A bit about me.
My passion for working with others to promote self-acceptance and sustainable growth traces back to my experience as a tutor and college application consultant. Through that work, I gained expert knowledge of the worlds of high school and college education and became specially attuned to the unique difficulties—and opportunities—of youths in transition. I also came to realize that most often, the fundamental barriers to change are internal and emotional in nature.
I have lived and worked in countries around the world, but the Bay Area will always be my home. I’m a lover of art, music, and beauty of all forms, and constantly seek out opportunities to incorporate creative expression and appreciation into my practice. The following poem is dear to me, and richly describes the experience of self-actualization.
Seed Leaves
- by Richard Wilbur
Reproduced with permission of the Estate of Richard P. Wilbur
Here something stubborn comes,
Dislodging the earth crumbs
And making crusty rubble.
It comes up bending double
And looks like a green staple.
It could be seedling maple,
Or artichoke, or bean;
That remains to be seen.Forced to make choice of ends,
The stalk in time unbends,
Shakes off the seedcase, heaves
Aloft, and spreads two leaves
Which still display no sure
And special signature.
Toothless and fat, they keep
The oval form of sleep.This plant would like to grow
And yet be embryo;
Increase, and yet escape
The doom of taking shape;
Be vaguely vast, and climb
To the tip end of time
With all of space to fill,
Like boundless Yygdrasil
That has the stars for fruit.But something at the root
More urgent than that urge
Bids two true leaves emerge,
And now the plant, resigned
To being self-defined
Before it can commerce
With the great universe,
Takes aim at all the sky
And starts to ramify.