A planting ceremony to lay to rest
the dreams that never came to be,
to offer them a chance to bloom.

On October 20, 2018, an international community made of “gardeners” from New Zealand to Morocco to Japan, came together to bury their dreams in a bamboo coffin.

I created "Garden of Buried Dreams" because as much as we love to dream, we all have one worth burying — of living up to our own expectations, of seeing our parents' dreams be fulfilled, of transforming into our best selves today.

Some examples of buried dreams include: "that I need to be better than who I am now," “to save others,” "that as a child of immigrants, my life should be worthy of my parents' sacrifice," and "to become the person I once was."

The last of this list is my own, which came from my insistence to find a way back to my former self after the death of my mother. By burying this dream, I hope to free myself to sit in moments that are far from the light and acknowledge that I have changed, and that I am allowed to exist in new ways.

The dreams, written on seed paper, have since sprouted new life: