Unearthing Timeless Insights Through a Zen Perspective

Send us a text

Embark on a reflective journey with us, as we begin to weave together the wisdom of over 100 episodes, creating a tapestry of insights that transcend time. Imagine uncovering forgotten treasures and gaining new perspectives through the essence of sound, a medium as eternal as the themes we explore. This special installment brings a spotlight to our collaboration with Zen master Norma Wong, who extends her profound influence beyond a mere interview to ongoing projects like 'Kinship with Water'. Revel in the transformative idea of honoring water as a wise elder, capable of teaching us about nourishment, love, and kinship. Norma's voice guides us through the theme of remembrance, urging us to contemplate living practices that shape our journey and nurture the essence of gratitude blooming within us.

Join Belinda and Omar as they meander through a conversation that is both a nostalgic look back and an innovative step forward. Through the artful blend of past and present, discover how embracing what came before can illuminate the path ahead. This episode is a unique blend of nostalgia and innovation, filled with poignant moments, thoughtful pauses, and deep dives into the nature-infused lessons that keep our creative fires burning. Tune in for an experience that promises not just to revisit the past but to evolve with it, as we share key insights and stories from our ongoing journey with the extraordinary Norma Wong.

---

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 [e-mail]. We love hearing from our listeners!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello Belinda.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey Omar.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I love this new mashup series that we are
creating, where we're mixing upthe interviews from the second
season of our podcast with someof the first season, just sort
of reflections directly from thecards.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So much of our modern life is all about new, new, new
and stimulation, more and morecontent, different content, and
I love that we're actuallypausing to reflect on all of the
wisdom that we've harvestedfrom season one, two and three
and really like thinking about,well, what is the distillation

(00:48):
of this wisdom and this medicinefor the gratitude blooming
plants and the virtues and thethemes?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I mean, we've now hosted over 100 episodes, you
know, which is an amazingmilestone.
But you also sort of reflectedin a conversation or just the
spirit of Brian, who was ouroriginal producer, and you know
what did he?
You know, the energy was likekeep going, you know, and I feel

(01:17):
like what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, it's interesting.
I know that we've been.
You know season three was allabout emergence.
That we've been.
You know season three was allabout emergence.
And emergence is beautiful.
But without any kind ofcontainment on it it can
sometimes feel like amorphous,like like the element of air,
almost like you can't touch it,you can't feel it, but you know
you need it to live.

(01:39):
And I remember having sometough conversations with you and
Arlene about, you know, where'sthe podcast going, how can we
keep it alive?
And, and you know, of course,exploring all different
possibilities, like you know,compost, letting things, the
field lay fallow.
You know these are all lessonsand memes from nature.
And you know, there was thisone day where I really

(02:01):
remembered Brian just always,when we would get like
discouraged or feel like, youknow, this is too much.
He would just come back to,well, what can you do to just
keep it going, you know.
And then this idea came of well, why don't we like actually
spiral back to all of thesestories and all of this medicine

(02:24):
we've harvested and really likedistill it?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, these mashups really enable us to both go
forward and backwards at thesame time, to revisit and
remember all those sort ofmorsels that were so tasty then
and then sort of like, how do wesort of add some new flavors
with everything that we'velearned over the last two plus

(02:48):
years that we've been doing this?
And you know, and as Brianalways would tell us, like,
sound is eternal, right, and somaybe in some ways that's also
what's been beautiful about thismashup series and practice is
that, because sound is eternal,we can revisit, right, and we
can go back and sort of see whatworks for us and what have we

(03:09):
forgotten, and you know, what dowe need to remember, and then
what have we learned and we canadd into sort of the spice mix.
And this first one that we'redoing is Remembrance with Zen
master Norma Wong, and thistheme, and Norma in particular,
has been just an incrediblecollaboration, because not only

(03:32):
did we have her on as a guest,she had invited me into a
collaboration where I wrote apoetry book reflecting on her
practices around the art ofwaging peace, and then more
recently, she invited me toco-host a series called Kinship

(03:54):
with Water, and it really sortof centered around this initial
question what if we collectivelyloved and respected water as
our wise elder?
We collectively loved andrespected water as our wise
elder and as the wisest ofstorytellers and the oldest of
storytellers and the keeper ofour collective memory.
How does it teach us to nourish, how does it teach us to love

(04:17):
and how can we be more likewater?
And so it's really special thatwe're mashing up this series
and the continued collaborationI think that's the other sort of
piece to this is that these areliving practices.
It's not like we had theseguests on as a one-time thing
and then it's sort of done.

(04:37):
It's like no, all of thesepractices are living for us and
with us.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
So we're going to now share a clip from that
interview with Norma, just withsome key insights and stories
from her on this theme ofremembrance.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
There is this urgency that's calling to us at this
moment, but let it be clear thatit's only calling to people for
whom that is so, which is tosay that we shouldn't go around

(05:29):
trying to convince people thatit's an urgent moment,
no-transcript, and that it wouldbe foolish for us to attempt to
either scratch the ground untilwe found the seeds, or cast

(05:54):
seeds on ground that is not yetfertile.
So the wondrous aspects ofCalifornia poppies is that they
are in the most unexpectedplaces and they choose to do
their thing wherever they happento be.

(06:15):
They are protected myunderstanding under California
law, protected, my understandingunder California law and
they're protected for thepurposes of allowing them to
continue to just do their thingand offer, therefore, their

(06:36):
beauty for anyone and everyone.
If they exercised choice, ifthey exercised choice to not
bloom in a particular year, theywould be missed, and the

(06:58):
difference between poppies andhumans are vast.
Poppies and humans are vast,but the characteristics that we
want to pay attention to is thatwe actually can exercise more
choice than poppies.

(07:18):
So the question becomes will wechoose to bloom at this moment
or will we stay in the ground?
And I would say that it's thetime within the space of human
time is not vast and luxuriousin terms of us making that

(07:48):
choice.
I also have the sense that thisis not the first time in human
history where that has been thecase.
We are, all of the same, ancientpeoples the DNA information

(08:09):
tells that to be so and as webecame different peoples and we
traveled across the land massesthat no longer exist, and built
boats to travel across oceans,and we're part of that first

(08:31):
migration where we became manypeoples, we had to have been
making choices at that time todo that, and we had to have been
doing that on a collectivebasis, because if we did it as
individuals, we literally wouldhave no humans today, because we

(08:53):
would not have survived aspeoples, as a species we would
not have survived.
It would have to have been ahuge collective endeavor.
That may have been the firstcollective moment, I don't know,
but throughout history therehave been these moments and we

(09:15):
are in one of those now.
So we are in that paradox,which is to say that the
becoming requires us to open upthe spaciousness in order for us
to stretch what time-spacelooks like, to do the really big

(09:40):
leaping that is required.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
I've been listening to this song and there's this
one line about if we don'tremember, then why are we living
, right Like?
Or were we ever alive?
And so part of to me, memory isabout this living practice and

(10:07):
remembering sort of why we dothese things like, why these
things matter, like, why do wecreate space for each other?
Why do we care about gratitude,right Like, because when we
forget these things, we takethem for granted, and when we
take them for granted, we'rereally sort of missing out on
life.
And then, when life getsdifficult and then we're like,

(10:28):
hey, why, what's going on?
It's because we've forgotten.
You know, we've forgotten allthe miracles, all the amazing
things, all the small thingsthat have happened in order for
us to be sort of in the placesthat we are now.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
The story that Arlene had initially and what inspired
her to even connect the poppyplant with this theme of
remembrance, which is, you know,for her it was around this idea
of Memorial Day and honoringthose who have passed.
And for me this topic is reallyresonant right now in that we

(11:06):
recently created a new sculptureon our land called the Oak of
Remembrance, and it literallycame from one of our guests who
had a really profound experiencewhile he was on sabbatical
remembering his mother who hadpassed, and he wanted to have

(11:27):
something on the land for othersto kind of go into this
practice of remembrance.
And I love this quote fromArlene around her story where
she says I found it powerfulthat a flower like the poppy can
hold so much symbolism forbeauty, fragility and the
interconnectedness of human life.

(11:48):
The poppy is beautiful andstrong and everlasting in its
ability to make us remember andrelate to our own humanity, the
fleeting nature of our own livesand the connection we
inevitably have with othersthrough distance and time.
So we hope that this mashup ofremembrance inspires you to

(12:09):
remember what is most importantand who is most important in
your life.
For those of you that want tolike, look at all of the history
of our podcast.
You can literally go to ourwebsite, gratitudebloomingcom.
Now, scroll to the bottom andyou'll see all of the history of
our podcast.
You can literally go to ourwebsite, gratitudebloomingcom
now scroll to the bottom andyou'll see all of the themes
numerically ordered, and you canliterally click on it, get the

(12:29):
music, get the episodes and justkind of make it your own as
well.
So we hope this inspires you tokind of mash it up in your own
life.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
And if there's other things that you'd like us to
revisit or topics that you wouldlike us to sort of explore
further, please email us athello at gratitudebloomingcom.
Again, hello atgratitudebloomingcom.
We love hearing from you, welove your stories and we want to
continue telling them.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Cheers, cheers.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Cheers.