Wayfinding in Summer: The Power of Aliveness, Destiny, and the Dance of Yin & Yang

In this episode, hosts Omar and Belinda, joined by Dr. Paul Wang, explore the intense transition from spring to summer—a time of rapid blooming and expansive energy. Omar shares a profound moment of wayfinding amidst a board meeting, guided by nature’s messages of patience, kindness, and the unexpected wisdom of a slithering snake.

Dr. Paul offers insights from Daoist wisdom and Chinese medicine, emphasizing the power of aligning with the season’s fire energy while honoring the balancing yin. As they draw the 14th Gratitude Blooming card, the pasque flower symbolizing Destiny, the conversation turns to how we choose our path—or how sometimes, the path chooses us. They delve into the dance of shadow and light, personal triggers, and how aliveness guides us towards what matters most.

Join us for this heartfelt conversation on allowing the season’s full bloom to guide your inner journey—and perhaps reimagine destiny not as a final destination, but as an invitation to respond with more presence, grace, and curiosity.

Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.

Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:

Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers

Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack

Special Guest 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!

Transcript

Omar  0:22  
hello, Belinda, hey, Omar. I can't believe it's already summer. It's been amazing to go through this seasonal wayfinding practice with you and our ongoing special guest, Dr, Paul Wong, this year, I

Belinda  3:16  
feel like I'm being a lot more intentional about the seasons just looking around as we are checking in every month with just change all the time in nature constantly. I

Omar  3:28  
definitely paid more attention to that transition from the sort of the raw, sort of limbs of a tree to then the little sort of buds, and now, you know, to the full blooming that's been happening, and I have a story about way finding that was a very real recently at a board meeting that I was at. But before I share that story, I wanted to just share another story from one of our supporters for gratitude blooming. Mike Bucha reached out to me on LinkedIn because he's been enjoying the tricksters guide to immortality that I've been writing on substack and these comics with soul. And he's like, Hey, can we have a call? And I was like, of course, let's let's chat. And he shared with me how important gratitude blooming has been to him and his wife. They got married, you know, recently, and instead of like a big wedding with like 200 people, they wanted something really intimate. So they had 20 people at their wedding, and they bought all of their guests, gratitude blooming card decks. Normally that they selected one card from the deck to give to each person and what they represented to them, right? And so it was just like this beautiful story, like we just don't know the impact of gratitude booming. So, so, so often,

Belinda  5:01  
right? I mean, anywhere in the world there is blooming happening, and we can't all see it, you know, everything at once, and it's just such a good reminder. Omar, remember when you and I first started partnering, and at the beginning, you know, you were like, I think we need to rewrite this website. And I feel like that was kind of the beginning of how you and I came into alignment and started this CO creating journey. And one of the things that you wrote that is still on our website is, you know, pick your own adventure. There is no one right way to pick a card. And I love how we continue to witness this in real life. Well,

Omar  5:41  
what I am hoping is that now that we've migrated gratitude booming also to sub stack, is that we can hear more of these stories like, how has gratitude blooming showed up for you, right, and shown up in your family and share with others? I think that's really partly why we do this, is that, you know, gratitude is biological. It's in us, and yet we constantly forget, and we need these reminders. And that's what really way finding. You know, the theme of this season is way finding are like the signs that are happening all around us that are meant to be these reminders. And so I want to share this story. I was at a board meeting, and, you know, three days so very intensive, 12 plus hour long days, and we were going through some new projects. And you know, I of course, have a few thoughts and ideas, and I felt like they were really kind of dismissed. And so I was, I was getting a little frustrated in the morning, and then, you know, I was like, All right, let me just regroup and come back for the afternoon, and again, sharing some thoughts and ideas. And again, sort of didn't feel like they were being kind of heard. And so I was like, Well, you know, I'm not gonna be heard. Then I might as well just leave. And so I was like, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna take a walk, because we were up, you know, beautiful location, up in Northern California, right up on the bluffs. And so I took a little walk. And I probably, you know, it was like, 1015, minute walk along these just gorgeous California bluffs, I don't know, like 50, 100 feet up, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. And we got to this little place that it sort of, it's like a little dip, sort of like, almost like a mini sort of Valley, I guess, you know, and it would have been a next sort of set of hills to walk across. And I was like, Okay, let me just pause here, look out to the ocean. And and I was like, All right, mom, earth, what you got for me, you know? And I had Dr Paul's, like, you know, your feet are your Shaman. And I was like, Let me listen. Let me listen with my feet. And the words just be patient and kind came to me. And I was like, oh, let's listen to my belly, the fire, the, you know, the warrior in the belly. And I was like, be patient. And kind. I was like, Let me listen to the heart. I was like, the he, be patient and be kind. Let me listen to the mind. It was like, the sage, like, be patient and be kind. I was like, All right, the crown of the head, you know, the mystic above, be patient and be kind. I was like, okay, clearly, very unified message here. I'll now turn back and go back to the meeting. Because I was sort of like, do I keep walking or let me go back, literally, less than, like, two minutes later, you know, I see this sign, and you know, earlier in that day, we had done this land dedication, and it was led by another board member who is from Ireland and practices a bunch of pre Celtic kind of traditions. And in that tradition, he had buried some fruit and some oats and then given us all snake skins to really, sort of like release and shed. And so it was like this sort of beautiful moment. And the night before, I'd held a circle, and I talked about this being the year of the snake, and that we need to really like be grounded and, you know, shed what no longer serves us. And guess what, as I was walking, a snake slithered by me, right? This was the same path that I walked on like, five minutes beforehand, and I was like, okay, Omar, that's a good sign. Like the snake sort of slithering by, be grounded. Three minutes later, another snake slithers by me, but parallels me, right? And just like, be agile. And so it was just, I don't think any time in my life I would have ever sort of taken those moment I've been like, oh, this land acknowledgement is very beautiful where, yes, we're in the year of the snake. But I don't know if I would have, like, paused and actually seen a snake go by me and connected the dots. And what I really appreciate. About the Wayfinding is that then all of a sudden, a second snake went by. I was like, just in case you weren't paying attention the first time. And so, you know, there it is non traditional right to sort of pay attention to these signs. But I will say like I was able to show up for the rest of the meetings in a very different kind of way. And so, you know, how we like listen, what are we paying attention to? Where is our energy going? You know, I have a much greater appreciation. I honestly, I credit, you know, this season where we're getting to really talk about Wayfinding with Dr Paul for giving these like great insights.

Belinda  10:40  
Ooh, what a beautiful story. Omar of like, real truth and like how it's, you know, maybe easier to say all these things, but much harder to actually live them. And I can't imagine how challenging that was in that moment, to be triggered by something and then go out into nature and be grounded enough to actually objectively feel the messages through your body and actually receive those because, I mean, more times than not. You know, we're we're not open enough to even hear these things, especially to say, be patient and be kind, right, like maybe you wanted to hear something else, but you were so open on all levels to actually hear that full truth, which is, I mean, that's, that's, that's extraordinary.

Omar  11:32  
And it was only a couple years ago that I was in practice at Hestia with Dr Paul, and he gave us those, you know, incredible exercises, and then to have it so reaffirm with not just one snake, but two on a path I'd already just been on and hadn't seen any snakes. And so just I feel like, again, like, how do we pay attention? Right? Like, what are we noticing? What are we being present to? You know, even when we're sort of frustrated or angry, maybe that's in some ways, the most important time is a to just recognize, like, Hey, I'm feeling frustrated. Let me just take a break here. You know, let me, like, not just push harder. Like, what does it mean to push softer?

Belinda  12:15  
And it is interesting this particular transition of the seasons. I feel like it's kind of like this, like accelerated intensity in the air, like I feel it, you know, in the news, I feel it sometimes even in personal relationships, like there's just this extra charge in the air, even on our lands, you know, in Hawaii, it's literally, like full on rain all The time. And then in Shasta, I've been watching how these the snow is melting on the mountains, creating these little seasonal creeks that now are completely dry. And then just yesterday, I was walking along this path near our land, and it was literally a field of blooming purple irises, just like tons of them, and it had been just green the week before. So it's just this, like energy of rapid, intense blooming, which, you know, in nature, is gorgeous, but it's also really intense and challenging and hard as a human to be with all those things.

Omar  13:23  
Yeah, I think the I'm not a physics guy, but I think the electrons bounce more, the hotter it gets, you know. And so, you know, as we bring on Dr Paul, you know, and as we enter into this summer, you know, like, what is the element that we're going to be kind of facing from sort of a Taoist tradition, and just give us a little bit of framing on this seasonal transition before we then pull a gratitude blooming card to really see what wants to emerge this summer.

Speaker 1  14:02  
Well, wow, okay, thank you. Beautiful story, sharing, just receiving and absorbing all the all the means that you offered there. Yes, the electrons, the earth itself is negatively charged, right? There's a there's a pool of electrons that we can ground into. And by the way, healthy cell has to be negatively charged when it becomes discharged, then it tends towards illness and it breaks down. And if we think about electrons, when we think about photons. And so if you notice, the sunrise is getting earlier and the sunset is getting later, at least in the northern hemisphere, I must say, actually this yin yang principle right in the southern hemisphere, our friends, they're actually entering wind. Enter Solstice soon as us in the north is entering summer solstice. So there's more photonic energy, right? And in our upper half, upper hemisphere of our of our planet, where, where we are having this conversation. And so that's in alchemical, seasonal alchemy terms, fire, fire energy. And we're approaching the noon time of the year where things are being directly exposed, illuminated, energized, activated. And just like Belinda mentioned, if you're feeling not just whelmed, but overwhelmed, part of it is just due to planetary season and so reminder, I would say there's especially in these more young, excessive times. Whether you're talking about social, political, or you're talking about psycho, emotional, or you're talking about relational, it's important to remember the Yin. That's why I brought up the southern hemisphere friends as well.

Belinda  16:06  
So do you have any tips for people this time of year, managing this sense of overwhelm? Because when you talked about it, I just felt this, like heat, and it's hot and it's like inflamed, and it's just, you know, like that level of like feeling in the body, like emotionally too, like Omar, even some of the emotions that you talked about, they're very like treat like you feel triggered, you feel charged. So what are some things that we can kind of tend to in that way?

Speaker 1  16:33  
So in Chinese medicine, one strategy is sort of disper dispersing, so any excess energy you can, I guess, physiologically, one way is to sort of release it with movement or with sweating, right? Kind of, paradoxically, some people, maybe they use, actually, sauna to open the pores. Or, like in southern China, where it gets really hot in this time of year, they use spicy food to open, to disperse, right? So that's one strategy. It's kind of like, in a way, maybe like using Yang to fight young, not really fighting, but to activate it, move it out more. And another way is then, sort of the the allopathic, I would say, is the opposite. If homeopathic is like treating like Yang to treat Yang, then yin to treat Yang would be then, as I mentioned earlier, right, grounding, right, discharging some of that excessive photonic Yang Qi into the earth, and then invoking this alchemical counterbalance of Too much fire by invoking the water element. So water, water practices. Obviously, the most literal is things like swimming. And then I would say, I want to invoke the botanical metaphor that we that we've been using right budding and blossoming. This is also the time I was on land, also this last weekend in Southern California, in Santa Barbara, where, by the way, two days ago, I also saw a snake, a rattlesnake, a diamondback rattlesnake, for the first time on this piece of land that I've been going for, I think, four years now. So first time it just crossed my path in the morning. Had a had a deep communion with that across my my, my way. And so back to the botanical metaphor is that this is on that piece of land I saw so many different types of flowers, maybe at least a dozen different different types, and this, this exposure of their petals, right? No longer budding or blooming, but fully unfurling and expanding, right? It's quite vulnerable, right, but necessary, right, in order to let the pollen in, right, which is the young again, right, and then connecting through a pollen tube down, down the sort of the shaft of the pistol, right? Not to get too technical, where then the fertilization occurs, and actually the seed formation and the fruit actually starts to, starts to is created so that, that is an idea of integrating yin and yang together. So one is to disperse young right? One is to try to invoke Yin, and the other is try to combine, find ways to actually find unity in your in your day to day.

Omar  19:20  
Well, I'm excited to see what comes up with the gratitude blooming card deck. And I feel like, Paul, since you said this is high noon, in terms of, you know, the clock that maybe we go with the 12th card. So, okay,

Belinda  19:41  
yeah. And I think, I guess an inquiry would just be like, What does nature want to tell us about this maximum opening, expanding time of the season? So maybe the second row this last one? Yeah, I'd count that for. In it, just to be sure.

Omar  20:03  
Oh, wow. All right, so card number 14, the pasque flower, representing destiny. Notice what makes you come alive. What is something you feel called to do? And when we're looking at the art on this card, it always reminds me of a spider. It's got these sort of like, sort of handful of, sort of larger leaves, and then these kind of like smaller, spindly ones, which I feel also goes so well with destiny. So yeah, what do you think? What's the relationship between summer and destiny and high noon.

Belinda  20:46  
Well, for me, I just love the word aliveness, and I've been thinking about that word. So it does feel very like on brand. Like, yes, aliveness, summer. You know, it's like the it's like the longest day of the year. We're coming into with summer solstice. And you know, it's like, how like for me, I think of my life in terms of, there's so many things I could do in a day potentially. But how do I choose how to invest my energy and my mind and my physical body, and it really, I think, does come to this question of aliveness, or, you know, like inspiration, almost like, what am I most inspired to do? Like, and sometimes I think, you know, having a lot of freedom of time, or being self employed, like people talk about how great that is, but you know, in order to be your own boss, you almost have to, like, be very discerning about this. Question is like, well, what is making me come alive? What absolutely needs to happen right now? And that's not that's can be exhausting to have to be figuring this out every single day of your life or around what are you here to do? So that's what I'm feeling more called to the words today. So I'm curious if any of you are getting other things from this one flower that's just kind of looking at us with one piercing eye.

Omar  22:20  
Well, I'll just say that. I think I shared last month that we went on a hike, and all three of us pulled the Destiny card. And so I feel like simplicity and destiny are kind of smacking me upside the head right now, and I, you know, and, and I'm, you know, I've alluded to some conflict that I'm dealing with at work, and I've really tried to avoid this conflict in lots of different ways. And yet the conflict just continues to seem to escalate. And so sometimes, I guess, when I see this card, Destiny, I'm wondering, like, sometimes you can't avoid certain conflicts, right? And so like, what does it mean then to be like saying, like, Hey, this is not where I find joy. This is not what I would sort of choose to do. But if it keeps kind of coming up, what am I being invited to really sort of hold, you know? And so, yeah, it's I'm just yeah, I'm feeling like, how do you sometimes you can't avoid your destiny. And so what does that really mean for how we move forward.

Speaker 1  23:44  
When I hear the word noon, I think about the sun right, solar noon directly ahead. And the interesting thing about then the Yin the shadow is you're standing directly on it. So it's actually hard to see the shadows at noon, right, versus earlier later in the day. And when I hear the word destiny, it makes me think about actually a quote from Carl Jung. And I think it goes until you make the unconscious, the Yin, right, if you will, the shadow, Conscious Light awareness, until you become aware of your sort of subconscious loops, which I think is the source of a lot of our conflicts, due to being triggered right from from the subconscious, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and, by extension, your relationships. And then we will call it fate or destiny. And so I guess this is a reminder, again, the the yin and yang, right? So using this energy, right of the of this fire, this illumination, to expose and as as we've shared in this episode, our stories are. There are things coming up, and take it as an opportunity, perhaps to confront potential conflict, but it's also an opportunity to alchemize and perhaps break some of those old patterns, and perhaps then see it reflected as more serendipity or quality of relationship, and perhaps change our destiny in that way.

Omar  25:22  
Yeah, I really appreciate that, Paul. And I'll just say that, you know, I don't know if this is an Asian thing or not, so y'all can correct me here, but at least in my family, there's a strong need to be right, you know? And there's like, coupled with sort of some perfectionism, and it's in its generational, I would say, right, like there's just no one wants to be wrong, and, and, and so then there's also this sort of, you know, ease to This, then sort of blaming, right? And so, you know, if I, if there is this sort of shadow side that I feel like I'm trying to, like, that's smacking me in the head, and, you know, in a few different ways, and it's like, Okay, what does it mean to just sort of allow, yeah, a release, maybe, of a right or wrong. And really, what does it mean then to dance a little bit more with, you know, shadow and light,

Speaker 1  26:32  
if I if I may, there's an option besides right versus wrong is right versus left in the sense that it's just a different direction. It's not wrong. You go right, that's fine. I go to the left, right. Everyone has a has a has a free will, choice through a different destination or destiny.

Omar  26:49  
I think that's a great way to weave in, because obviously, in the word destiny is this idea of a destination, and it is, I think a great reminder is that there's many paths right, and I think that is just such a wonderful way to alchemize. As you said, is like, what is the invitation to say? Like, Oh, you want to go left, I want to go right. One isn't right or wrong. They're just different directions and ways to it. And so I am definitely going to be meditating on that over the next coming weeks. Is there anything else Belinda that's coming up as we, you know, reflect on summer and

Belinda  27:33  
Yeah, well, I just am appreciating how this particular conversation on Destiny is a quite a different flavor than some of the previous ones we've had in different seasons of the podcast. I feel like we are really leaning into shifting a pattern of the heart. And that is also, I mean, Omar, you're bringing it also to culture and lineage. And that, to me, is felt very you've reminded me that that was a very present part of my weekend. This weekend, my mom always comes to help us on our Volunteer Week, loving the land and you know, as much as the I think I'm doing the inner work, it just takes a beloved parent to remind you how many things you still need to do better. And so I really feel you on that like, you know, how do I how do we all learn to respond differently? And maybe that's another way to look at Destiny. It's like, let you know, like, in the past, we've looked at it like purpose or something you're called to do in your life, or something to create. But then there's this emotional pathway too that we're constantly navigating, which is hard,

Omar  28:50  
yeah, and so maybe, you know, Paul, as we begin to close, you know, you gave us this great, you know, framing as we began to look at the buds and now the blooming and these were like way finding signs to remind ourselves, like, hey, you know, there's this transition that's happening. Is there something in nature that is a helpful reminder to say, like, Hey, this is not about right or wrong, this is about right or left.

Speaker 1  29:22  
I think the essence of, again, this flower that we keep invoking, and just imagine it just all the petals, right? You're no longer hiding, right? You're allowing yourself to be fully seen, and I guess, smelt as a with your fragrance of a flower, and even heard right with your voice, your heartfelt expressed is just to connect to that essence and trust that what is attracted like all these flowers that I saw, they weren't chasing the bees or the birds or the wind, right. They were allowing and interacting with with the different insects and birds and wind and trying. Suggesting that what is pollinated and fertilized will bear fruit in the next season.

Omar  30:06  
Well, here's to just allowing the pollination process, in this decentralized kind of way, guide us through summer. We hope to see you on sub stack. Gratitude blooming is there? Tricksters, Guide to mortality, Belinda's on there, Dr Paul Wong and dialogies on there. And you know, we're really building this ecosystem, you know, like, that's to me, was like part of this practice is recognizing our own individual sovereignty and our interdependence. And I feel like you know, it can be very easy to get pulled in one way or another, and this allows us to go in many directions.

Belinda  30:52  
And this is really the best way you can support this podcast. We keep it ad free intentionally to create a beautiful listener experience that's not broken up with ads. So we would love your support with one of the paid subscriptions. And Dr Paul is going to be have sharing a bonus episode, a bonus practice for those of you that want to deepen into that seasonal medicine, so tune into that and also join us for summer solstice on the Big Island of Hawaii, June 16 to the 22nd we do have a 10% off for our gratitude. Blooming fans, just with the promo code gratitude. Blooming,

Omar  31:35  
beautiful cheers. Cheers.

Unknown Speaker  31:37  
Thank you. Bye. Bye. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai