PLAYFUL ENCOUNTERS: Reflections on the Path of Nature

 At the BLOOM Institute each week is dedicated to an element of creation – MINERAL, NATURE, FIRE, WATER and EARTH. This week is a NATURE WEEK.

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Last Sunday, I ventured out to the "Soul Summit" in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn. The event was alive with great house music and a diverse crowd, each person in their own unique state of being. I found myself among wonderful new friends and encountered some old acquaintances I’d rather forget. The experience felt like a paradoxical blend of hopes, dreams, disappointments, sadness, happiness, and hope. It was a wild walk filled with exhilaration and terror, much like life itself.

I trust you can relate. 

Life mirrors this wild dance, reflecting our encounters with each other across borders and differences, amidst the challenges of a warming planet, political uncertainty, and conflict; even as massive leaps in technology are connecting us in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

This all calls for a playful encounter with life and each other.

Without play, we become stuck and unable to move forward. Perhaps this is why we procrastinate—facing the culture and its constant transformation can be overwhelming. Reflecting on my experience, I see it as walking the Path of Nature.

Walking the Path of Nature

To walk the Path of Nature is to encounter others, the culture, and "otherness." 

We have participated in and helped create this culture. We are born into it, shaped by it, and now we encounter it with growing awareness.

Aspects of me—my anger, rage, sadness—are expressions of this culture. How do I deal with my encounters with others and their reflections in myself—the gossip, the lustful one, the fearful one? These cultural tropes live in me. To rail against them is to rail against myself. 

This is the dilemma of the Path of Nature. All roads point back to you. 

How do we keep walking and not turn back from this encounter with ourselves and its reflection on this path of mirrors?

Playfully!

“The transformation of my culture begins with me.” 

This path calls for playful encounters with oneself and others. 

Here is my practice this week, using the P.L.A.Y.Y. framework that underlies much of our work at the BLOOM Institute. Each letter of the acronym invites a way to encounter ourselves, others, and life.

• P—Pause: Invite a forgetful encounter with the past. Allow it to give you new stories, new memories, new perspectives. On this path, honor is necessary—a witnessing, non-judgmental presence for ourselves and others. Activate your ability to forget, forgive, and create new stories.
• L—Lean In: Making rational sense of things can be disorienting on this path. Move by following a scent. Admit you are lost and trust the synchronicities. Move with them as they align.
• A—Appreciate: See and appreciate the radiance that always shines through, even in the most triggering behaviors.
• Y—Let Go: Extend a new sense of compassion to yourself and everyone in the culture with you. This time calls for mercy.
• Y—Allow: Stop running away from the culture that has shaped your human journey. “Everywhere you go, there you are.” Allow yourself and others their evolution, their becoming, their blooming.

As you journey today, I invite you to practice with me– to join me in staying aware of our unbroken connection to the Source of Life and the transformations with which we are all engaged.

InBLOOM Always,

Olubode

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Here is a great "self-talk" practice on the Path of NATURE