CMV: Question?

IL: Answer.

CMV: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career

IL: My career has grown entirely from creativity. I was privileged enough to be in a position to get to hear my heart pulse, understand what fuels my passion, and pursue with full power. I get to sit with colleagues, friends, schoolteachers, community members, designing dreams of what we want out futures to look like, the future of our community, the future of society to look like, then figure out the logistics and make it happen.

So much of my job is listening to the dreams, hopes, and desires of others – and work towards figuring out how to help make them reality.

What’s so fun about working with food is that everybody eats. Sharing food is a timeless, universal act of community. Everyone has history with and a relationship to food. I get to creatively design spaces where people feel safe and inspired to share their lives and celebrate their dreams coming true.

CMV: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?

IL: From the people I work with, the land we live and work on, my family, my ancestry, my dreams, and the stories people share with me in our urban farms.

CMV: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?

IL: Absolutely anything and everything is possible once you put your mind to it. With appropriate proportions of willingness, determination, passion, love, and faith.

CMV: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?

IL: Sara Kendall and Nadia Chaney

CMV: What was the best surprise you’ve experienced so far in life?

IL: When Fresh Roots was first being offered opportunities to transition from a project to a non-profit society, I had tremendous anxiety and quite a lot of fear. Both of us founders had other jobs, yet couldn’t seem to stop saying yes to challenging/exciting opportunities. I kept asking the universe for signs, and signs kept appearing encouraging me to stay with Fresh Roots. Nonetheless, I continued to ignore all of them, pretending I didn’t see them, pretending I didn’t get it.

Then my birthday came around in March, and after a day at the office (from my paying, established job) I rode my bike to Kit’s beach, sat on a boulder, watched as the sun set into the ocean (or as the earth turned away from the sun ;) and cried. I cried and cried, and then began to wail a bit, calling out into the ocean quite loudly ‘why fresh roots? Why Vancouver? Why with the soil of the Coast Salish territories?! I’m not from here, my family isn’t here, my ancestry isn’t from here, why why why?!’ I turned to the mountains in the north, the forests in Stanley park, acknowledging their tremendous power and beauty while still asking why because, although the land is magnificent and powerful, it isn’t the land my ancestry stewarded and came from.

After twenty minutes of crying I said, again out loud, “Can’t you just send me a sign?!” And just as I said it I heard clink clink, and I looked down to find a wine bottle hitting up against the boulder I was sitting on. I looked back out at the ocean, asked the universe if it is for real, looked down, picked up the wine bottle, and saw there was a message in it.

At the time it was too wet for me to pull out, so I proceeded to cry, have a spiritual release ‘n’ let go, and watched the moon set into the ocean. I promised I would stop asking why, have faith, and continue.

It was the Jewish Sabbath eve that night, so I rode my bike to my friends for shabbos, smashed the bottle, and pulled out a message ridden with jewish agricultural law from the Torah, on a newspaper article about Israeli settlements in Palestine. It hit home in so many ways I knew I could no longer ignore.

I asked for a sign and received a message in a bottle, on my 27th birthday, on shabbos. From then on I committed my full self to helping Fresh Roots grow.

CMV: Which relationships give you the most strength to continue pursuing your creative career?

IL: Family, friends, colleagues, and a healthy relationship with myself ;P