For this episode of Creative Tea Podcast, we sat down with Kristen Victor, Regenerative Community Resourcer, Water Bearer, Former Interior Designer, and member of The Consultancy at Merrimac. What started as a conversation about San Diego’s polluted coastline unfolded into a much bigger story: one connecting water conservation, ancestral weaving traditions in Mexico, and the deeply personal practice of reconnecting to water within ourselves.

Quick Takes

• A Global Wake-Up Call: Kristen’s “tea” is water itself, she describes tuning into her own inner waters as a turning point that clarified her life’s purpose, framing humans as water beings living on a water planet.
• San Diego’s Pollution Crisis: The hosts and Kristen unpack the region’s serious water pollution problem, driven by cross-border wastewater from Tijuana, Navy vessel discharge, and urban runoff, with firsthand accounts of visible contamination as far north as Encinitas.
• The Real Infrastructure Problem: Kristen explains that the core issue isn’t a lack of filtration technology, but a lack of infrastructure to get waste to that technology, especially in dense, decentralized areas like Tijuana.
• Water Meets Fashion and Craft: Kristen’s creative and philanthropic work now centers on a weaving collective of 6,000 artisans in Mexico, where she helps build decentralized rainwater systems that support the production of natural, non-polluting textile dyes.

Watch the Full Creative Tea Podcast Episode

Tuning Into Our Inner Waters

Kristen opened by sharing that water is her calling. She described the process of connecting to her own “inner waters” as one of purification and clarity that helped reveal her deeper purpose. The conversation quickly grounded that idea in biology: the human body is roughly 70–85% water, and Earth itself is a water planet, making our relationship to water both intensely personal and universally shared.

San Diego’s Polluted Coastline

The hosts didn’t shy away from the uncomfortable reality closer to home. Steffi and Ella (Matra) described San Diego’s water as among the most polluted in the nation, pointing to toxins flowing north from Tijuana and pollution from Navy ships stationed along the coast. Kristen, who swims in the ocean daily, shared that she’s personally witnessed the contamination spread well beyond Coronado, including finding waste in the water as far north as Encinitas, a shift she attributes in part to unusual storm swells pushing pollution north to south.

Why Filtration Technology Isn’t Enough

Kristen offered a systems-level explanation for why the crisis persists: her water conservation work focuses on decentralized systems, and the core problem in places like Tijuana — a city of roughly three million people — isn’t a shortage of filtration technology, but a total lack of infrastructure to route waste to that technology in the first place. As a result, waste flows directly into ocean currents, which then carry it north to San Diego’s beaches. She also noted that jetties and berms built to preserve local sand inadvertently trap that pollution along the coastline, compounding the problem for surfers and coastal residents.

From Interior Design to Ancestral Dye Traditions

Asked how her love of water intersects with her creative background as a longtime interior designer, Kristen described a career shift that led her to Mexico, where she now works with a weaving collective of 6,000 artisans on water conservation tied directly to their craft. The collective produces natural plant-based dyes, or tintas, for their woven textiles — a tradition made harder to sustain because synthetic dyes are cheaper and more accessible, despite being one of the largest sources of water pollution globally. Kristen’s team has spent roughly five years helping the fully decentralized, rain-dependent community capture, filter, and store rainwater using underground cisterns, land-based water direction techniques, and natural materials like rock and sediment — infrastructure that now also supports a growing natural-dye business and a new winter accessories collection.

Water Is Love

Kristen closed by tying the conversation back to her opening idea: that water touches everything, from food and agriculture to fashion, weaving, and community prosperity, and that reconnecting to it, both inwardly and in the natural world, is ultimately an act of love.

Connect with Kristen

Learn more about Kristen’s consulting and philanthropic work on instagram at @wakefulness_explorer or  kristenvictor.com, including her nonprofit partnership through the International Community Foundation supporting water conservation and prosperity for communities in Mexico. 

Want to Be Part of the Creative Tea Podcast?

Are you a designer, writer, artist, creative, dancer? Want to share your hot tea? Join us for Founders Cafe of Community Co-Working Days at the Consultancy to be part of the podcast. Follow us at @sdfounderscafe or @consultancy.at.merrimac.