> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://connect.aaronembrey.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Alongside - URL: https://connect.aaronembrey.com/alongside/ - Published: 2026-10-11T16:50:06.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T16:57:10.000Z - Description: What fifteen women farmers taught me about stepping out of the frame, and why I may have been preparing for this work my whole life. - Author: Aaron Embrey - Tags: Creative Process, Creative Rhythm Every morning this month, at nine o’clock Eastern, a woman I have never met shows up on my screens. By then, I’ve already seen her a dozen times, at least, or more... I’ve carefully cropped her photo and then, re-cropped it, so the little “TODAY“ label doesn’t sit on her forehead. I’ve made sure the line-breaks in her heartfelt quotes are *just* *so*... I’ve read the words of [her story](https://www.instagram.com/equalorigins?ref=connect.aaronembrey.com) in Spanish (and Portuguese and Indonesian), then in English, then in Spanish (etc.) again, checking that nothing got lost in the important, if subtle, work between languages. I know where her farm is, how long she’s worked the land, and what she hopes for her children and community. And still, when her story goes live, something in me sits up straighter. ***There she is.*** For months and now, these [fifteen days](https://equalorigins.org/raiseyourcup?ref=connect.aaronembrey.com) I’ve been the creative director of an amplification and fundraising campaign that’s sharing the stories of some of the women who farm our coffee and cocoa. It’s the best work I’ve done in years, and it has asked something of me I didn’t exactly see coming... It’s asked me to get off of the page and OUT of the story and out of the frame. --- I’ve been a designer for about thirty years. Fifteen of them, I spend inside a big global corporation, where being seen wasn’t (always) about ego or even vanity. It was just about career survival. That’s where I learned to put my name on things, sit up front, and make sure the right people knew whose hands had made or shaped the work. Your portfolio was your proof of life (and worth). And again, especially, as a freelancer, my voice and visibility have been directly tied to my income. ### Then, certainly in my own personal life, visibility became something much, MUCH bigger than a basic career strategy. *Coming out, and coming into myself, meant practicing being seen, over and over, on purpose (and usually while secretly, not-so-secretly *terrified*).* I’ve written here before that Pride is a practice. For me, *so is visibility...* I fought hard to be able to stand, here in these pages and frames and in this world as my whole, holy self. So, I didn’t expect the lesson of *this season* to be about stepping OUT of the frame and off the pages. --- I’ve thought a lot, these past weeks, about how strangely *well-made* I am for this particular project and work... Some of it is, certainly, *practical.* I do bring a unique mix of strategy and craft to the table, and thankfully, I’m mid-pivot in my career, with a bit of time and space to say yes to creating something of this magnitude. But most of it is older than that... I know what it is to be seen and treated as a woman in business, art, and commerce. I know the meetings where your ideas land (only) after a man repeats them. I know the raise or promotion that goes to someone else, and of being underestimated and under-resourced, and still doing the work anyway. I *also* know the other side, now, and the strange, unearned ease of being read as a man in the world and in the work. The benefit of the doubt is present before you’ve ever even said a word. People look at you when they ask the question, at least until they realize you’re a *different* sort of man. *(Then it gets a li’l more interesting.)* Having stood on both sides of that oh, so, binary line, *I can’t unsee it.* Every one of these women has done extraordinary work in a world that mostly hasn’t noticed. *I recognize that in my bones.* AND I also recognize the privilege I carry, which is exactly why I want to spend it holding the frame steady for her, rather than just standing and working inside it. --- [Every story in this campaign](https://equalorigins.org/raiseyourcup?ref=connect.aaronembrey.com) has a small attribution line beneath the woman’s name. It reads *ALONGSIDE*, followed by the brand or partner who walked with her into the light of this campaign’s recognition. It’s a tiny word, set in a slightly, smaller font, sitting just under her name at the end of her story. And it has turned into a kind of koan for me... *Alongside* doesn’t mean *presented by*... It isn’t *in partnership with*, and it certainly isn’t *brought to you by*... It means, SHE is the focus, and we are standing next to her. Not in front, and not above, and hopefully, *not narrating about her* over her shoulder. As a designer, I’ve spent my whole career deciding what gets the biggest type on the page, hierarchically. This time the answer was easy and humbling. Because her name, her face, and her words are the most important thing we see. Everything else, mine included, gets the smallest line on the page, or no line at all. I’m finding out, that I really like it there. (I’m a Pisces Sun, after all so dissolving into something larger than myself comes naturally. My Taurus Moon would like everyone to know, I *alsoooo*, really need a nap. My Libra Rising is just happy the layout is balanced and her story is presented beautifully.) 💜 --- Here’s something a bit harder for me to share and admit... But as long as we’re keeping things a little bit WOO in this essay, I’ll also share that in addition to being rested and aesthetic, Piscean, I’m also a (Human Design) Manifestor (add neuro-spicy / ADHD creative). So, I work in pulses, with surges of vision, and bursts of intense making, and then a much needed pause or rest... Like a heart beat pumping and resting, between creation and recreation. I’ve made peace with my inner and innate rhythm, and I’ve even slowly built my business around it... Ish... HOWEVER, fifteen-day campaign has no quiet, and there are NO pauses. There’s a new farmer every morning, and the stories need to be ready before then. My natural rhythm is to *strike the match, then go have a li’l rest in a dark room*, and currently the match needs daily, sustained striking and producing. Follow-ups and mental fast-forwarding. Some days I’ve felt my edges fraying. I’ve noticed the old reflex to be seen working hard, as if exhaustion were the proof of my value. I’ve caught myself wanting credit, wanting someone to notice the 11 PM file at the bottom of the inbox. That reflex is most definitely, *all* *mine*. I trained it (for decades) in those old, cold, corporate buildings where being overlooked had a real cost. So, I know *exactly* where it comes from. And then nine o’clock comes, again, and she appears on my screens, and I remember: none of THIS was ever about ME being seen. I don’t think that’s my old brand of self-erasure. Because, I believe, I know the difference now, and that difference took me most of my life, so far, to figure out... Self-erasure is hiding because you believe you don’t deserve the light. What I’m practicing, now is maybe, hopefully, a little closer to the opposite of that. I’ve stood in the light long enough to know it’s real, and now I want to hold it open and steady for someone else. --- My creative framework runs on three verbs, these days: **See, Name, Build.** I usually talk about them as a sort of *sequence*. We see the vision, name it clearly, then build a structure to help us hold it and carry it and share it out into the world. This campaign has taught me that *SEEing* isn’t just the first step. It might actually be the whole, holy practice... *Seeing* a woman who has farmed for decades, maybe for the first time in a public way. *Seeing* the hands behind the cups I’ve raised every morning of my adult life without a single thought about who those hands belonged to. Seeing the people doing the work behind the work and who are making this space for her. And seeing myself clearly enough to know when my contribution is to step out and step closer, and when it’s to step *back* into the support structure itself. Seeing without taking over may be the most demanding visual skill I’ve ever practiced. They didn’t teach it to me in design school, and it seems my old, corporate life actively trained it out of me. *It turns out to live somewhere closer to love than to craft.* --- There’s a small ritual I’ve built into this work.. Alongside each public story, I’ve been ensuring there’s a keepsake made just for her. Her story laid out with care, in her own language first, meant as a gift back to her. It isn’t for the grid or public consumption or for anyone’s portfolio (certainly not for mine). It exists so that somewhere in Perú, or Honduras, or Burundi, a woman can hold her own words in her hands and see herself the way the rest of us have been seeing her. So hopefully she will FEEL recognized, uplifted, and invested in... That might be the most *alongside* thing I’ve ever made. --- As of this writing, four days are left in the campaign. Four more mornings, four more women... And hopefully more to come after those... AND after that I’ll rest, probably for a while, probably in a dark room with a Nisha at my feet. That’s my creative rhythm, and I’ve stopped apologizing for it. But I do think I’ll carry this word with me for a long time. *In my work, in my life, in the ways I show up for the people I love...* *Alongside.* Not in front, not above. Just next to her, holding the frame steady while she rises up into it. Much love, more soon, Aaron [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2a/0c/2a0c7dc9-29c9-412b-8321-246df185413b/content/images/2026/10/Spark-Mark_glyph@4x.png)](https://equalorigins.org/raiseyourcup/?ref=connect.aaronembrey.com) Raise Your Cup for the women who farm our coffee and cocoa. [RECOGNIZE, UPLIFT, INVEST ](https://equalorigins.org/raiseyourcup/?ref=connect.aaronembrey.com)