I see the work at this stage of my life as one to learn and gain experience; to explore myself and learn what and how I can best offer.

In my life, I have always been ok with doing something different than what appeared to be the norm around me. I like to learn and think deeply about what I learn and how it can apply to various parts of existence. I find myself being a person who lives strongly by my values, and the cultivation of those values is important to me. I find myself compelled to speak hard truths to people I care about. I am also a person who strives to improve: myself, my passions, my surroundings.

I want to get a clearer vision of how to use my gifts to find personal fulfillment and help other people. I want to be able to speak truth that is also compassionate, truth that is healing and not judging. I want to gain confidence and wisdom to know how to rebel and revolt in a positive way.

I have always had an easy time empathizing with humanity at large, with the concept of humanity or earth or existence. But I have not had such strong feelings and made actions when it came to caring for individuals. I would like to increase this capacity for real-time compassion. Falling into leadership positions has been a common theme in my life, and I have always felt that while there was a natural magnetism between me and leadership, I didn't understand myself in that context. I would like to raise my capacity as a leader.

I think my professional and personal growth goals are not very separate. Leadership is still a relevant area for growth and in professional context, I would expand it to include management skills as well. I am interested in being able to do freelance work around the topic of farm design and regenerative systems and I would like to have a stronger foundation for this work.

I have invested a lot of my personal time in learning about the things about which I am passionate. Where I am professionally resulted from investment, first in learning about permaculture, and with time, in a broader range of topics like ecology, botany, community, soil, agroecology, farm design etc. Personally, I have invested in experiences, I have traveled and worked, and volunteered in a diverse range of situations and places. This has helped expand my view of the range of human and non-human existence.

I have been deeply affected by my reading and listening to philosophers and spiritual teachers, like Thich Nhat Hanh, Krishnamurti, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass is one of my favorites and gives me so much hope and clarity. I have learned a lot from teachers in the community of permaculture and those who were at one time or another affiliated with it: Mark Shepard, Richard Perkins, Michael Phillips and recently the Making Permaculture Stronger Podcast with Dan Palmer where many voices and perspectives opened my mind on the topic of regeneration, permaculture etc (which is how I came to this training).

I've accepted that I will live in a state of uncertainty and continual disruption in regard to a personal cosmology or world view. In this moment, I see all seemingly distinct entities as expressions or manifestations of a "one", call it consciousness or God or Gaia. It seems to me that humans have the greatest capacity to forget this oneness and that our role may be to remember it, and in remembering it, learn to be in harmony with the rest of existence, and not other than it.