The Dance Between the Past, Present, and Future

A well-balanced person should, for the most part, live in the present while not forgetting to occasionally pay homage to where they came from and dream about where they are headed. Our existence becomes an interesting dance of the three, interweaving on the loom of our lives.

The Past Dances with the Present

As I sit on the Amtrak train on this foggy November day and watch the agricultural fields pass by, I am connecting the dots of my past, present, and future. I have spent most of my life at the urban-rural edges of California and France. Taking the train that passes by the fields and rolling hills of Northern California and taking out my laptop to write reminds me why I am on the path I walk today as an environmentalist.

Plants and their habitats have been by my side as long as I can remember; countless summers were spent playing as a kid in the French countryside beneath the adjacent mountain ranges. My French/Italian grandfather and mother both took pride in their gardens, and living in a remarkably sustainable city (Davis, CA) for fifteen years shaped my early understanding of the importance of having a direct relationship with the natural environment. These layers of my past influenced me to dedicate my career to repairing humanity’s relationship with the land and each other through green spaces.

The Present Dances with the Past

While I spent a decade on the traditional route of pursuing related higher education, internships, and jobs in the environmental field, I also spent significant energy rooting into the present through Vipassana meditation. In the last two years, I have spent 230+ hours in silent meditation. These meditation retreats into silence for hundreds of hours with no external inputs inadvertently cleared everything from my past and future that was clouding the highest expression of my purpose, which plot twist: does not involve me sitting behind a desk staring at a computer screen.

Funny enough, the highest version of my environmental path circles back to what I loved growing up and the influences that shaped me: being outdoors and in gardens, writing and speaking creatively, and inspiring others to connect with each other and the Earth.

The Future Dances with the Past

It’s been a year and a half since I graduated from my Masters in Urban and Regional Planning program. I was set to be an environmental planner, tasked with making cities more sustainable from the top down. I truly thought that was my plan and worked in that direction for a decade, but going inward asked me to surrender to a different future.

My new path is showing me that equally as impactful (if not more) change arises from the bottom up. There is tremendous power in grassroots organizing, community, and nature. People make their cities greener every day when they show up to build a better tomorrow - rooted in the needs of the present while honoring the wisdom of their past.

The Future Dances with the Present

I threw out my five-year plan long ago. All I can do now is stay rooted in my purpose to help heal the Earth and the beings who call it home. Maybe my most authentic path doesn’t come with a job description, and maybe that’s okay. I’m creative, and I know what’s sustainable for me. We can rewrite a more sustainable tomorrow as long as we stay true to ourselves, trust the quiet shifts happening beneath the surface, and keep grounding in the present - the only place where real change ever begins.