Gratitude Blooming Podcast
In Season 4 of the Gratitude Blooming podcast, Wayfinding Through the Unknown, a monthly conversation hosted by Belinda Liu and Omar Brownson, we slow down to explore wild, emergent living, guided by the rhythms of nature and the wisdom within.
Joining us as a regular guest is the brilliant Dr. Paul Wang, whose deep knowledge of Chinese medicine, Daoism, and alchemical traditions expands our understanding of transformation beyond the elements. Together, we embrace the practice of pausing, noticing, and feeling—grounding ourselves in presence as we navigate life's unfolding.
The Gratitude Blooming card deck was inspired by the artist Arlene Kim Suda and her 100 Days of Blooming Love art project. Please rate, review and subscribe. New conversations each month. We want to hear what you're grateful for. Learn more at www.gratitudeblooming.com
Gratitude Blooming Podcast
Harnessing Nature's Wisdom: Exploring Grief, Gratitude, and Self-Care with Dr. Paul Wang
What if we could harness the wisdom of nature to transform our lives?
Join us as we explore this intriguing question with our esteemed guest, Dr. Paul Wang, whose expertise in Chinese medicine and Daoism guides us through the profound themes of grief, gratitude, and self-care. Reflecting on the recent natural disasters in Los Angeles, we delve into the crucial importance of aligning with nature and fostering a sense of collective well-being. Discover the tools of pausing, noticing, and community as we navigate the challenges of rebuilding and reimagining our connection with the environment.
As we venture into the intriguing realm of cosmic and personal cycles, prepare to be captivated by the solar polar flip and its potential effects on our natural world. This cosmic event sets the stage for a broader conversation on life's small signals—those subtle cues that can have a significant impact if left unaddressed. With the help of the Gratitude Blooming Card deck, we reflect on the importance of friendship as a source of resilience and balance, drawing parallels to our personal experiences of feeling overwhelmed and the necessity of self-care to prevent burnout.
We then transition into a vibrant exploration of friendship as an ecosystem, reflecting on the diversity of human experiences and the interconnectedness of our relationships. The colorful nasturtium flowers serve as a metaphor for the beauty and complexity of our communities, while ancient symbols like the Rod of Asclepius remind us of the healing power of companionship. As we embrace the sweetness and bitterness of life, we invite you to tune into your own seeds of intention, nurturing them as we all prepare for the growth and transformation that lies ahead.
If you'd like to practice seasonal living with us to navigate change and challenge with more wholeness, sign up for our new online Change Well Series launching Feb 23 to Mar 16, 2025.
Together, we will embark on a special journey to prepare for the spring cycle through physical, mental, emotional and spiritual alchemy.
REGISTER HERE:
https://www.gratitudeblooming.com/changewell
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Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, 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.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest:
Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao Center
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.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 1:Omar, welcome to another episode of Grad 2 Blooming Gong hei fat choy. We are on the verge of a new season, a new Chinese New Year, and just so much change is happening, both beautiful and tremendously difficult. I want to just start by acknowledging that our largest group of listeners are in Los Angeles, where I also live, and we've just been going through it between the fires and now, just literally two weeks later, we're now dealing with floods and mudslides. And so you know, you have invited us, belinda, to really think about seasonal living, and it's not just a nice to have, it really is showing us that if we are not living with the cycles of nature, there's like dramatic consequences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been interesting to tune into the land at this time and I was just having a conversation with our land steward in Mount Shasta and she was sharing that there's an early cedar bloom because it was raining and then really warm for a series of days, and now everyone has allergies in the middle of winter for a series of days, and now everyone has allergies in the middle of winter and here on Big Island, hawaii, pele has been erupting off and on for the past month. So I really feel like nature is speaking very loudly right now and you know, can we pause to hear? You know, what is she trying to tell us?
Speaker 1:What do you think she is trying to tell us? As you've because you've just come off a sabbatical I have been in kind of disaster response mode. I mean, we've has been able to kind of take an intentional moment and really hear what you're listening to.
Speaker 2:Well before I left on my sabbatical, omar, I remember we held a grief and gratitude circle for the community in LA and I remember that moment of just feeling this immense grief in my heart and feeling like part of that is my own grief and also just the density of an intensity of the grief that's very present right now. So much loss, and it was beautiful to take time for a week to just pause and just be with myself and be with different lands here on this island. And I do sense that there's a lot of messages around. You know, how are we going to stay centered and anchored during a time of massive change? And that level of change is not going away. She's almost saying, hey, I'm preparing you for what's coming, and that sounds really scary and overwhelming on one hand, and on the other hand, it's like, wow, we get to practice withholding that and being available to change in a new kind of way and at a different scale. So I'm curious, omar, for you, like how has that been for you in a very real sense?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I, just as you were talking about pausing, which you know is something that has been at the core, really, of Gratitude Blooming, is just pausing and listening. You know, I just can't help but remember that part of what brought you and I together was the pandemic and holding space every week, and it was all those stories you know, literally people calling from hospice to strangers coming together and because in 2020, it felt like there was just like a new disaster every week, whether it was sort of biological, social, political, economic, and all that then became the genesis for this podcast, and that was really then the first season of the podcast. And now, as we're entering to the fourth season of our podcast and really inviting the great Dr Paul Wong into this space with us, I just I don't think the tools have changed. The tools are still relevant, right, Like the tools of pausing, the tools of noticing, the tools of listening, the tools of being in community, you know, continue to still be important.
Speaker 1:That was one of the takeaways from our grief and gratitude circle was we pulled the self-care card and, you know and it just made me kind of create a slight riff on Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams, who says that no change is possible without interchange, no change matters without collective change. But when we pulled that self-care card, it really made me think that no change is possible without self-care and no change matters without caring for others. And in this time we are being called on to care for others, and it's so hard to do when you're in a disaster like your field of vision just narrows. And you know the Zen teacher, Norma Wong, who has been a multiple time guests on our podcast. She reached out to me and reminded me of the Lahaina fires in Maui. That was just 18 months ago and again devastating and like in my my mind.
Speaker 1:I didn't even put those two together because I was just like packing my go bag and making sure that, just in case we need to leave, that we were ready to do so. But these disasters aren't necessarily a surprise either. Right, and so you know we have to both hold so tenderly the loss of people's homes, their memories, everything that they cherished and valued, and also recognize that how are we living, you know, and really ask that question, Because right now everyone is saying rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. But we know that if we just rebuild what was way, we can't just rebuild what was, but even instinctually, kind of like, we know that we have to rebuild in a different kind of way. And so, how do you know, how do we pause, you know, with empathy, to recognize the importance of this kind of living with nature.
Speaker 2:And I just love that we're investing this season of the podcast to really leaning into that question and really we have more questions than answers but just having the space with you, our listeners, to just be with these questions and take that pause for what's emerging, and especially with that lens of nature. And I love that. Dr Paul Wong, you're going to be with us on this journey because you have been studying Chinese medicine, You're a student of the Tao, you literally are part of a lineage that is thousands of years old that starts from really nature being the guide, and so I'd love for you to share what does this time of the year represent and what is nature trying to tell us right now, in particular, in this moment?
Speaker 3:Thank you to Omar and Belinda for the invitation to synergize and co-create here. Integrating and just feeling into all that you've shared is fire is a major theme and maybe I'll start just to keep it simple to unpack that we consider it as an element in both the eastern and western elemental system. There's fire and it's also very alchemical and definition of that here is sort of process of transformation which we always are in, you know, 24, 7 that's the hour of days and and days of the week, but also every minute, every second, every nanosecond. There's that process of alchemy and it's either conscious or unconscious and I think for most of us it's, it's not conscious and it's it's. It's an alchemical process, maybe leading to something that's not healthy or not serving bolt right to uh like I witnessed a big island which was so profound that the fire portal of lava that comes through a volcano and the very beating of our hearts considered fire element in chinese medicine and its qualities of and most spiritual paths of illumination and awakening and realization and also home like a fireplace, so that kind of warmth even of our metabolism. So just offering some frames and we're at the cusp of the year of the snake, which takes this quality of fire and, to be a little bit technical, we can say there's the yin fire aspect, which is the light waking up, as we've seen for the last years, but maybe culminating to a certain stage of realization of what is, and even what we've seen, is necessary to allow to break down right. And then that pause is that, is that snake coiling and waiting for the right moment, that patience and observation. And then the young fire aspect is that explosion, right, that kind of more centrifugal aspect of fire energy, is that moving out and acting and doing, which taps into the current season that we're crossing into, which is spring.
Speaker 3:And the last thing I want to offer in this section is that we're also in another fire cycle, which happens every 11 years, or 22 years, depending on how you think of it, which is the solar polar flip.
Speaker 3:Every 11 years it happens, say, north Pole becomes South Pole over a period of 11 years and then another 11 years it flips back and North Pole becomes North again, relatively speaking. So we're peaking, we're at the midpoint of one of those polar flips and that's marked by many more sunspots, which are these kind of ignition points, and some of you may have noticed or heard right, there's been more aurora borealis, which is another kind of fire or light energy that's. That's come through the poles of our of our planet, and you can see them much closer to the equator. Before you had to go towards the poles to witness that. So that energy is increasing and peaking in July, where there'll be over 100 sunspots. So that energy is sociological, political, alchemical, cosmological, terrestrial, like I said, with the Earth, volcanoes erupting. So, yeah, that's what I would kind of call in this moment to play with.
Speaker 1:Just as you were describing the different fire elements from the Pali volcano that's erupting to our own heartbeats as a symbol of fire.
Speaker 1:I was having dinner on Saturday night with a friend who's also a councilman here and he's actually gone to the disasters which you're not really able to get access to because they're still closed off, and he said that one of the challenges with the fires is that these embers will take off and they can go like a mile and a half, still lit, right Through these like 70 mile per hour winds.
Speaker 1:And what's really causing a lot of the fire sort of spreading is that those little embers are getting caught in attic vents and it's then the attic vents that then catches the insulation and the insulation then sort of spreads and then that fire kind of spreads. And so just I want to call attention to that because I think sometimes we forget how important the small things are. Right, like this little ember can fly a mile and a half, stay lit and then cause more fire, and and and there's a a good and a half stay lit and then cause more fire, and there's a good and a bad, if you will, in that right. Obviously we've seen the bad of just people losing their homes. But maybe the good in that as a practice is like what are those small practices that help us kind of build the resilience, the ability to adapt to these changes?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm curious if there was an inquiry for us in this moment, for this season, what are we tuning into? I mean, for me it's like how to be with this heaviness and this overwhelm. I think before I took my sabbatical I was really feeling that intensity of the heaviness and this overwhelm. You know, I think before I took my sabbatical I was really feeling that intensity of like the heaviness and knowing that like if I just kept going, I remember picking that self-care card and being like, wow, if I don't stop right now, I'm not going to be able to continue. And there is feels like there is a bit of that like how do we tune into when we start to get overloaded or when something's out of alignment, right, like, how do we pay attention to those alerts before they become like huge disasters, you know, internally or externally? So that's what's coming up for me. I'm curious, what about for both of you? You know, we're all in different places, on different lands, so it's kind of cool to hold, you know, our own questions around this.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering if this is a question that we asked to the Gratitude Blooming Card deck and use that as the jumping off point.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. Yeah, does that question feel resonant for you both?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's consult the Oracle which may be coming. Does that question feel resonant for you?
Speaker 1:both. Yeah, let's consult the Oracle, which may be coming soon Gratitude Blooming Oracle. We're working on an online chatbot with the gratitude cards, so stay tuned, all right. So, belinda, do you want to restate your question just one more time? We have the card deck up Again, these 39 cards that just have really helped us weather, literally weather so many different storms over the last four or five years that we have been working together.
Speaker 2:I guess the simple question I would say is just how do we recognize when we are overloaded, when we need to stop and realign or change something, before the change kind of overwhelms us like a wave and we just get destroyed by it? So how do we pay attention to the off balance? How would you say that, Omar? You're so good at simplifying the intent.
Speaker 1:What I'm hearing you say is like how do we notice the small things before they become big things?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, big things, big problems.
Speaker 1:Things being a euphemism for problems. So we generally are not too worried when small things become great, awesome things for our lives. So I will scroll again through the seven rows and six columns and just let me know Paul or Belinda when to pause.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Paul, I think you should pick as our guest.
Speaker 3:Let's pause right there. Okay, this one, yes, right there.
Speaker 1:All right, this is about paying attention to the small things before they become big things. Hmm, card number 32, represented by the nasturtium. And so when Arlene illustrated this flower, the word friendship came to her, and the prompt is think of a friendship you cherish. What makes that friendship so special to you? And when we look at the art, we're looking really at we have almost what I'd say nine petals of the nasturtium and then maybe like three or four flowers all connected across these, maybe two or three vines. It's a really plant that spreads out over the ground. It's a really plant that, like, spreads out over the ground. So what do you think this card means? Paying attention to the small things before they become big things well, I loved that I went.
Speaker 2:I went to off-grid Farm this week on the eastern side of the Big Island, really near the southern tip, where you can see the sunrise, and there was nasturtium growing on this farm and what was really beautiful about it was there were different kinds of flowers. It was there were different kinds of flowers it was.
Speaker 2:There was like an orange one, a really bright red and then a yellow, and I was like, wow, how cool is it that you get this diversity of the same flower but in different shades, and they are very bushy and very kind of like a viney network. And it makes me realize that sometimes you can't rely on yourself to have that trigger alert go off, like you need other people to be a mirror for you around you know, hey, something's wrong, like you need to take a pause, you need to take care of yourself. And I felt that in the grief and gratitude circle, honestly, like it was a moment to be with other people and feel the grief in myself that was so strong that then I kind of unleashed a lot more of my own personal grief and I think I would have bottled that up if I was just by myself navigating my life in isolation. And so I'm just so grateful to be with Omar, you and Paul, like in this moment together where it's like like it feels less daunting navigating this unknown, knowing that there is going to be so much unexpected change coming up and not even knowing the magnitude of that, but just to be like, oh, I'm not alone in that unknown, it feels a lot less scary.
Speaker 2:Um, so I feel like it's really important, like, who do we surround ourselves with at this time? Like what are we amplifying together? Like, are we amplifying fear and paranoia and scarcity? Are we amplifying, you know, inquiry, curiosity, like love, compassion. So so to me, that's what comes up is like what are we choosing to to be around? You know what kind of energy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have the opportunity, as a doctor of Chinese medicine and teacher, to have a lot of people, I can reflect on their stories and I'm honored that they share and trust me with the depth and breadth of their seasons and how they're being seasoned by life. And yeah, you mentioned loneliness, which is an ongoing sort of pandemic of loneliness, especially well, not just with the elders, now, it's even like younger people that I witness. And so I think one thing that I cultivate almost as a preventative medicine, not waiting for the crisis or disaster or emergency to, like Omar was saying, prepare your go bag, so to speak. So part of self-cultivation or self-care cultivation is preparing that go bag, so to speak. Wherever you are, your resource, and that's great.
Speaker 3:Some of us have the opportunity to befriend the others around us. You have your spiritual community, your family, you know siblings or cousins or whatever are chosen. You know sort of not blood, blood family, but sort of your sacred culture, let's's say. And that's great, like the more, like befriending that you can cultivate, I think can really inoculate you against those threshold moments right Of breakdown.
Speaker 3:And I think the inquiry for me is, like I talk a lot about the intro relationships within oneself, like what is the friendship quality between your mind and your body? I talk a lot about the intra-relationships within oneself Like what is the friendship quality between your mind and your body, between your heart and your lungs, let's say your cardiorespiratory system? Are they dancing well together, your heartbeat and your breath, and also your brain brainwaves? Are you in sync with your inner community, up to the trillions of cells that are human and the trillions more that are part of the microbiome or even the virome? And so I think, at least in my frame, it's the befriending of the opposites, and not as oppositional but maybe frenemies, like a healthy relationship. You're not completely similar, You're not both yin or both yang, but there is a yin-yang dynamic where there's honoring and admiration and that kind of spark of the differences and the simultaneous cultivation of the center that holds in that tension of opposites, that creative tension of opposites. So one image that I thought of at the end of the dragon year.
Speaker 3:In the Chinese image, I think in archetype archetypically is actually in martial arts there's a Qingdong Baiwei, which is the green dragon, whips its tail and that's the end of the dragon dragon year, which is about this time, and the beginning of the xiaolong, the little dragon, of the, of the snake, which is more internal but contains tremendous power that moves inside rather than outside like the dragon. And so the friendship that befriending I want to tie in is is the symbol of the snake on the staff, the, the rod of asclepius, the greek god, son of apollo, of healing, which is that rod that represents that which never changes, that which is always grounded, like belinda talked about, taking that sabbatical to ground and also mark the most high. So that static part, befriending something which is unconditional Some call it, give it some spiritual name, like God or Tao or something like that and also tapping into that snake energy Otherwise it would be too static. So that dance of the static and the dynamic, befriending those two, the yin and yang, then embodying it right and then embracing it until it emanates from the inside out, and then hopefully, you have a reserve of that kind of energy to move with stillness and hopefully 99% of the time. Right, it doesn't have to be in these major disaster situations like I've been to in sort of medical mission, where you see so much destruction and devastation. And I've been grateful because my sort of cycle or one of my identities very powerfully is not just the you know for almost five decades that I've been in this body, but I have a spiritual body that I'm connected to that has been around for 2000 years.
Speaker 3:If there's a sort of I don't want to prescribe something, but something that I found really useful is you have to ground in something, whether it's a spiritual lineage, whether it's a goddess or a mother nature, something that you can rely on, that you can find stability and anchor into before shit hits the fan, so to speak. And yeah, it's served me well, well, and I hope that we can share around that, strategies around that or practices around that, to help um, inoculate people with that, with that yin yang kind of synergy, and dance, dance these waves and these, like I said, these superimposed fire cycle ignitions, that that is that's happening, both cosmologically and socially and even physiologically, and finding ways to practice it. You know, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, there's, there is that fire energy there. You don't have to wait until this big fire out there to to master uh, fire alchemy. Every, every breath has fire in it. Every thought has a fire aspect to it. If you think of fire as one of the four seasons, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:As I listen to you both in terms of Melinda's network that the art looks like and Pauly's invoking this staff, that sort of provides some continuity. You know, I just think about my Saturday night where we went out with longtime friends it was the councilman and our other friend, kathy, and who she and I have worked together in lots of different ways and just how special that moment felt for us. He's obviously been in disaster response, like front lines um of it, and with our families we went to this balloon museum and it's all these sort of like 15, 20 different art exhibits that are like interactive, like you go into this like huge pool of black balls and you can just like be a little bit of a kid again. And it was just such this like relief of just like oh, okay, we can hold the serious things, but we can also we have to remember to like just take a break and like there's whimsy matters too. And I think part of the theme of the show is there's no limits with art, right, we can imagine different possibilities, and I think part of what we are being invited to in this moment is to imagine a different way of living. And so I think the other thing is, I'm looking at the art and I'm seeing these big kind of lily pad leaves, and that's what I think is so beautiful about the nasturtium is that it really elevates the leaves as opposed to the flowers. Most flowers you focus on the flower and the petals and the leaves are in the background, whereas the nasturtium it flips it and those petals kind of look like circles it and those petals kind of look like circles.
Speaker 1:And one of the conversations that I had today with folks up at Commonweal whose mission is healing hearts and healing the planet, and they hold healing circles and they're like we don't need just like a red cross that's going to respond to disaster with shelter and water and food. We need all those things absolutely, but we also need social infrastructure to help people hold space. And that's what the grief and gratitude circle was a part of. And so I was like we should create a circle of circles. You know, and that's kind of what this Nisrishium looks like to me is this circle of circles and how they are all sort of connected.
Speaker 1:And then, just the last thing I'll just say about friendship. I think of the great writer CS Lewis, and he talked a lot about friendship, really in contrast to lovers, and the classic image that he talked about is like lovers they face each other, like their eyes are looking at each other, whereas friends are looking forward together. And that's like one of the big differences between a lover and a friend is that with friends, you're just what are we looking forward to? You're more likely to be holding arms than gazing into each other's eyes, and so I think maybe, going back to your theme, belinda, of how do we notice the small things before they become big things is that when you have friends looking forward, you have more eyes looking forward, right, like there's more of you to notice what is going on, and I think that's really the power of friendship, the power of community. We know that also, community is so resilient.
Speaker 1:I've never received so many text messages from so many friends people literally I haven't talked to since college is from so many friends. People literally I haven't talked to since college reached out to see how I was doing. And so there's this deep network of friends, and it's maybe not the 2000 year lineage that you get to pull on pole, but there was like a 30 year lineage of friendship that showed up and super grateful for that.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that we get to kind of invite in that spirit of self-friendship and friendship with others in this moment of transition. You know, in many, many different levels, there is just this immense change in the air as we go from season to season Winter is very different than spring, and so I would love to invite us to really feel that connection that Paul was inviting to ground into something bigger than ourselves, and also this connection, a reminder that we're not alone. You know in what we're navigating. And, omar, I loved how, in our grief and gratitude circle, we played the song of the card and just really felt into our hearts together the spirit of that plant. And I did check we have the friendship song. So I was thinking it might be nice for us to kind of be with the music and just imagining that alignment and that grounding, as well as that expansion out like the nasturtium. How does that feel as a practice? Does anyone want to add anything to that for our listeners as like a little takeaway?
Speaker 1:I'll just say real quickly I'll let you jump in, paul but, like you said, self-friendship, belinda and that's literally the definition of compassion, or self-compassion is to be a friend to yourself, and so I love that you sort of invoke that.
Speaker 3:that friendship isn't just with other people, but it's also the compassion that we cultivate for ourselves yeah, if I may add one more aspect to the more ingredient to the pot is is back to, nasturtium is one of my best friends in nature.
Speaker 3:So plant friends, not just the homo sapiens, um, it's that, it's edible, it's one of the flowers that our plants are very clear that it's to recognize and therefore safe. Not recommending anything but for myself, I usually, in this case I guess, eat my friend and enjoy the flavor which is a bit bitter, and enjoy the flavor which is a bit bitter and I want to make a tie-in to Chinese medicine, since I'm a doctor of that is the bitter flavor actually is cooling and clearing. And if you expand that idea of bitter, it's like bitter endings even too right or semi-bittersweet, perhaps even in the word friend, right, maybe some of the most fond friendships are have already ended right, but they really affected you and you really changed a lot, or you hold something within your heart that was quite profound from that, that friendship that ended. And part of that comes from tasting the bitterness, not just the you know, always sweet saccharine vibes and uh.
Speaker 1:so yeah, I would love to sit in that and marinate in that with the friendship soundtrack with you both this was our collaboration with uh, the musician and artist, uh ariel low, and they created three albums Garden of Joy, garden of Curiosity and Garden of Healing. This song, friendship, is off of our Garden of Joy album, which you can find on Apple Spotify, and really the invitation as you listen to this song, which is just it's a short song, a minute and 22 seconds is maybe notice where in your body you feel this song. Thank you. So where did you hear the song?
Speaker 2:Somewhere in between my belly and my heart space. There was something just super sweet and simple about the chords. I don't think I've really zoned in on this particular song before. I've always heard it as a whole album and it was so tender.
Speaker 3:What about you?
Speaker 2:guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, me as well. It's interesting that I spoke of that bittersweet.
Speaker 2:It's like melty dark chocolate.
Speaker 3:And I felt it in the middle of the center channel of my body around the heart.
Speaker 1:Well, you'll appreciate this, belinda. I felt it in my feet, the bottom of my feet, which is always like your sort of like go-to meditation, is to pay attention to your feet, and I just it felt like walking on a forest floor that is like has like a certain sort of density of leaves or like moss, where there's just sort of like a squishiness to it, but you're still being really held by earth, and so I just I felt that sort of gentle being gently held by the earth.
Speaker 2:So I love that earth, friendship, spirit earth.
Speaker 1:There we go. You know, Paul, it's, it's great to have this collaboration with you, you know, because you are able to pull from, you know, the three M's of medicine, sort of the sort of the mental work, the sort of the mystical work, I think medical, mystical. What am I saying?
Speaker 3:Also the martial arts. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Martial, there we go.
Speaker 3:I knew I was going to say that it's okay, all the M's, yeah, m and M.
Speaker 1:And so you know, I think this is a regular sort of practice that we now want to kind of bring to our listeners and try to do this every month. So for this month, you know, also starts with M. Is there something that you invite folks to really pay attention to?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I talked about the fire, that's more the year, that is, that we're transitioning into the month which begins the spring season and also the halfway point of this space-time calendar of the equinoxes and solstices. So halfway between the last, which was the winter solstice, and the spring equinox is coming up in bulk in some traditions. Right, lee lee twin in the chinese tradition is that sprouting energy, or the energy of germination, and if we add a little bit more alchemy, it's that wood and fire dynamic right that moment. When does that happen? Like we've, I know, in mount shasta the last time I tried to ignite some wood, right, and it takes focus, right, it takes intention and sensitivity to the elements, like you know, with the match or with the paper, right, and so I think that's the good threshold for us to tap into in this month.
Speaker 3:It's like, whether you see it as like wood poof, right, sparking, or right underground, nothing seems to be happening. But maybe meditate, what are the deeper seeds that you've actually been kind of germinating and then reaching that breakthrough point, sprouting into the surface, and maybe that represents something around your health, right, or your finances, or your relationships or your friendships to tap into, because that's present in in the, the surroundings, the environment, and so if there is something right, that that you want to curate around germination of a seed, what is that most meaningful? I like to say maybe, uh, let some of the other ones lie fallow, maybe for the next, next, uh, ignition moment. But what is the most meaningful, like like omar invited, like that you feel in your body that you want to bring out, that to tie into the other thing is that also is most serving to your circles, concentric circles.
Speaker 1:I love that you've invited this, and the image that came to me almost immediately was the it's called the Mataliha poppy, and it only germinates after a fire, because it's a rhizome that sort of sits really kind of below the soil and it's this beautiful. It's got like these white petals and this like yellow egg yolk center, so it almost looks like a fried egg, and so I just I love that sort of reminder that you know fire is not just destructive, we know it is, but we also know that parts of nature only actually come alive after this fire, and so I feel like this, it's like a perfect invitation for us to focus on Any thing for you, belinda.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just really grateful that we have this moment of pause every month now for this fourth season of our podcast we're now over 120 episodes and just to collectively pay attention to what's happening in the natural world. And we will be collaborating with Grad 2, blooming and Dr Paul's organization, dowology, on a seasonal series where we get to really lean into that more preparing for the season ahead. So we'll be launching that coming up next month. As Dr Paul was saying, just how do we prepare for spring in our bodies, in our emotional bodies, in our physical bodies, in our mental bodies, in our spiritual bodies? And I feel like when I watch what's happening in the natural world with the plants, like they are always evolving and adapting on all those levels almost, and it's just happening very naturally on all those levels almost, and it's just happening very naturally, whereas it's just a lot harder.
Speaker 2:As a human, we like to have some things stay the same, so they feel familiar, but then it becomes stagnant sometimes, and then that's when things start to kind of fall apart, and so I'm just excited to invite in a little bit of that breaking through the falling apart, the, the like what can happen when we let the change through. So, yeah, we're really excited to share more about that. As, uh, as we launch, we'll add a link to the um, the registration there on the podcast episodes. Yeah, omar, any anything else to close, Just as you were sharing.
Speaker 1:what immediately came to me is that, in nature, the word friendship is ecosystem, and so it's just like how do we be in an ecosystem together?
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful inquiry for season four. How do we be in the ecosystem? What is the ecosystem.
Speaker 1:Well, stay tuned and we look forward to more conversations, cheers, cheers.
Speaker 3:Thank you all.
