Percolate: My ideas have been steeping and infusing me with plans like the rich red-brown of tea leaves curling through hot water.

Cultivate: Cultivating requires action, but it can’t be rushed. It can only happen at the pace the plant is ready for. And when done steady and well, it’s what creates those resilient, tender-firm, green, little shoots that poke their heads up toward the sun and thrive.

For as wonderful and beautiful as today was, I’m ending it feeling overwhelmed by choice about where to go and how to approach this entirely unstructured time. Before this trip, I plotted out my general route, and stuck to it more or less throughout, but now I’m faced with my first truly unplanned moves.

I am trying to live my values of TRANSPARENCY, VULNERABILITY, and COLLECTIVITY, and in that spirit, I sent out a survey this past summer to professional contacts, asking them how they perceive me and my work.