Back to the garden

You found a key.

It was lying in the garden, and now it is yours. What does it unlock?

Only you can say. It starts from what you can already do, because you are already a resource, and goes toward what you want to be able to do. A few questions find the way between. Some people already know exactly what they want; the questions help that make sense too.

Answer as much or as little as you like, in your own words, using whatever helps you think: notes, friends, a search, a long walk. Nobody grades them. They are the same questions everyone in the garden asks themselves, and keeps asking. Your answers are kept with your key and dated, so you can ask them again as you grow and see how you changed.

Already know exactly what you want? Go straight to it: furnish your house, plant your garden bed, open a stall. The questions wait here for whenever you want them; they are never a gate.

What is this about?

Yourself, a shop, a band, a business, a game, a garden, an idea you have not named yet. A few words.

What can you already do?

Everything counts: what you make, fix, know, teach, grow, cook, organise, notice. Paid or not. You are already a resource; this is where we find out how.

What do you want to be able to do?

Where you want to get to from here. If you already know exactly, say it. If you only know the feeling of it, say that.

If you had the backing and the resources to do whatever you wanted, within your own influence, what would you do?

Not what is wrong with the world. What you want. Everyone has an answer to this one.

What do you want to make happen?

The thing itself, as plainly as you can say it.

What does it touch?

Who does it affect? What good can it do, and what harm? What does it touch in the place where it happens?

Where does it go?

What waste does it make, and what happens to that waste? Where do the materials come from, and are they right for the place and the influence you have?

How else can it be done?

How does it last, and how will you make it last? Saying what lasting means for you is part of the answer.

What do you notice?

Now that you have said it all. The asking never stops: what you notice sends you back to look again.

Keep them.

Your answers are kept with your key under today's date. Ask again whenever you like; the old ones stay, so you can see what changed.

What it unlocks

Your house has many rooms. However you fill them, there is room to grow.

You can stop right here. The key already keeps your purse and your answers. Or open a door:

Furnish your houseThe rooms where you live and say who you are: pages, a journal, a studio, a zine. Your house needs a bed in the garden to stand on; the builder shows you how. Plant your garden bedWhere people meet you: they follow, buy, barter, subscribe. Plant it, and others can grow alongside you. Open a stallYour things on your bed and in the market, paid to you, from what they cost you up.

Others' notes come later. As more people join, they can read what you chose to show and tell you what they notice. For now the asking is yours, and that is where it starts.