You can use the Explorers Wheel to connect Laughing Heart to any cause, idea, or concern of importance to you, your friends, colleagues, or society at large. Here’s an example focused on our central theme: Cultivating Exuberant Vitality.

The Enso—Seeding the Process/ Beginning Your Journey

• You have a choice to begin either in discovery or invocative mode. In the former you simply write your question inside the enso—the Japanese brush stroke at the bulls eye of the Wheel; in the latter you invoke the help of the Explorers Wheel, something like the oracle or Sibyl of ancient Greece. For example, you might write, “Please guide me to sustainable exuberant vitality for the rest of my life.” Formulating and writing down your question is all you need do to start the Explorers Wheel spinning.

Laughing Heart as your Guide

• Now simply let your Laughing Heart guide you to which “moon” seems most relevant. You may feel a slight “tug” or an inner voice inviting you to come to a particular moon. In preparing this explanatory note the Past moon immediately “called” to me. “Go back to a time when you are most vital,” it said. And immediately I was at the height of my youthful powers training at the main aikido dojo in Tokyo. You can easily capture the special resonance of each moon for you. Don’t try to think your way through. The key is to listen to your Laughing Heart and let the process guide you.

Finding New Connections

• The next step is to draw lines connecting other moons to your questions and to each other. In this way you can discover the “intertidal” linkages among the moons. I naturally draw a line to Life Force and also to the Discovery/Invention/Innovation moons.

The Beauty moon also begins to speaks to me in an interesting way. The next evening I dream I am listening to the last movement of Mozart’s or Hayden’s Coronation Mass—I am not sure. I am submerged in its majesty, beauty, and power. But when I listen to the actual work the following morning, the original is very different. It seems the Explorers Wheel can constellate and even create new relationships on its own.

Drawing a line to the Future moon enables a form of time travel. I imagine myself in my late eighties, looking, feeling, and transacting little differently than I do today. Flowing with exuberant vitality, I can trace my pathway back from this future/present time space to the active Present. When I do this move I fancy the Explorers Wheel is spiraling inside my Laughing Heart, helping me to discover fresh and interesting connections in my life.

Collaborative Exploration and Discovery

• The Explorers Wheel gains momentum, the more we play with family, friends, colleagues, and even perfect strangers! Actually we are all connected in many ways of which we are not generally aware. Discovering this shared consciousness can be a source of enormous vitalizing power. The Explorers Wheel and Laughing Heart offer an alternative to our ordinary consensus-based versions of reality.

Other Applications

• You can point the Explorers Wheel to any other application that interests you. We have used the Explorers Wheel for large scale challenges such as developing innovative strategies to address the Fukushima nuclear disaster or new models of earthquake prediction. Always the best test for Laughing Heart and the Explorers Wheel is: are you having fun? What if our life itself is a great Explorers Wheel?

Explorer’s Wheel Printable Worksheet PDF