“Your breath is your anchor in the present moment." - Jill Hesson

So much has happened during my trip to LA that it's hard to imagine I arrived just a week ago. Here's some peeks into how the 3 Step Reciprocity Cycle continues throughout it all...

Acknowledge Earth Is Our Home

How do you make the decision to walk somewhere?

Or bike?

Or bus?

Or drive?

Being in LA for 9 days for meetings and events, it's been interesting making this choice in a town full of cars.

And seeing how it changes (or doesn't) compared to when I'm home...

What time of day/night is it?

How long have I been inside?

How far is the trek?

What do I have to carry?

What's the bus schedule?

How can I be in relationship with my home?

Discover Your Earth Archetype

One of the films that was part of the Earth Archetype block was about Kid's Ocean Day. It tells the story of a 30+ year old program run by Michael Klubock, a sailor turned environmental educator, who channeled his love for the beach into the creation of a school assembly education effort.

He wanted to get more kids to the beach and in touch with nature. While developing and presenting the program to the schools, he established the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education and Kids Ocean Day. Since then, Kids Ocean Day has expanded along the length of the California coast.

Well a couple years ago, he asked David to film some footage to create some news reels. After over year of talking, Michael finally handed over the reins to David to create the story -- which turned into a 10 minute short that's been touring the festival circuit.

And it won the Ethos Environmental Impact award!

I was delighted to meet them the moment they arrived at the welcome party and keep connecting all weekend through the celebration of their award.

Such wonderful people who put their Earth Archetypes into action!

Work Together in Community

Friday morning's "Real Stories, Real Impact" was such a gift because of the amazing people that came together to share their insights from very different perspectives.

Erman Baradi, Director of Artist Emerged as our moderator

Erica Rosenthal, Director of Research at the Normal Lear Center

David Hale, EVP Programming at 44 Blue Productions

Cookie Zito, Founder & CEO at Christy Maz Network

And yours truly with Earth Archetypes

Two moments stand out the most for me.

1. Erica shared super interesting research from their work with Game of Thrones -- trying to understand why the end of the series lost it's potency. She believes it was because they shifted from sociology to psychology -- aka from the culture, systems, and structures of society to more internalized and individualized thoughts and emotions. As I look at all my storytelling which has to constantly weave the individual, cultural, and systemic...I definitely want to dive more into this research!

2. A former child psychologist asked a very legit question about how/if to portray suicide in shows. Erica tackled it first. Then as we were handing the mic to David...someone in the audience that I knew was dealing with high levels of social anxiety shared their concerns about how they did it. So I then took the mic and invited everyone in the room to find their feet, touch them both on the ground, and take a deep breath with me. Then steered the conversation to how we could more generalize how to consider sensitive issues from the lens of both research and production. Then David got to share his contribution.
   

Of all the great stuff we shared in that 90 minutes, this is what people wanted to talk with me the most about. How they did feel anxious from how the conversation had turned, and how grateful they were for how I handled it.

I'm so grateful for the time, space, ideas, and connection we all shared in that room.

Excited to get my hand on the footage. I'll share it immediately with my subscribers.

Then'll I'll start formulating a sizzle reel to share with unscripted execs.

Here we go!!!!!

Huge thank you to Ethos Film Festival for bringing such a vibrant community together.

And for this tribute 💜