Create Culture's "A Conversation with Nature"

This past Saturday, I hopped on the train and trekked to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to have "A Conversation with Nature".

The walk was highlighted in Time Out, but a better description was in The Prospect Heights Patch and reads as follows:

What is Mother Nature trying to say to you? Engage in deep listening with musician Kaoru Watanabe in beautiful Prospect Park. As you move around, blindfolded, in a safe environment, you will hear the sounds of Japanese drums and flutes weave in and out of the music of the wind and the trees. With your perception of sound and space becoming radically altered, what sounds you contribute, in this conversation with nature, might surprise you.

A few things made this a really unique and mind-extending experience.

Being blindfolded and "guided" over different terrain, reacquainted me with my feet.
I walk on them every day, regularly force them into uncomfortable shoes, occasionally whack them on dressers, ottomans, and other objects, step on bees in the grass or splinters on the hardwood floor, and all the while, I've never considered their talents as "eyes". It was tremendously empowering, and I imagined myself as a caterpillar, following safely behind my antennae.

I accepted water from a female who appeared out of nowhere.
At the start, I was the only female in our group. About 30 minutes in, still blind, a female voice offered me water and I said thank you and drank it with no concern for possible poison. Newly sightless, I felt safe on my journey. It was lime seltzer too, which was an unexpected sensory experience. She thankfully turned out to be a part of the team.

I allowed myself to just be.
I rarely do anything without simultaneously doing something else. If I watch a movie or listen to a podcast, I draw... When I'm on the treadmill, I read... In my conversation with nature, I had no choice but to be fully present and to allow my senses to have their moments to shine. Afterward, I felt centered and refreshed. I believe the entire experience ran about an hour, and I felt like I'd just invented Yoga.

Lovely, earthy music enhanced the experience thanks to Kaoru Watanabe and to the natural inhabitants of our big blue planet.

In short, I highly recommend this! It's only offered for the next three weeks, so book now! Here's the Create Culture link and the brownpapertickets link with more info.

"What Now?" (detail) for The Mary Mallon Social Club

This month's theme: LOST
(Click Image)