16:09:37 Hi, friends! How are you doing today? It's been so hot this week, here on the East Coast, where I am. I am trying to hide from the sun, and also get the sun as much as possible.

16:09:58 Um, on this Saturday, this weekend, a couple of my friends came over, and one of them brought sunflowers, and it's been giving me life, all week, just hanging out on my desk,  bringing, you know, glimmers the rest of the sun, even when, I am, as my other friend said, uh, staying inside, with the curtains drawn in, like, vamps or vampires. Anyway, I hope you're good.

16:10:40 It's been maybe a couple weeks since came on here, I've been, you know, in a more of a, quiet internal headspace where things are getting sorted out on the inside, in the background, which is where a lot of my work happens. And it's been, you know, kind of a, couple weeks of just, so much, um… inspiration flowing, so much, study, or, almost an obsessive need to be studying things. 

16:11:36 Yeah, like, I guess I was…, kind of working on a couple projects behind the scenes, and I am still doing that. I had talked about bringing in this.. this poetry class. An I'm still kind of working on that. And I had this idea to bring, kind of a capsule offer, in starting to work with Ayanna Zaire Cotton at Seeda School. I'm working with them one-on-one on this container that they're offering called Permission to Pivot. And specifically, I'm hoping to bring this… kind of capsule container to y'all.

16:12:25 It's been, interesting for me, because maybe a week or so ago, I woke up to two emails that came from worlds that I thought that I had, like, said, oh, I'm done with these. Um, one of them was tech related, and I was like, no, I'm still kind of done with it, but… not really, I'll get back to that in a second. (Laughs) 

16:12:52 But the other one was about a coaching request, which I, you know, it came from a place where I had an old profile that I had forgotten to delete. I'm not even sure that, that is actually going to turn into something that I do, with this person, like, id we do end up exploring or connecting, but.. 

16:13:19 It made me realize, like, when I got that email, I was like, this actually does seem kind of in line with my work, and I thought, wow, I just went through all this stuff where I told all my audience, like, I'm not gonna do coaching, and here I am, being like, maybe I am!

16:13:34 And, you know…. It's been one of those things where I have had to break up with, maybe the institution of coaching itself, um, for me, I didn't find it to be a good fit. Um, not because I think that, um, you know, like, coaches shouldn't have some amount of support, or the ability to grow their skills, or to have somebody that can, you know, partner with them and support them in growing their coaching abilities.

16:14:16 Um, but because in my work, I had to surrender to the fact that my work is interdisciplinary, that as soon as I start to pin down any one aspect of my work as "THE Thing" that I am doing, it starts to…, make me feel very suffocated. And that's, uh, one of the reasons I've appreciated Ayana's work so much, because there is so much permission. In being interdisciplinary.

16:14:50 And… seriously, like, every other day, I will have one of these kind of, like mini freak-outs of just being like, hmm, I really like tarot now, I really like astrology now, I really, um, you know, love working with folks on conflict, I really love leadership, I love art, one day I love poetry, one day I love fiction.

16:15:17 There is no bar, uh, you know, like, I could get into how we grow plants with somebody, I could get into solving tech problems. I could get into, um, I don't know, cooking, or foods, or… etymology of languages. I could, um… I don't know, nerd about, like, TV shows or other things that you might be interested in.

16:15:47 I just, like, have a wide variety of interests, and many of those things, I've engaged in some amount of serious study on over the last few years, especially when it comes to Transformative Justice, and, learning or being in Black feminist, Indigenous feminist study through books or courses or things that I have taken. I studied psychology for a semester. And I took poetry classes, I did writing things with my communities. I've been growing things for a while now.

16:16:32 Um, and, there are aspects of these that have been with me my whole life, like, writing or things like that, that I have done from when I was a kid, which maybe I don't put a lot of stock into, uh, because it wasn't, you know, I don't know, like…

16:16:55 Um, whenever there are some kind of, like, breaks in the linear timeline of growth in a particular trajectory, like, I am kind of indoctrinated, almost, to think that I'm not good at that, I suck at that, or… I can't call myself a poet by any means, just because I've written like… Poems as a kid or.. any of those things, and…. Anyway, I say all this because…

16:17:31 I have been having to challenge and reintegrate this kind of pattern of being like, okay, I don't know if I can, or if I want to take, a 3-year program in any one of these things, and then realizing that, it's because all of them, all of them are in my area of interest. And… but also--- fundamentally, um, what is driving me to show up in this particular way and not choose,

16:18:10 Is that I believe that we should be able to architect our own journeys of learning, our own pedagogies, our own approaches to showing up to creative work, and making money from it, um, being well from it, that… aren't bound by, any institution or any pre-decided three-year course of study, or any of those things, like what the world thinks a, quote-unquote, artist or a poet is, or a creative entrepreneur is, or how much money you need to make before you can even call yourself an entrepreneur.

16:19:00 All of these things, all of these things are… Um, you know, even though they're in me, they're imbued in me, I'm finding them, I feel them just kind of wash away and dissolve, and I'm keeping on contributing more and more things to this dissolution so that I can allow this interdisciplinary desire to work with people.

16:19:28 To make… or to pursue my own desires. However broad they may be, however confusing.

16:19:38 However non-linear. And spirally, as Marta Rose says.

16:19:46 Um, it just, once I've embraced it, it has become, juicy and expansive, and… I, am so, I'm so grateful. 


16:20:04 Okay, that's kind of what I… what I wanted to talk about. Like I said, I'm working on this offer in the background, and I will be coming to you with more of that. Coming to you with requests to work with me, requests to support my work, and requests to share with your people, if you may be so inclined.

16:20:34 Um, yeah, okay, so I will be back to talk to you all next week. It's good to connect. I hope you're well. Stay hydrated.

16:20:45 Drink a lot of water. And yeah, see you, see you in a week.