Hello Everyone,
Some notes before I take the next few days off for the holiday:
Community Tier pricing for Kizuna’s fall 2025 OpenArc, a four-week sequence of asynchronous, cross-disciplinary provocations exploring the question of:
“How do we co-create authenticity in the liminal space between self and collective across scales and contexts?”
Closes tonight, November 26, 11:59PM PT / 2:59AM ET
All Other Tier pricing closes November 28, 5PM ET / 2PM PT
Request Entry here
There will be no Cultivar Coffee Chat this week, I’ll see you Friday, Dec 5th, time to be determined.
I know many households that perform some sense of thanks-giving ritual in observance of Thanksgiving each year, usually at the dinner table.
It’s been a common practice in my gatherings over time, and yet this year, I find I’m not moved to express thanks, but something simultaneously broader and more profound.
Gratitude.
With all the thinking and work I’ve done recently on relational leadership versus transactional leadership, I find myself less directly thankful for any one specific thing, instead feeling a much deeper sense of appreciation for my life, circumstances, opportunities, and challenges.
My successes and my losses.
The doors I have chosen to close, and those I have chose to open.
The increasingly aligned and close-knit people I connect with.
The direct and systemic sacrifice(s) others have made for me to have the privilege of writing this to you now.
The food, health, and security of my family.
I think gratitude stems from realizing just how interconnected and related we all are, from understanding the web of relations that span distance, time, language, and identities.
In the past, when I would give thanks, I don’t know that I necessarily felt it, deep in my heart.
I might list off or journal the things I knew I should be thankful for not that it didn’t mean something to me; I now see that my framing was shaped by a sense of isolation and disconnect. I thought I existed independently of the things I was giving thanks for.
These days, I realize I exist because of the things I give thanks for, and those I don’t.
And that realization is my definition of gratitude.
From my table to yours,
- Chris
Welcome, and thank you for your presence!
I am a leadership ecologist rooted in Appalachia, raised through environmental respect, military service and Western educational institutions. I use an animistic lens to better understand the relationship between individuals, organizations, and systems.
When working with leaders and organizations, my approach not one of doctrine, but of guidance and tending to: to memory, to culture, to systems and people. I believe leadership is not a fixed role, but a living, relational practice.
My work draws from my lived experience and research into myth-making, insurgency and business strategies, regenerative philosophies, creative works, the landscape I inhabit, and the mundane, because the ember of humanity is often nurtured in and between those spaces.
If something resonates, leave a comment, or reach out to chat - I always love hearing people’s stories.
You are always welcome to book a free call to either get fresh perspective or see if we’d work well together in cultivating your capacity to lead.
I offer a variety of services, 1:1 coaching, group programs, leadership training development, and culture consultation.