Speaker: Ashima Goyal

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Ashima Goyal is an "ordinary" heroine who channels her talents and wide-ranging training to serve extra-ordinarily in small and large ways.

A writer, an editor, a socio-emotional learning educator, an artist, a community-builder (and visionary behind Romania's first Karma Kitchen), a cook (and food blogger!), and a spirited volunteer, her service has spanned from online space-holding, to hands-on direct disaster aid in grassroots villages after serious floods in Uttarakhand, to transformative 'hands, head, heart' retreats.

As an engineer, and later as a social policy graduate, Ashima had the idea to change the world.

"Luckily," she says, "I came in contact with people who helped me see that all I can do is change myself." For the past 7 years, all her work has been towards transforming her environment by first transforming herself through small acts of service -- from writing letters to strangers, leaving bookmarks in library books, holding up a "smile" poster, inspiring generosiTREE, or hugging trees. She's taken on personal practices including meditation, spending 40 days never looking in a mirror, and traveling only by foot or public transit as an experiment in trusting strangers. Every act unfolds with a simple intention of bringing more joy into the world.

In her own words, she reflects: "I’ve lived in many countries, including some where I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. A mentor once told me — “Bloom where you are planted,” and that has been my guiding light. Over the years, I have served in different spaces in different capacities — a cook, a teacher, a trainer, a fundraiser, a cleaner, a planner, a painter… however I was called to served. Two of my passions are cooking and being with children. I always loved cooking, creating something that is more than the sum of it’s ingredients, but volunteering at Seva Cafe in India taught me how the most important part of cooking was the love I was putting in while cooking. To cook mindfully and with reverence to everything that makes the meal possible.

She finds joy in crafting many forms of art (often as a gift to others), and has been tremendously inspired by souls like Kanti Kaka, who view themselves as an instrument through which art flows.

Join us on May 11th, 2019 for a deep-dive with a force of extra"ordinary" love, on her learnings from blooming wherever she is planted.

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