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
From Chaos to Cosmic Choices to Loving Corrections with adrienne maree brown
This week, we are joined by beloved movement creatrix adrienne maree brown in a conversation about talking with trees, finding your murmuration, and holding complexity (and each other). With wisdom from Gratitude Blooming’s rose card representing choice, the celebrated author of Emergent Strategy joins co-hosts Belinda Liu and Omar Brownson for an insightful conversation on building right relationships, the power of proximity and her new book Loving Corrections.
We unravel the threads of how capitalism and colonization pull us away from our local communities and the urgent need for spiritual technologies to navigate global crises. Listen in as adrienne shares her wisdom on staying present and connected with our surroundings and the people closest to us, drawing from personal experiences and collective actions like passing a ceasefire resolution with her community in Durham, NC.
How does a budding spring rosebud symbolize the myriad of decisions we face in life?
In an illustration rich with metaphor, we explore the intricate paths of personal growth and choices, inspired by the branching paths of a rose drawing. From enchanting writing retreats in Ireland to the meditative act of planting rose bushes, we reflect on the lessons nature teaches us about balance, protection, and growth. Each choice, whether familiar or uncharted, blossoms with its own potential and beauty, mirroring our life's journey.
Art and activism intertwine beautifully as we celebrate the power of creativity in times of political and emotional upheaval. Drawing from a spring equinox excerpt from her new book, adrienne maree brown shares how poetry, song, and spells can transform overwhelming emotions into life-affirming art.
By turning chaos into creative expressions, we find ways to embrace joy, authenticity, and a positive outlook. We hope the heartfelt stories and actionable insights shared in this episode inspire you to turn tough emotions into meaningful actions and cultivate beauty and resilience even in the most challenging times.
Deepen your exploration of Gratitude Blooming's Card #3 CHOICE / SPRING ROSE by tuning into our song and other episodes on choice here:
https://www.gratitudeblooming.com/choice
Explore adrienne's work here:
adrienne maree brown is growing a garden of healing ideas through her multi-genre writing, her collaborations and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transformation. She is the author/editor of several published texts, cogenerator of a tarot deck and a developing musical ritual. adrienne's most recent book Loving Corrections is now available from AK Press and wherever books are sold.
Get your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com. Your purchase helps us sustain this podcast, or you can also sponsor us here.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com. We love hearing from our listeners!
Hello Belinda.
adrienne maree brown:Hey Omar.
Omar Brownson:So excited that we get to have the Adrienne Marie Brown on the podcast today. I read your book, emergent Strategy in 2020. I was feeling a very parallel moment, wherever, somewhere, you were writing it and my dear friend taj his name, was all over the book. Uh, he and I go back to college days. Um, we cut our teeth on environmental justice organizing and we were young people and at that time, young people organizing on environmental justice was like all three rails that philanthropy wouldn't touch and that's what we were doing. We hadn't talked in forever. Then I was on maui and I was, um, going on the road to hana. We were listening to this uh, audio sort of tour and the guide was like take a turn here and take a look at these rainbow eucalyptus trees. And I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, oh, these are beautiful, colorful. And then my youngest daughter when we got back to the place, she was like Dad, look, there's a rainbow eucalyptus tree in front of the place. We're staying. I was like oh, that's amazing.
Omar Brownson:And then Taj posts on Facebook an article about rainbow eucalyptus trees literally the next day. I hadn't talked to him in 20 years. I was like man, I should really reach out to him. A couple days later we're back in LA. I get an email Monday morning.
Omar Brownson:New balance drops a rainbow eucalyptus edition. I was like one. I got a bid on the shoes. I didn't win the bid, but I did sort of take the opportunity to reach back to Taj, and we have been rolling deep ever since on Full Spectrum Capital and so, all to say, feel deep in community. I do a lot of work with Norma Wong and Collective Acceleration. She's been a guest on our podcast and part of our podcast with Belinda, and I started was right around. I had just finished reading Emergent Strategy and you were talking about right relationship and murmuration and that was really the inspiration of a lot of our podcasts, and there was something specific that you said about right relationship that really helped bring it home, which was about proximity what's the distance and how are we aware of that distance and so I would love for you, just as an opening frame, to just talk a little bit about proximity and then we'll go ahead and pull a card and sort of jump into the rest of the conversation beautiful.
Belinda Liu:Well, first I just had to go immediately go look at rainbow eucalyptus and I was like, ah, I'm so glad you introduced me to this beautiful tree. Oh, I hope everyone goes and looks at it. I'm always just stunned by what we could be doing with our time, which is running around the entire world looking at all the pretty trees. I am in close proximity to a tree, a red maple, that is in my backyard at Durham, north Carolina, which has been teaching me a ton about relationship and what it means to be in right relationship with a place, like a place, a location that isn't changing all the time. And it has me thinking about how often in my life I have been overwhelmed by things that were beyond my proximity, that were beyond my reach, that were beyond my community's reach, and I think there's a way that capitalism and colonization and all these major systems very intentionally pull our attention away from the places where we are and we live and we can make a difference. So one of the best ways I think that we can return to right relationship with ourselves and with our communities and with the earth is by bringing ourselves back into right relationship with what's around us, and I think a lot about that. It's like who can I drive to without GPS? Who do I have over to my home regularly? Who are the people who are in time proximity if that makes sense Like the people that I would talk to daily? So there hasn't been much distance between the last time we spoke and the time that we're speaking again and there's almost a sense of living concurrently, being wrapped up in each other's lives. It's a smaller circle than I had earlier in my life and it's a deeper circle where I can really feel myself changing and I can feel myself changing in relationship to other people changing, and you know, there's so much change happening in the world right now and it's actually quite overwhelming. And I keep thinking about how I remember Angel Keota Williams saying this years ago Reverend Angel, talking about how we have all this technology that allows us to know what's happening with each other, but we have not developed the spiritual technology to actually handle all of that incoming data and incoming trauma and incoming crisis, and that's really stuck with me. That I'm really like okay. So I think part of my job is to develop that spiritual technology and it has to still start small.
Belinda Liu:When I receive new news I have to come back into myself. How do I feel, what do I think, what do I understand, what do I know, what do I believe about what I've just taken in? And then how does it impact the world around me, the people I love, the people I care about, and how does it impact the earth itself? And you know, the place where we are interconnected to everything is the earth itself. So there's nothing happening on earth that is not my business, because it is happening to this planet and on this planet. That is my home, and so I hold it all that way.
Belinda Liu:And then I'm like, okay, I'm still in a little murmuration, I'm still in a little flock here, so my little murmuration is going to take this and do this with it. You know, we've got the genocide unfolding in Gaza and in my little murmuration, in Durham we passed a ceasefire resolution, right, and we have a community of people that are coming together to support each other, support the Palestinian folks in our community, and continue to push. And it's a way that we can be in right relationship, while still being in relationship to those who we are in proximity with. Because it's like, okay, both, how do we stop genocide there? And also what are the things we can bring home and apply and learn here.
Omar Brownson:So I love um, reverend angel kira williams. Like my favorite line, um is that no change is possible without inner change. No change matters without collective change. And again, it's just that, weaving between the inner and the collective. And one practice that you shared I love is just where can you go without your GPS? And we've become so reliant on this little thing to tell us how to navigate and where to go to navigate and where to go.
Belinda Liu:I love how you're bringing the personal into the work that you do and it's very interconnected. And I'm curious, in this particular moment in your day and this time, what is the question or an intention that's really like alive for you? You know, in this space we get an opportunity to like kind of go into your world, like be in your room with you in Durham, which I grew up in North Carolina, so very familiar with that area.
Belinda Liu:Yes, I love that you're there. Yeah, so, in everything that's happening right now and I know you hold a lot of space for people to be with the chaos and also still find freedom and grounding in that and in this very moment, what is really present for you right now, and we're going to call, in the spirit of gratitude blooming, to see what wants to emerge around that question as a practice and weave the conversation from there.
Belinda Liu:One of the biggest questions I feel like I've been sitting with is, I think it's how to hold on to our complexity and hold on to each other when there's a lot of different perspectives and a lot of different strategies, and a lot of different strategies and a lot of different ways we could go.
Belinda Liu:How do we hold on to each other, hold on to each other's dignity as we find our way forward? A lot of what I experienced is we really internalized you know, we've lived in such a conflict zone for such a long time and we've internalized that so often, whenever there's even the slightest difference, we leap all the way into conflict without seeking understanding, without seeking conflict resolution, without seeking mediation, without curiosity, seeking conflict resolution without seeking mediation, without curiosity. Um, and I feel that in our political and social realm right now that, like we have a lot to do and we have a long way to go and we need a lot of different ways of getting there, but I don't know, I don't know how we hold it all and hold each other to achieve the scale you know that we actually need in order to make some of these changes.
Omar Brownson:So I'm going to share my screen and gratitude blooming cards created by the artist Arlene Kim Suda and her hundred days of blooming love practice, where the plants spoke a word to her. So the art that you will see is her art and the word that the plant spoke to her. And so, in some ways, the question that you asked, we like to almost think of that you're getting to ask the plant world, uh, this question like how do we hold on to, uh, complexity in the face of conflict? And you know partly why. You're looking at the backs of the cards, and this comes from Norma Wong's practice too, which is, like practice is anything that disrupts habit, and randomness is a great way to practice our habit of wanting to know everything right and to already have sort of an answer before we even sort of let the question sit for a second. So there's seven rows and six columns. We've now done this with thousands of people in hundreds of gratitude circles, hundreds of gratitude circles, and so, holding on to complexity in the face of conflict. Seven rows, six columns.
Omar Brownson:I'll scroll and you just tell me when to stop this row. Okay.
Belinda Liu:And then one through six.
Omar Brownson:This card, this number here, yeah, okay, let's see what Mama Earth wants to tell us. Ooh.
Omar Brownson:So this is card number three the rose representing the theme of choice. So this is the word that came to Arlene when she illustrated this rose. The prompt is are you facing a decision right now? Try to be grateful for the choices available to you. What does your heart want to choose? So one of the things that we invite folks to do is to first focus on the art and just sort of describe what you see and just is there anything in the art that speaks to the question that you asked?
Belinda Liu:Well, before I even get into the art, I have to say I'm really moved by this. I just did a writing retreat in ireland with a bunch of young writers queer bipoc writers and the theme of the entire week was roses. Like, no matter where we turned, no matter which way we looked, everything was a rose. The random harpist who came was named roysin, which is rose, and the oil that we all were given to take away was rose oil. So rose is like I want to be teaching you adrian um and what I see. The drawing, you know it's a beautiful, looks like a pencil line drawing of um, a rose, but just a singular branch coming up that then splits into multiple branches, which I love, because that automatically speaks to the thing I'm I'm seeking, which is like how do we remember that we have one root, that we're one singular branch going in all these different directions? And then for the majority of the branches that are splitting off, for the um, yeah, the, the, is it branches? They're splitting off, would you? Stems, I guess, like the stems are coming up and splitting, yeah. So for the majority of those, what we see is just the leaves of the rosebush, and then there's one at the very, very tip top. It's got the tiniest little bud. Something is beginning there at the very top, and then there's one rose that's like, bloomed, you know, sort of opened and, um, not fully wide but like on its way.
Belinda Liu:So that really resonates to me too, the idea that, like, we're on many paths and each one is actually in a different place in its development.
Belinda Liu:Um, and letting that be humbling, like it's like, oh, we're not all even in the same stage of what we're developing, what we're trying to grow, and so, even though we're connected the root, we're actually all learning at different paces and in different directions. Um, and the healthy rosebush looks like that kind of cacophony of growth and stages all happening at the same time. I just had rose bushes put into my backyard as well, and you know, just, this process of bud to bloom, bud to bloom is amazing and yeah, it's a stone beautiful process. I'm like, oh, I can see the beauty of that growth and that development all the way out to the petals falling to the ground, and I bring that into the choices that are available to us now, where there's some things that are just blooming, some things we're just learning how to do, some things we're pretty good at, and all of it's going to fall down, and there's beauty in all of that.
Omar Brownson:I just planted six rose bushes myself, and I have been you know, after it blooms, you prune it right, and then what I've also been doing is been drying the rose petals and creating all these like potpourri um moments throughout the house and you know, just going back to your question around complexity in the face of conflict, I can't help also to think about the thorns on a rose and this sort of balance between what are we protecting, you know, and what are we letting kind of bloom and when do we need to prune. So I don't know if any of those sort of elements.
Belinda Liu:I love this because I didn't even see the thorns. I was like, yeah, no thorns, but that's a very Adrienne worldview.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, I think the thorns are so important, like being able to protect something beautiful and alive is so crucial. I also really love this idea that you know each rosebush is a little different, even rosebushes that come like where everything is the same and it should grow exactly the same, but each one's going to grow a little bit differently. There's always complexity in the garden, so, yeah, that that feels like good and I really like this idea of being grateful for the choices available. Like on this picture there's one of the stems that kind of branches off that has no thorns on it and it's got. You got a rose, bush, that's already kind of you know a rose that's already bloomed.
Belinda Liu:I think that's important right, like when I think about the folks who are like I'm gonna go down the path that we've already walked many times, where there's already something at the end and that is familiar to me. So I think it'd be like total process or something like that, where it's like we're just gonna go this way, it's relatively smooth, we kind of know what we're gonna get. Um, and then the other stem is continuing upward and that's where the thorns begin and it's like, oh, what would it take to actually get to the top, where there's just something blooming. We don't even know what it's going to be yet, and I think that's actually the way. Um, my heart wants to move. You know, is is constantly towards that. Well, what?
adrienne maree brown:this way seems harder, but it's the way of possibility versus the way of the known, and there have to be people who are holding down the way of the known and there have to be people who are holding down the way of possibility cards and they represent different seasons, and I remember when arlene and I were um sifting through her hundreds, her literally hundred illustrations and trying to prioritize, you know, the set that would go with the theme of gratitude, we were like, well, is it too, you know, monotonous to have three cards of the rose and, and what was interesting was, each one represents a different season of the rose, and this one for choice is actually the spring rose, where it's just starting to come, and I'm hearing what you're saying.
adrienne maree brown:It's reminding me, too, of our relationship with time In modern culture. We've really lost that patience and that awareness of the change that is always happening, that nature is always trying to remind us of constantly, especially when you live in places that have seasons. You know, I know, durham definitely has some distinct seasons. We got the humidity there in the summer.
adrienne maree brown:Yeah, we've got storm season in the summer, that storm season. So I'm curious for you personally as a sacred activist, as someone who is a creator you had, you created your own deck as well, you know and as someone that like has written, like several books, what is your relationship like with seasons and time and in the way that you cultivate that in all these different layers of who you are?
Belinda Liu:It's interesting. I just am doing the final edits on the final novella in this trilogy I've been working on. The final novella is called Ancestors. The trilogy is the Grievers trilogy, and I decided to structure the entire thing around seasons and I'd always had a suspicion that that's how this was supposed to be held or how it's supposed to be seen, and it's because so much of my life has, like seasons have become so important to me.
Belinda Liu:I lived briefly in California and I actually had to leave because the seasons didn't feel distinct enough for me and I went to Detroit and I was like, hey, these seasons are too distinct for me, I need something in between. And so Durham feels like right now, the kind of perfect in between, where things don't get too extreme but there's a ton of beauty and my work happens differently in different seasons. But I want to share that in this. I talk about summer is the season to keep turning, fall is the season to compost, winter is the season to connect underground, and then spring is the season to create and like, if you follow that, you know, then I'm like oh, we're humans, are always in our own seasons too.
Belinda Liu:And there's, you know, I've been interviewing all these people about what time is it on the clock of the world, which is a question that my mentor, grace Lee Boggs, used to ask us, and she was a Chinese, american activist who threw down with the black labor movement in Detroit and a lot of people are saying it's a time of endings.
Belinda Liu:You know it's a time of letting go, know it's a time of letting go, it's a time of change, and so how do you hold on to spring in those moments and I think that's part of the work we're in right now is, like you know, fall heading into winter. You're throwing down seeds, you're putting bulbs into the dirt and you are kind of praying that, like on the other side of winter, after everything, everything is doing its work underground, that the spring will come and things that you seeded, things that you composted, things you released, things that you prayed over, will come into bloom in the spring. And in some ways, the whole cycle is orienting around like okay, like if we let go, we get spring, if we don't let go.
Belinda Liu:you know we might not get seasons anymore. You know, the climate catastrophes that are coming our way right now indicate that we're not going to have seasons we can count on. In the same way, and because we have created such chaos in the climate and I feel myself both grieving that and also really curious about how I, how I will adapt right, what will be the new seasons? How will I be a part of shaping that? How will the poets make new sense of the seasons? And yeah, it's a lot for me. And you know, then, I have this book coming in August, loving Corrections. It's coming out and I keep thinking about that.
Belinda Liu:There's also a seasonal aspect to that text and there's a set of poems or spells that are around the equinox and the solstices that I included in that text because it feels like one of the grandest loving corrections of the structure of humanity on earth is that we live inside of a seasonal world and so, even when things seem the most bleak and the most hopeless, even when we can't see our way out, even when it seems like the ice is never going to thaw, spring is coming.
Belinda Liu:Spring is still on its way and it's, it's what we're planting now, um, and that always helps me. It really helps me when we're in moments where I'm like, oh, sometimes it's generational. You know, I come from a people that were enslaved. Our winter lasted a long time. Our spring has been fiery, you know, um it explosive, um, and it's still unfolding, but right, so you can start to see. So, for me, I see time that way. But I'm like if there wasn't a cycle, I don't know how I would maintain my forward motion, but the fact that I know that there's a cycle keeps me moving forward keeps me moving forward.
adrienne maree brown:How did you unfurl in this collection of this work, like in this current iteration, like what was that process? Like? I feel like sometimes we only see the beauty of the finished product and I just want to hear about the journey of that unfolding, because I think that's so inspiring in the way of like how you lived the medicine of that book.
Belinda Liu:It's so interesting. For years I was a facilitator. My work was facilitating movement spaces and that's I was traveling around the country. I worked with black organizing, I worked with climate justice organizers, I worked with reproductive justice organizers, indigenous organizers, direct action folks you know all these different communities and I think a lot of the essays are rooted in moments inside of that facilitation when, as a facilitator, I'm holding the space and seeing the patterns and trying to help this community move through the eye of a needle over and over again, it's like there's only there's something that you know that's one of the big quotes from Taj James in the book is there's a conversation that only these people in this moment could have find it. And that's so much of how I worked as a facilitator. But there's also part of my mind that was like what would I call this pattern? And if I was trying to correct it on a larger level, what would I call this pattern? How would I speak about it?
Belinda Liu:So a lot of the essays come from that place of being like I really see this pattern amongst white people. I'm going to write a word for white people. I really see this pattern amongst men, both in the organizing world and the men that so many of the women I love are partnered with, and I want to talk about relinquishing the patriarchy. They come from very personal lived experiences. I can trace back to the memories. I can trace back to places where I felt a lot of anger or discontent or frustration. So the first part of our book I call ruminations, because it's really like digging into these places that can be felt as negative and discomfort and finding the wisdom in them, finding the thing we already know about them and trying to find the most loving way to communicate that. Because I also think that the earth is an abundant place that is trying to love us in a million ways every day and I think that the way we change together is with love. I don't think that people change that much through shame and through bullying or through being torn apart publicly. If any of those things worked to yield justice, I might have a different perspective, but that's not what I see emerge from those behaviors. What I do see happen is that when people are in a community and when there's space where people will be honest with them and where we can have honest conversations about how these systems live inside of each of us, then more becomes possible. So the first section is like ruminating, trying to take these things that seem negative and turn them into wisdom. The second half is memorations, which is really a study, like a murmuration, on accountability, Like what would it look like to get in a formation of accountability?
Belinda Liu:It was a pleasure to write these things and to feel like there's something that I know. There's a lot that I don't know, but there's something that I know and I think it's collective. There's some things that we actually do know.
Belinda Liu:I'm really grateful for the timing, because the political landscape inside the U? S right now is so fraught and chaotic and I didn't know that the book was going to come in this moment when I was writing it. You know, you never quite know like, okay, I'm going to finish this book and we'll see when it's going to come out. But I'm really grateful it's coming out now because, regardless of what happens in this election, there's things that we know and we're not going to backslide on and there's things that we're going to keep moving forward, and I'm a big believer that the elections are not the centerpiece of our political organizing and the electoral process is not a political home. So I'm really grateful to offer to people like here's some things we actually know and we're going to keep knowing them next year and the year after and for the duration of our lives.
Omar Brownson:Let's jump off from this place do you have the book with you? If there was a spell that you wanted to read in this moment that is maybe taking inspiration from the rose or the theme of choice, and I love that spring kind of entered into this conversation as well. It just feels, and I just now I also have just this mental image of you being that top bud that's just at the edges and pushing possibility forward.
Belinda Liu:I got a spell for the spring equinox which might be the right one for this moment.
adrienne maree brown:So why?
Belinda Liu:don't. We try it and we'll see what comes. Let us remind the world how many shades of green there are, how together we look like life itself. How tender the dirt gets in the spring. How tender the dirt gets in the spring. Let us burst open one multitudinous bud unfurled by that internal pressure of petal, right, yes, and soft, you will learn to inhale us. Let us punch out from the earth a lava bright and abundant dreams of tomorrow flowing, molten and free, turning ignorance to ash. Let us act like we've got some roots, know that we are held deeply Even as we dance toward the golden breast of the sun. Life delectable again. Let us remind ourselves that life moves ever towards life. This is the season of our nectar Beloveds. This is the season worth the sting.
Omar Brownson:Thank you, I love the. You talked about the green in the beginning and I think the human eye can distinguish more colors of green than any other color. And then how that life sort of seeks life. I just feel like that's life-seeking life when we can look at what is green in all of its sort of gradient. That was beautiful.
Belinda Liu:Thank you, and apparently like we have nothing on turtles. Turtles can see like so many more distinct variations of green, which I also love, like. I love the idea that like oh, we, we see the world this way. I just saw something the other day that was like here's how a sparrow looks to us and here's how a sparrow looks to a sparrow and to a sparrow they all look like those rainbow eucalyptus.
Belinda Liu:They're just a wide array of magic but we don't know how to see their magic. But hopefully we can hone our ability to see our own.
adrienne maree brown:Well, I have one inquiry for you. Around, as people listen to this conversation and they feel you and your journey and what you're sharing from this place of like wisdom and deep experience like what's, what do you feel like is one thing that has really helped you stay grounded in the chaos. I feel like you've kind of given a few like breadcrumbs for us, and I'd just love to hear if there's anything else, because I feel like that's really what people need right now is that reminder of not going into despair, that there is still agency, there's freedom, there's love, there's beauty, there's all the things. And so what's your personal practice that has really helped you be with the chaos and still be centered?
Belinda Liu:I really love this question. Lately I've been singing a lot and writing a lot of poems and I find the creative process for me is how I compost the overwhelm and the grief and the despair and the fight, like all those intense emotions, the desire to have everyone be different. Already I can process that through myself as a song. It's like I take in all of it and it's moving through me and if I give myself the time and space to feel it, what comes forth is a song, or what comes forward as a poem or what comes forward as a spell, and it's like, in that way I know I have fully felt this thing, I fully let myself be with, um, something that's true, something that's actually true. I'm always trying to figure out how to let my art bring me as close to the truth as possible. Like I feel like, if I'm a visionary, I want to be a visionary of like what is, you know, like I feel like what will be emerges from what is and what.
Belinda Liu:I'm willing to practice, and so I'm always practicing like I'm, like I can feel this because it is real, it is true, so I can handle it. And and then, once I feel it, what? What can I make from this? What can I? What changes in me, um, and because I'm an artist, what changes in me is usually something gets created, um, but I highly recommend it to people to have some way that you're think of yourself as a compost bin. It's like my job is to take all of this and make something of it, and then what I make might be a poem, it might be a direct action, it might be a sign, it might be a book, it might be a child. A lot of things get composted into this world and become life again. So, yeah, I think that's the practice I want to offer today.
Omar Brownson:Yeah, I love the idea that it's creativity, it's the choice, right, going back to the card to create in the face of complexity, in the face of pain, in the face of what might feel easier right, the path that doesn't have any thorns might feel easier. Right, the the path that doesn't have any thorns. But like, recognizing that like, and that not making a choice is a choice, right, like I think always people remind, like, oh, I don't have a choice. Like, no, no, that is a choice. Um, and and and you know, and with the practice of gratitude, we always say that it really begins by giving, not by receiving, and so choice is that thing that we give ourselves to sort of say, like, how do we want to wake up today? Well, if there's anything else you would love to share about your new book, congratulations.
Belinda Liu:We can't wait to read it, digest it it comes out August 20th, I will be doing a Southern driving tour and I'll be doing a few virtual events for it as well, so people can dive into it with me. I'm really looking forward to that. And you know, the biggest, biggest gratitude I think of my life is that I get to be a writer in this life, so I'm really grateful that y'all had me on here to talk about that. I get to be a writer in this life, so I'm really grateful that y'all had me on here to talk about what I get to do. I'm grateful.
adrienne maree brown:I'm guessing we can all find the links to the events and the book and on your website, adriamariebrowncom.
Belinda Liu:Yeah, so adriamariebrowncom, and then on my Instagram. Those are the best places to kind of figure out what's happening with me.
Omar Brownson:Your Instagram has the best meme game out there. Thank you I definitely repost as frequently as I can, and so if you are into memes, if you're into beauty and spirit and spells and wisdom, yes, and there's nothing like a good meme. It's just really Well that too, is a composting act.
Belinda Liu:Right Like I'm? Like I'm feeling so much right now, what can I do with it? And then I make these little carousels that feel kind of like meme poems or something, and then I feel better afterwards, I feel more connected and I love. I love as people react to them and are just like oh my God, you know they get it. It makes you feel less alone, you know. So I'm trying to figure out ways to use the internet that don't detract or suck away life from me, and I find that having really good filters you know, training my algorithm to show me magic, wonder, beauty and love and justice and solution, and then putting these memes out has me I feel like I've gained the system a little bit.
Omar Brownson:I love the idea of training the algorithms you know oh yeah, I'm like, this is my world.
adrienne maree brown:Exactly, and I do have to say the way that you bring joy and authenticity has affected a lot of people in my world Exactly, and I do have to say the way that you bring joy and authenticity has affected a lot of people in my life, like I remember at our retreat center in Mount Shasta, california, a couple community members like bringing the book and reading it on our land pleasure activism and they were like, oh my God, this is such a reframe from like how hard it feels and how tired I am, and so it's just amazing that, um, yeah, how many people's lives you've changed with that reframe you know like we can look at this differently.
Belinda Liu:You know, we can approach it feels like that was what was in the car too, like can you be grateful for the choice. You know, even sometimes I'll feel that in my heartbreak I'm like, oh, I have a heart, how wonderful you know I have. I'm still, I'm not numb to this, I'm still alive, feeling it, and oh, how good that is. What a what a joy it is to actually get to be alive, to feel grief, right.
Omar Brownson:Super honored to have you join us. Wish you blessings and freedom and security and joy and all the abundance as you continue to share your spirit to the world. So thank you.
Belinda Liu:Thank you both so much. I look forward to more and more.
