A Round And A Round We Go...

We have reached the end of the ORM Spring Cycle and the final Pillar in the full rotation - Wholeness. As a sport, Disc Golf comes around to the inherent concepts of Wholeness, over and over again, as if by organic design. Rotation, spin, and axis connect us to both the earth and this compelling piece of plastic. The disc itself is a circle, representing the concept of “whole” from first glance. Each round we play has a beginning and an end, setting each apart from the other as individually existing experiences (and we call it a round!). To the uninitiated perspective, what we enjoy doing could (and often does) look repetitive. The act of being a disc golfer carries its own style of Wholeness, because we all become trained, quite naturally, to look at the bigger picture of life on a regular and consistent basis. It’s just who we are when we spend so much time in nature throwing discs with wild abandon!

Disc Golfers, as a whole, are able to lean into the many nuances that make every single person’s story interesting in its own right, and not in relation to anything else. I believe it's one of the coolest things about us (as a whole) and the underlying reason we are growing so exponentially right now. Our well-tended roots draw our souls to the discs and the courses, absolutely – but our mind/body connection is the real money-maker here. When we can find the right balance of ego/soul/mind/body, our whole being feels transformed (even for a split second) and we are provided a direct look into the possibilities of our own personal magic. Finding that sweet spot where our shots are executed exactly as we intended can be elusive when we aren’t finding personal balance, and more so If we don’t care/dare to acknowledge the relationship that exists between the two. How we feel on the course is often a direct reflection of how we feel in regular life, and we learn so much from ‘observing’ our own play.

The full range of feelings and experiences that are borne from a single round of disc golf are directly related to the environment we’re playing in. What’s the weather like? What’s the vibe? Who else is there? How did you play? How did you feel before you showed up? Did that change to something else walking off the course? What cool stuff did you see? What rattled you and/or pulled your focus from your shots? These and so many other factors play a part in how we receive the round. Of course our minds compare it to other rounds, because that is our natural inclination, but when we are able to see the value in each single round (good or bad), we start to touch on the parts of wholeness that leave the course with us - our soul energies! - and we can always take that part home with us…

Whether we see it or not, this type of awareness shows up in our everyday lives, giving us ample opportunities to use the energetic resources available to every single one of us. As humans, we’ve been deeply conditioned to rely outside of our own connection and power (in order to serve some other purposes). I believe we are coming full circle on that cycle, altogether. When we remember that we are all connected at the soul level, we are pulled back toward the path of understanding how and why we exist as we do– with openness and curiosity. We have never actually left this path, because it is part of us. We have just become distracted from the whole, making us ‘forget’ our common bonds. Over time, our human attentions have largely been absorbed with the fascinating details of the life and story before us. Our human lives are endlessly active and it’s easy to follow the ingrained energetic patterns that have developed along the way. We all experience the pain of feeling separate from the source we are still (and always) connected to, but we each feel the loss in different ways. This memory lapse created the need for the Ego’s protection in the first place!

Once we all began to see ourselves as more individual than part of a collective, we created the pressing need for personal protection. It became commonplace to claim territory, knowledge, and power, creating dis-ease within each soul as we have each ‘forgotten’ the gifts we amass through being whole in our expression. Instead, we have a latent desire to make a lasting impression because of something we have done, personally, and it has skewed our value systems. As a human race, we have moved from caring about remaining connected to each other to making sure we take care of us and ours at the expense of everyone else.

Opinionated Fact: Disc golfers live just a little bit closer to that knowledge than a lot of other people, because of the experiences disc golf affords. In the last few years, I've become something of a fair-weather golfer, (excluding the requirements of tournament play), but the feelings of playing in every type of weather remain with me to this day. Valuable life lessons are reinforced on the daily, and the unlimited possibilities of what can and will happen is present with nearly every single shot. We get to see things we have never seen before, opening the door for wondering what else is on the horizon, without attaching to fear! Disc golf puts us in touch with the Ideal Playground, as we dream about amazing shots, getting that first Ace, or winning World Titles, and that type of thought is the true embodiment of Wholeness. We might never be fully satisfied because, as humans, (1) we are forever limited by the constraints of time, and (2) our Soul’s awareness that we are all energetically connected, but operating separately, ‘protected’ by our equally powerful Egos.

Our ongoing contentment lies in recognizing each of those voices in Wholeness, and being able to honor them, separately and together, because they both have value and meaning. The beauty lies in the Whole of the experience, not just the parts that seem perfect. True Wholeness recognizes every single moment as perfect, and exactly how it is supposed to be. It is simply our collected judgments that perceive things any other way, creating the energetic debris that gets in our way…

It is my hope that this simple awareness continues to grow as more and more people gravitate to our sport. We are among the pioneers that make nature an integral part of what we do, and we don’t really have a way to exist without that organic component at the heart and root of the intentions poured into designing disc golf courses. We may have individual goals and dreams, but our connections will always bring us around to the possibilities of community efforts again and again, in perfect rhythm with the seasons. Connecting to Disc Golf is an easy way to remain in tune with our Wholeness, even when we take a break from regular play!