atioI wake up, the sun is shining…
I wake up.
The sun is shining.
The weather feels sweet.
I take out the watering can and step into the garden.
The parsley is stubborn. The thyme still tender. The rosemary still struggling to remember where it came from.
The basil, a clash of green and mauve, perfumes the air. Courgette flowers flash yellow like traffic lights. Tomatoes shift slowly through their spectrum.
I bend down and notice something odd.
A maroon leather bag, half-buried in the soil.
The smell of Alpine pastures rising up from its handle.
Inside: a postcard from Cefalù, a handwritten recipe book, Polaroid photos of a jungle, a compass, and a note:
“Go south on the 8.38 and find your next clue…”
Gardens teach us something about futures.
Some plants refuse to grow on schedule.
Some scatter where we don’t expect them.
Sometimes, new seeds appear from nowhere — like a clue left behind.
Speculation doesn’t always happen in strategy sessions. It often happens in the soil, in the stubbornness of parsley, or in the mystery of a bag that shouldn’t be there.
🌱 Real-world examples of hidden futures
- The pop-up cycle lanes of 2020
When councils carved out bike lanes almost overnight, it was as if the city had been hiding this possibility in plain sight. Streets could change as quickly as the seasons, if only we let them. - Barcelona’s food cooperatives
Like borage seeding itself everywhere, neighbourhood food co-ops sprouted when global supply chains faltered. What looked like necessity became a rehearsal for a fairer, more local food system. - The “Everyone In” programme
When the government instructed councils to bring rough sleepers inside, the old idea that homelessness was inevitable suddenly withered. A new norm sprouted: housing first, without condition.
✨ Calls to action for teams
🔍 Notice what’s already growing — in your work, what stubborn parsley or wild borage are showing you the future, even if they weren’t in the plan?
📦 Open the unexpected bag — when something strange or unplanned appears (a new idea, a surprising partner, an offhand comment), treat it as a clue, not a distraction.
🌱 Plant for multiple futures — like a garden, don’t expect all seeds to sprout at once. Diversify experiments. Some will flower now, some later, some never. That’s the point.
The garden doesn’t give us certainty.
It gives us fragments, surprises, rhythms.
Maybe that’s what speculation really is.
Not trying to guess the future.
But staying open enough to find the clues when they appear.
