Hi! I'm Tara Robertson.

Last week I found myself at two very different events. At one of them I felt I was exactly where I should be and at the other one I was mumbling to myself: "what am I doing here?" It was disorienting, but by using my values as a tool to understand the match/mismatch, it all makes sense now. sample from Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture The "yes! this is exactly where I should be" feeling was teaching coaching skills to scientists at NOAA Fisheries, NASA, and the California Water...

baby radishes! omg! Thanks for filling out the poll in the last newsletter. We decided to call the garden Earthseed 653, from Octavia Butler's books with the Dewey Decimal system number for gardens. 57% of people who votes in the poll two weeks ago picked Earthseed. My friend Vanessa Richards, who is an amazing artist, facilitator and educator suggested putting the two together. My values are my compass When you live and work in alignment with your values you feel aligned. Some of my values...

The best thing in my life is the garden I'm growing with a few friends in someone's front yard. Three of us were librarians. Two weeks ago we prepped the garden and this weekend we planted the first batch of seeds: veggies, herbs and flowers. It's the kind of work that I would feel like a chore on my own, but as a small group it was fun and satisfying. Slight detour: I loved everything about the Artemis II space mission. The teamwork! The stories! The competency! The diversity! YES! Amanda...

As a workplace inclusion consultant I see a lot of things from a systems perspective. For example, what are the design decisions we make around hiring/onboarding/promotions/layoffs that create fairer and more equitable workplaces, (or not)? After I had written this newsletter I could see that system level design decisions are a through thread through what I'm sharing in this newsletter: How do we design leadership events that are nourishing? How do we build movements that creates liberation...

Em and I launched Seasons of Change and co-lead our first session for spring. It was such a delightful group of people! We invited participants to think back to what they dreamed in the winter time and what seeds they were choosing to plant in their lives. Then, we invited people draw their gardens. We took our own medicine (that sounds so much nicer than dogfooding, don't you think?) and drew the seeds that we want to grow in our lives. This is what I drew: The raspberry bushes are ones that...

Seasons of Change - starting THIS FRIDAY! When Em House and I started brainstorming about what we want Seasons of Change to be we were both excited to build something that's creative and stretches what hosting a seasonal group on Zoom could feel like. How can we involve all the senses? How can we use embodiment? One of my favourite ideas is a digital postcard to get people starting to think, feel and dream before each the live session. It goes out later today! If you're on the fence about...

In Vancouver spring is here. Winter is over – It’s time for the parts of us that have been hibernating to wake up. Spring Equinox is March 20th, and that’s when Seasons of Change kicks off! What is waking up in your life now? What did you dream up in winter? The ground is fertile and ready to get started. What seeds are you planting now? What are the signs of spring where you are? Hit reply and let me know (or even better, show me with a photo!) Magnolia tree blooming in Vancouver Seasons of...

The world feels fucked up, probably because it is. I'm not going to list all the things, because I think we all know what's going on and most of us are titrating the news so we don't get overwhelmed. This weekend I doom scrolled and found myself overwhelmed and numb (oops). Connecting with moments that felt alive for me helped me thaw and reconnect with people I'm close to and then broader communities. When I read Dr. Dori Tunstall's newsletter I realized I had also been micro-dosing on joy:...

I've been noticing a lot of people standing up and saying NO to injustice and coercive power. In Andrea Reimer's Power U video she talks about the power of refusal. These ideas come from Václav Havel's The Power of the Powerless from 1978. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney referenced this essay in his speech at Davos. Here's three examples of people saying NO: Minnesotans who have been saying NO to ICE creatively, consistently and loudly. Chappell Roan and Abby Wambach saying NO to...