like you're making something. And so I don't know what 2024 looks like, like, what the new creations will be, but I feel this like creator force in me, like really wanting to come through.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you invoking Brian's memory. He actually came up to in my meditation as well and and I didn't realize that it's been a year, so I appreciate you marking that time and I think one of the things that he was always so good at was just remembering the magic of sound and so just as we were sort of being present for your meditation, belinda, and just what is that magic of sound and that sort of sense of possibility, and he just he kept that present for us as our audio producer and really it's really telling a story that we wouldn't have the Graduate Boomin podcast by for him. So thank you, arlene.
Speaker 2:I think that sometimes there's so much pressure this time of year to write things down and make things very concrete, and I know we've talked about this as a team how sometimes, when you want to hold space for emergence, it's it may be actually like it may be actually limiting to make things into very tangible goals. Even last episode we talked about that pressure of modern culture of having to make everything very visible and measurable, and so I'm curious when you were connecting with your heart and sensing into the past and the present and the future, in what form did that sensation come to you?
Speaker 3:That's why the meditation was so beautiful, and it was the invitation to pause allows you to notice, like, the feelings and the memories and the things that are there, that are maybe just under the surface. When you're invited to pause and notice what's in your heart, there's like a moment where you can reconnect with the intent of your life, right, like what is it? And some of us are more intentional than others, right? So I feel like that was, that was what came up for me, was I had this feeling of the intent in my life, and I think I am a creator, right, I as an artist, and so, for me, that is what was coming up. That's, that's the way I experienced the feeling in my heart.
Speaker 1:We're so in sync, Arlene. I was literally had the words intention in my head as you were saying it.
Speaker 3:There's little clues everywhere. I mean, I think, the reason I've been thinking about it. I have a tea bag and the tea bag thing on the back of the tea bag said something like intent creates reality and I'm like, yes, yes, like everything, like everything here right Is here because of some intent, right that we created.
Speaker 2:Well, I so appreciate this moment of just being able to connect to you all and our listeners from afar in this moment of pause together. It does help me drop more into my heart as well and I would say, looking back, looking forward, 2023 felt like fast and furious, like I'm like where did it go? What happened? I mean, I can't remember anything. Almost I had to look back on my photos to try to recall it, because it felt like it was just going, like whether or not I was on the train or not, it was going to go and I think it, towards the end, it led to a lot of unexpected possibilities and ideas.
Speaker 2:Fall, I'm realizing, is my season of like, really getting a lot of inspiration for the next season and year, and I think it was a practice of being really hyper present in the moment and seeing what is available in that moment to step into or not, and really letting go of form like, of the form that something needs to take to feel like I'm moving forward.
Speaker 2:I really feel like I surrendered even more in that way of like OK, I don't know, and I think we've talked about it a lot as our team Like, we don't know, we want to try to know what we have to fight the flow of that having to know thing. And and it was interesting because we did a little vision boarding ceremony a couple days ago and I'm not a vision border, but it's really interesting because it's held by one of our community members and she really brought us into our hearts first, before we went into the experience of creating the collage of the year, and and the gift that I received actually happened in the year when I was watching who was in the year doing this activity and it was a community member who actually followed us on our retreat center on Instagram and randomly moved from Big Island, hawaii, to Mount Shasta, was helping out a neighbor up the road and then got introduced to us through another friend to help us on our land. So that was a person holding the space. And then there was a woman who had was our first ever sabbatical guest when we launched that program and she connected me to Dr Paul Wong, who was a guest on our podcast and someone that I hold the equinox retreats with, who Omar knows as well, and one of Paul students came back for the new year gathering, and so these are people that if I tried my best to try to attract them or meet them in real life it would never have happened.
Speaker 2:It made me realize that 2024 is the year I want to stay open to miracles, the unexpected gifts that want to come to all of us, and like, not block that and not try to plan too much that I lose the expansiveness of the possibilities. So that was really unexpected to realize that, oh, that's my intention, that's how I want to feel. Oh right, like so much of what's happened in my life has not been through my effort. It's been through synchronicity and and saying yes to the to be at the right place at the right time to receive the gift.
Speaker 1:I feel like that is. So I'm pointing with Wu Wei right. It's like effortless action, right, and part of it was. I was reading this article and it said that the world we occupy is already in harmony, but this equilibrium is disturbed by our endless desires and wants. In order to restore this balance, we are to navigate the world according to how it already is, instead of attempting to bend it to our will. So, therefore, we're invited to swim with the current of the river to see where it takes us, rather than fighting against it to go to a destination we already have in mind.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't wait to see how it all unfolds and we're making it public everybody. This is what we're standing for. So, yeah, let's see what happens. Does it feel like at the right time now to pick a card and see what gratitude blooming has to tell us, now that we've voiced our how we want to feel in this year?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like there's something around creativity meets effortless action. What?
Speaker 2:does that?
Speaker 1:look like, or maybe the sort of it's about intention, really being clear about our intentions and how do we want to move or not move, or be moved by the world?
Speaker 2:All right, do we feel like a certain place?
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like it's two, four twenty four twenty four Cool Second row, fourth column. Does that work, all right? Card number 17 violets representing the theme of humility. Humility is a quiet, powerful gift. How can you share this gift with others? And the art is two violets with two leaves kind of joined together, almost like in a V shape, which I love, the idea of victory through humility Violets. So how's? How does this card show up for you relative to the are inquiry around intentions.
Speaker 3:I sort of remember, like the story of the drawing this card about this. It was kind of the paradox of sometimes you, the smaller you are, the bigger you are in a different sense. So like I always, when I when I see this card, I always remember that feeling. When I wrote the word humility on the card is, I had that feeling of here are these two small violets and yet they just seem like more powerful than anything in the world, right, like I really had that that sense and I can't really put my finger on on how they do that. But I feel like that's the power of this virtue of humility is that you're much bigger and more powerful the smaller you are sometimes.
Speaker 1:Like the violence.
Speaker 3:Violets aren't out there, like being. Look at me, look at me, they're, they're just there, and to me that's, that's like an essence, the essence of humility.
Speaker 1:I go back to the word humility comes from humus or soil, or of the earth, and I'm just imagining in Yosemite these giant thousand year old sequoia is like coming up out of the earth and and then at the top of we climb vernal falls, which is like this 400 foot elevation in like less than a mile and a half, and so it's the steep climb up and then you get the top of the falls and there's all these like vine trees coming out of like the boulders, and they look like bonsai trees in some ways because the roots are so like gnarled, because it's like there's no dirt and there's no soil.
Speaker 1:They're like literally had to come out of like cracks in the boulder and then over time they grew and so I just I don't know, I think about like there's such a will to live Right thousand year old trees. I feel like humility as we go into the year with all these intentions of like how do we stay grounded? How do we Create quiet like? How do we receive these things as gifts, not just sort of like problems or challenges to be solved or conquered or whatever that will power oriented Approach that is so prevalent? How do we sort of really just Trust the will of life itself. Right like that, these trees are going to grow, because that's what a pine seed does, is it finds Places to grow its roots and let everything else do what it does.
Speaker 2:Feels very comforting and effortless.
Speaker 1:Love it. Well, omar, do we have a song for humility, as we're kind of holding space for these virtues of Gratitude blooming to be received well, in lieu of the humility song which will be forthcoming on our collaboration with the composer and musician Ariel low, let's go with the wild card and and Tiger Lily you, you, you.
Speaker 2:I love how much that strumming of the guitar felt like a lullaby and and in many ways that does feel like the energy of Humility and what it feels like to just receive a gift that wants to be given to you like that, just come on, enjoy this song, let it take you to your sleep, like it feels perfect for that, that feeling of receiving with effortless action.
Speaker 1:I love that as an intention for the artist, poet and land steward who are Creating with effortless action.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope this episode inspires you all to connect in to your hearts and just take a pause as we Just emerge into this new year, just taking our time to really receive.
Speaker 1:Cheers.
Speaker 2:Cheers.
