Gentle Harvest & Fall Balance

Discover mindful ways to transition into fall with Belinda, Omar, and Dr. Paul. This episode explores harvest wisdom, Daoist teachings, and gentle practices for balance, gratitude, and stress relief this autumn season.

From coffee trees ripening on the Big Island to the Daoist teachings of the metal element, this episode invites us to notice the signals of what is ready to be gathered and what needs to be released. Together, we reflect on gentleness as a practice: how to exhale, soften, and discern with care rather than force. Join us in welcoming fall with balance, gratitude, and the question—what does a gentle harvest look like in your life?

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Join us on substack to get a bonus seasonal practice from Dr. Paul each month at: https://gratitudeblooming.substack.com

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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

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Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com. We love hearing from our listeners!

Transcript

Omar: 0:02

Hello, Belinda. Hey, Omar. My kids are back in school, which can only mean one thing that summer is over and fall has just begun, which is this month's theme. But before we jump into the theme of harvest and fall, I think we have like a shout out to give to Elizabeth, a professor at Syracuse University.

Belinda: 0:32

Yeah, literally, I opened up my computer one morning and somebody had bought a written us an email. And Elizabeth is a professor of entrepreneurship. And she literally found us through chat GBT asking about a specific activity to use with her students around neuroplasticity, gratitude and entrepreneurial mindset.

Omar: 0:58

How awesome is that? I think artificial intelligence is clearly very smart if it's recommending gratitude.

Speaker 01: 1:05

And so mindful.

Speaker 02: 1:06

Absolutely. Well, you know, it's just beautiful all the different ways that people are finding gratitude blooming. I was just thinking about just in the four years that we've been doing this podcast and from the pandemic and moving online to blockchain technology and NFTs and now artificial intelligence. It's just in a fairly short time period, some pretty big changes. And so these seasons and just being mindful of what our bodies are going through is just so important. And, you know, we're gearing up for the fall, which again, gratitude is going to be top of mind for folks around the holidays and Thanksgiving. And we're going to do something special this year, which is create a raffle. And Arlene, the artist behind all the art, is going to be donating one of her original art pieces. And it's this new watercolor series. I'm so excited. I'm going to buy a ton of raffles. And we're this labor of love really represent the community that really has actually supported us all along the way.

Speaker 01: 2:17

Yes, I love how every year, Omar, we get to showcase gratitude in a new way. And it is interesting, this theme of harvest, because right now, everyone, I'm on the big island of Hawaii, where I get to steward five acres of coffee on our retreat center land. And that's literally 3000 plants. So So for those of you that love coffee like I do, just imagine that one tree produces one pound of coffee that you get to buy at the store. So it's incredible to be going through this process and learning for the first time, like, how does it work in an actual agricultural sense? You know, not a metaphor, but in a real tree kind of sense. And what's really interesting is literally in one coffee tree, there are several branches and And even on that same branch, there's ones that are ripening, that are red, ready for picking. There's ones that are still green, not even close to maturing for harvest. And literally the art of harvest of the coffee tree is you are picking the signal of the ones that are the most ripe with that red color. So it reminds me of our last episode around, what is the signal? How do we cut through all this noise? And what's really interesting is the coffee tree makes itself very clear of when it's ready. When is that mature fruit ready for the picking? Which I really appreciate because some of the other trees we have on the land, like avocado or mango, it's not super clear. And you need to look more carefully at those fruits to see if they're really ready for picking. And sometimes you have to pick them before they're ripe. And sometimes you pick them when they're ripe. And there's literally these designations of plants that have guidelines around that. So it can be really complicated. So

Speaker 02: 4:16

I appreciate you continuing this theme of wayfinding and what are those signals to help us sort of pay attention. But I'm also curious, like somatically, what is the feeling of being now a coffee farmer? It

Speaker 01: 4:32

is beautiful and also overwhelming because literally I feel like we have 3,000 babies. And they all have different needs. And to be honest, this time of year is stressful for the tree. Literally, I just heard from one of our mentors on coffee that the coffee tree itself could actually die from being overproducing constantly. So it's just a really good teacher on how do you produce and offer something of value but not burn yourself out, which I feel like, Omar, that's been the story of gratitude blooming. Speaking of entrepreneurialism, I feel like that's our continual evolution and question that we hold

Speaker 02: 5:23

collectively. build community, right? Like how do we navigate the real world and the digital world and the lines that are continuing to blur between that to help us find that signal to be present, to know when to pick, when to rest. I know for myself, I'm in a transition right now and just my body is like getting all tense and excited and then it's like super exhausting. And, you know, I was just at this amazing consciousness and AI retreat up in Commonweal a couple of weeks ago, and it was just Super exciting to kind of see the potential of the technology, but grounded in spiritual traditions. And then when I came back to LA, I was like, oh my God, the physical world is so slow and heavy. And like, I was like, okay, you know, and I was at this meditation last night, you know, I was having this like little pain in my shoulder. And it was really interesting because the meditation teacher was like, what we focus on kind of grows. And so pain has a great way of being like, focus on me, focus on me. But as soon as I move my attention away from the pain in my shoulder and just be like, everything is actually okay, Omar. This is your body's reacting to something, but you're actually okay. The pain disappeared immediately. And so it was just this like real time sort of window into like, what are we paying attention to? What signal do we want to focus on? Is it the one that's screaming like, hey, hey, I'm bright red, pick me. Or it's like you said, the avocados and mangoes, that maybe you have to be even more sort of attuned to maybe context or other things to really understand whether it's ripe or not.

Speaker 01: 7:25

Well, I'm so excited to have Dr. Paul with us as our co-host for this season to continue to find our way through change, through the seasons. And I think it is a daily practice. When things are falling apart, when things feel overwhelming, which fall can be, right? It's like- It's like, how are we going to stay grounded in that? And so I would love to hold a question that we'd like to ask nature through Gratitude Blooming. And then, Paul, have you kind of share a little bit about those themes that we should be paying attention to as well for our bodies and our emotional health, all the ways that we can stay well through the seasons. So does anyone have an inquiry? Paul, I would love to invite you to frame a question for this season that you think is really present for you or for the patients that you see regularly.

Dr. Paul: 8:27

One of the main themes is actually the play on words, but actually it's just another meaning, literally, of fall, fall back, fall down, versus spring up and out. And the tendency of this culture is to put us in that latter state, which is a yang state of dissipation. So a lot of the almost every treatment that I've been working with my clients is to help them bring their energy gravitationally in and down towards that kind of meaning of fall. And so maybe a good question is just to contemplate for a what kind of activities or practices allow you to wind down and move inwards.

Unknown: 9:18

Hmm. Hmm.

Speaker 02: 9:24

What helps you wind down? And so as we look at the digital card deck, which is seven rows, six columns, is there a number that is speaking to you all? I think that third row, if you don't mind. All right. I feel like something over here. Sure. All right. All right. Card number 31, representing the theme of the gardenia. So when Arlene, the artist, illustrated this gardenia, it spoke the word gentleness to her. And the prompt is, being kind to yourself and others can be a way to show gratitude. What would it look like to live with more gentleness? And the art on this always feels very architectural. Each petal is very distinctly outlined To me, it almost looks like a Frank Gehry type building, very modern in a way. But what it can't necessarily capture is just the beautiful smell of a gardenia. And so, you know, with your question, Dr. Paul, I love that you asked, like, how can we kind of invite a practice to release? And we got the theme of gentleness.

Unknown: 10:48

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 10:51

I love that literally when you look into a gardenia, almost from a bird's eye view, you see a spiral. And I do feel like the rounded and the curve of a spiral, even just walking the labyrinth at our Shasta Retreat Center, you automatically feel a softness versus going from point A to point B in a straight line. Somatically, I just feel like the body can flow a little bit more versus being on a have a mission. It makes me feel like there's an invitation here from nature to So just like exhale more, like literally Paul, you're like winding down, going in. And I just, it makes me literally think like, maybe I need to focus more on how I'm breathing out, exhaling, you know, releasing with my breath this season, because there is so much, I feel like internal tension or holding a little bit, which also to me, Omar, really resonated with your body telling you, give I'm giving you signals because it's like when I feel very tight and tense, like my shoulders go up, my stomach gets really tight. And it's like, oh, what am I holding onto? What am I trying to control? You know, and this gardenia literally is saying, okay, like, it's okay. Let's be gentle here. You know, let's relax.

Speaker 00: 12:20

Yeah, you said shoulders go up, right? So bring them down. And you brought up the word relax, right? Lax, laxity means loose. Even the word release, actually, lease means loosen. So to loosen again, to relax and to release. And about gentleness, I noticed that because I have the opportunity for people to open up and no names, but I feel like, and I observe that 80, 90% of people are really rough and mean to themselves. And there's a lot of this kind of inner friction and conflict, which makes it hard to relax. And since we're, you know, in the fall and moving towards Equinox, Maybe a way to layer onto that as an image is this idea of balance. Equinox means equal night. So it's actually acknowledging the yin even, right? And about 12 hours yang, 12 hours yin, 12 hours day, and 12 hours night. And if you think about a seesaw, and if you're on either extreme, the further you are from that fulcrum, it's hard to balance and relax, right? You can't, in a way, relax if you're not balanced, right? If you're sitting and you're leaning even ever so slightly, let's say two inches to one side, let's say to the left side, then your right side of your body is going to be tense, right? So until you find your center, that balance point between the two extremes, nothing wrong with the extremes, but sometimes in a way they help define the center, but we still have to go there and we still have to find ways to find that homing to our gravitational center. I

Speaker 02: 14:00

love these different somatic practices that you both have invited in so quickly. And I think for me, it is, I love smell. on my walk, the flowers in the neighborhood. I know where my favorite rose bushes are, the plumeria tree. And they just like, there's something about that pausing, that smelling, that breathing in. It just, it helps me automatically. It doesn't feel like, oh, I'm meditating or something that feels very formal. It's just, it's very informal, right? Like just pausing to appreciate the smell of a flower. And so it's just like, even our practices can be gentle, right? Like sometimes we're like, oh, we want best practices. You want good habits. And, you know, and then we become kind of rigid even about our practice. in trying to relax and de-stress or whatever the goal is. And so how do we even allow for the practice itself to be gentle in our approach to it and, you know, recognizing that, you know, small steps are better than kind of big leaps, but, you know, not to be too sort of strict about it either. And so I don't know if, Dr. Paul, there's, yeah, as you are guiding people, you know, and encouraging them to to remember to relax and to remember to release, what have you found that really helps people kind of create a little consistency? As

Speaker 00: 15:28

simple as possible, and that was a theme that came up in, I think, the previous season, and as portable as possible. And since you mentioned the breath, maybe we can touch on that. So we have these elemental symbols. For instance, summer was fire and we had the transition from summer to the metal season, which is fall. And we go through this soil element of transition and recentering, composting even. So metal in Chinese medicine, I'll touch on the organs. I'll touch on three organs. One is the external sense organ, which is the nose. And the inner organs, the viscera, there's metal organs, let's say metal inner organs, and there's a yang and a yin. And the yin metal is the lungs. And the young metal is the large intestine. And so some of my patients literally have issues with their lungs and their large intestine, let's say respiratory issues, asthma, this kind of things, bronchitis, and also let's say constipation or irritable bowel. And so let's say their whole metal constellation, including the emotions of metal they're struggling with, like grief and gratitude, or also things like regret and forgiveness. These are all the emotional alchemy of the metal element and so one way just to tie it together very simply is those organs that i mentioned right breathe from your nose into your lungs all the way to the large intestine, right? And lung and large intestine, why they're called metal organs or categorized as such is because metal is also this boundary. And as we are embodied, right? The lungs are basically exposed. They're like a bag, right? That goes inside. The inside of the lungs is actually outside. And the other end too, in terms of the digestive system, right? So they're also boundary and release actually, right? Again, the fall season metal. So all this kind of mythopoetic connections that you can play with, but simple, right? Portable. Just let's say out of the 50,000 times you breathe each day, how many of those are just in the nose, right? Very shallow. How many of those reach the upper lungs, the middle lungs, the lower lungs? How many of those reach all the way to your large intestine? And what are you sort of breathing in, influencing, right? Flowing inwards. And what is your sort of exfluence to what are you actually releasing?

Speaker 02: 18:03

Hmm. Yeah. And I'm also taking these singing lessons right now. And it's also really about breath and where are you breathing into. If you're just trying to capture the breath in your throat, you're not going to be able to have the right pitch. It's going to be constrained a little bit. But if you can breathe all the way down into your belly and through your lungs, the side of the ribs of your lungs, then the voice, the sound actually carries further with a lot less effort. And so, yeah, I just beautiful that these parts of it and it just I was also thinking of Belinda when you said your stomach tightens and that's the you know the large intestines is connected to all of that so it's just amazing how this Taoist sort of traditions really speak to you know how our bodies are really reacting even in sort of modern day life

Speaker 01: 19:09

and I love that the gardenia it's from nature is literally also inviting us to look at this metal season differently because when I think of the energy and the alchemy of metal. It's very sharp. It's very intellectual. It's very cut through and the chaos kind of discerning. And I think the extra layer of combining Gardenia's energy of gentleness with something like a sword, the power of a sword is like, wow, is there a way to do the elimination or the cutting through in a softer way? And And literally, as part of the harvesting, some of the things that we'll do is we'll cut the vine that's trying to climb on the coffee tree. And it's obviously not good for the coffee to have this thing climbing on its trunk. But literally, if we don't cut carefully, you could cut off the branch of the tree that's producing the coffee berry. So it's just really interesting, I think, even combining that idea of can the metal intellectual discernment kind of energy cannot even be held in a softer way. I think in my life, it has been very hard. It's been very masculine. It's been very harsh. So I'm curious for the two of you, what does that look like, this metal element with gentleness?

Speaker 00: 20:43

If I may, because I use metal every day as an acupuncturist, it's seemingly paradox, right? Like if you, let's say, or like a surgeon uses a scalpel, right? Or even you have a, maybe like a saw, right? Trying to cut a branch from the coffee tree. If it's not sharp, right? If it's blunt, it's actually more painful. And so that sharpness where they're, you know, you say it's literally like an acupuncture needle, a very sharp one, boom, it goes right in, or maybe not boom, it very quickly slides in. and a lot of people don't feel it imagine a very blunt needle right that would be very painful so The wisdom of the mental element is sharpness in terms of discernment. It can allow us to maybe be more efficient to make those breakthroughs, whether it's cutting a branch or it's trying to break through to another realization. So that's the first thing I thought of is that mental sharpness can serve us as wisdom to help us see clearly and quickly rather than waste a lot of time perhaps in that kind of overthinking state. I love that question, Belinda,

Speaker 02: 21:51

of just what does gentle harvest look like? And all of a sudden, gentle harvest, there's like a little bit more discernment as opposed to a feast or famine kind of mindset, which is like, oh, look, there's fruit on the tree. And like, let me just grab it all. But just to be more discerning and just being like, okay, what do I really need right now? And how do I just really pick what I need? And just sort of also recognize that there is enough. And breaking that sort of cycle of fear and scarcity when there's literally abundance in front of us, right? And so I just, yeah, I'm really going into this next month with the feeling of what does gentle harvest look like and how can I practice it in small ways every day? Well, it's been amazing to jump into this conversation. You can continue it in Substack, gratitudeblooming.substack.com Also on

Speaker 01: 23:01

ChatGPT, apparently. and help create more balance and solidity. And, you know, we're going to have two touch points coming up in the fall for people. If you'd like to practice with us, we're going to be on the Big Island, October 10th weekend. You can literally practice with me and Omar and the coffee trees as they're harvesting. We also have the fall equinox gathering with Dr. Paul for the week of September 18th to the 24th in Mount Shasta. And these are all invitations Well, thank you all for listening. Thank

Speaker 02: 24:11

you, Dr. Paul, for joining us again. And we look forward to just continuing this sort of reimagining of the calendar through this Taoist wisdom. Cheers.

Speaker 01: 24:23

Cheers.

Speaker 02: 24:24

Bye.