April 2026
The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.
-Gary Zukav
Grief … is unpredictable in how or when it will show up. I share this with our Platform audience because March has been a very difficult month for me. My mother passed away in July but it feels like I am realizing the depth of the loss more recently. It isn’t because I haven’t been mourning her death since July. I have. I just feel it more and I am more encumbered by my emotions, making simple duties a little more difficult. It is just more. I usually push myself to meet deadlines and I think I have been suppressing my emotions so I could get all my immediate obligations and responsibilities taken care of.
You may be asking, why are you putting this information in a newsletter? Why is it important to share my emotional state? I mean, am I sharing too much? Or did I share too little in my previous newsletters? When I push through, I have difficulty acknowledging my emotional state and when I feel too much, I want to shut down and avoid people. It is not an ideal time to run a nonprofit that doesn’t have enough funds to pay anyone, including myself. Who can fill my shoes as I mourn, as I allow myself to just let go and cry? No one, I am realizing as I look at our volunteers, consultants, and board members. They each have their role but I am irreplaceable at this point - maybe if we had the funds for a part-time position, I would be replaceable. But we are not there yet.
I have labored at the task of growing Platform because of its vision and mission but it is not easy to find the passion when one is overwhelmed with grief. I will persist but not until after this season of mourning. One thing I want to put out into the world, an energy for the divine to receive and manifest: We desperately need a leader who can galvanize our community. Yes, we need a community organizer with a vision to grow Platform. Who, how, when are all the questions that have been percolating but I don’t know exactly what I am imagining. Does this necessarily mean that we need funds before we can begin to for a person? No. I am a firm believer that imagination/vision precedes funding. And of course, hope to God, we have funding for what we have imagined.
I will take one week to decompress and hopefully, it will give me the energy to imagine. But ideally, I will be talking with people who will help me imagine. Yes, ideas tend to percolate more with people, with community members who want to transform and be transformed. And I will talk to our community but I need to sit in my cocoon for a bit.
Sam Joo
CEO and Founder
April 1, 2026