Supporting Evidence

I finished my OP! I was over the word count, but it turned out well. I had an adviser meeting with Ariane and we talked a lot about the stress I had over last weekend. She was really supportive and understanding.

Tuesday was really a culmination of my stress though. First I saw an article Gregory posted on facebook about “Regenerative Enterprise” that mostly talked about the governance structures. This is the part I care the most about so I really liked the article but he was saying that it didn't represent what he and Ethan have defined Regenerative Enterprise to mean. I commented with how I felt about it, but I know I sounded harsh.

Then I attended a Gaia U radio call of Patrick's presentation. He lives near me in Colorado. He has a Permaculture business that is just him right now. He expressed that he has “given up on the revolution” and just wants to “play the game as it is”. This really upset me and I tried to say something during the comments section about how it isn't just about “the revolution” it's about the success of his business. I offered to help him. My voice was really shaky, I could barely get the words out. I messaged with him a little on facebook afterward, but he hasn't gotten back with me.

Then, immediately after that I had a conversation with Tommy where I told him if I was going to work with him we needed to use Holacracy and Scrum and that I could set these up as well as helping design the software. He got really defensive and said he just needs to find a programmer and all that other “stuff” can come later. I got a little forceful and I know he doesn't want to work with me now. I really need this software though so I'll just have to find some other people to do it with. This was a real disappointment.

I did manage to get caught up on my Sociocracy homework and this class was a little less stressful. We reenacted an operations meeting which I got to lead. It was difficult because another participant claimed they didn't have money in the budget for what I was asking them to do, so we had to craft a proposal to bring to the next highest circle. I didn't want to do this, I just wanted to delegate and have it be over with, then I got criticized for turning it into a policy meeting! Whatever, but it all worked out. I still don't like Sociocracy.

I had another meeting with Brian on Friday. This time we really got into my incubator idea and the software idea. He really liked my ideas for both and wants me to be on the team. He made a google doc folder with everything he's written on coism and gave me permission to edit, yay! I am so excited to be on a real team that could do some real things. I could actually get paid! I just wish I could shake all the stress from other things falling through this week.

On Saturday I went out to Elizabeth's farm where she was having a “Design Blitz”. I had offered several times to meet with her prior to plan it, but she refused. Of course, hardly anyone showed up. She did have Avery there and they got some good brainstorming and discussion done, but that was in the morning before I showed up. When I got there it was just me and a guy named Eduardo who I had met at “fuck dating”. After taking a farm tour and talking a little about the Permaculture design we finally got to talking about the part that I care about, the organization. I told them about what I had talked to Brian about and we decided to hold off on the incubator until the start of the new year, then do a lot to help Elizabeth with her business plans. I need to talk to Robert from The Integral Center and Brian some more to plan for the re-start. I'd like to charge and actually start getting paid too. Eduardo gave me a great idea by reminding me of the potential for gamification and alternative currencies in the software. I hadn't thought about this stuff in two years, so I'm getting really excited for these ideas to come back.

This week has been insane. I've been plowing through writing my OP, which is fun but a lot of work. At the same time my daughter and my ex are moving to Boulder and I'm not sure how we're going to deal with visitation since he is supposed to be watching her full time, but I want to see her, but I don't want to be his free babysitter, but he can't afford to pay me. That's really stressing me out. Also, Gregory was going to move back to Boulder, but he let me know early this week that he isn't, he's moving to Equador, which is a bummer. He's in town this weekend, but he's not online and not contacting me, so I'm guessing he's too busy to meet me. Grrrrr.

I also worked 7 days in a row right before Thanksgiving, just had that day off, then have to work two more days before I get three days off. I'm putting off a lot of my OP writing till then, but I'm still chipping away at it when I can.

We did have an incubator meeting on Tuesday. Bradley came and brought two of his friends who are working on a marijuana extract business. They have potential investors and it looks like they're really going to do this thing. They need help with governance structures so I showed them Holacracy and we diagrammed their roles. They are interested in working with me more, so yay!

On Wednesday I met with Brian. His plan for Coism is exactly what I was thinking with the Weft Alliance two years ago. The only difference is that he actually has a team and potential funding for it. He is excited about working with me and so am I. This is great. This satisfies the major need that I had for talking with Gregory so him being MIA isn't bothering me quite so much. He sent me the documents he's written so I can read them and see how much we align. I like what he's got but found some areas that need work, so I re-wrote one section and emailed it to him. Hopefully we can meet again soon to talk about it.

I had Thanksgiving dinner at Ava's which was nice. I'm glad to have such a good network of friends in Boulder already.

I talked to Tommy on Sunday about his idea for SOLE software using Mahara. I am skeptical that he can do all he wants to do on the Mahara platform and with the resources he has, even including the grant he wants to get. I would like to work with him on it though.

On Tuesday at The Integral Center I attempted to make a video presentation of the Regenerative Dynamics website. I got too into talking about the Metamaps platform and the information framework though and it ended up being much longer than I had hoped. I am getting less sure about this website being a platform to work on Metamaps. I emailed the metamaps team asking them to add more discussion functions, but this doesn't seem to be high on their priority list.

No one showed up for the incubator this week, which was kind of disappointing. It's alright though, I will keep inviting more people and it will happen. I also took that time to metamap the principles of Financial Permaculture, which I got off of the Perenial Solutions website. I'm not sure why this article was on that website and not the Financial Permaculture Institute, but oh well.

On Wednesday we had Sociocracy class again. This time I had crafted a proposal to create a role to represent the organization to the county, which we discussed and passed. During the discussion though people were trying to add things to my proposal that were policy or action decisions. Apparently in Sociocracy there are not clear distinctions between proposals to create or modify roles and proposals to set policy or even do projects or tasks. This is far too little structure for me, I'm sticking with Holacracy.

I was going back and forth on whether I would definitely get my output packet done by the end of the month to submit it on December first. I've been spending too much time hanging out with Bradley and not working on my OP. On Friday I finally decided to go for it and on Saturday I finished the introduction and scheduled the next week to write the rest of the OP. This is going to be a power-through, but I know I can do it. I'm kind of excited.

I also listened to Simha's mid-year presentation and gave him feedback. He's using Gaia U's Activity Hub to study User Interface Design. It's a topic I'm interested in and I'm glad to help him out.

This week we didn't have an incubator meeting because there was a Town Hall meeting at The Integral Center at the same time. I went and it was really interested to hear how the Integral Center came into being and what they've been doing over the last few years. They want to have more of a community building and educational approach in the future. It sounds like they want to be some kind of an educational institution with loose semester-type programs. I think I could help with this, turning it into a SOLE environment. It's not exactly what I'm doing with the incubator and I don't want to confuse the two, but I can help.

The Sociocracy class this week was really confusing. We role-played an election and after submitting our nominations the facilitator got to decide which candidate would go through the objection round. I believe that this is giving a large amount of power to the facilitator, which is really against what I have been taught a facilitator is there for. I argued with the teachers about it a bit, but they weren't going to budge. Also, during the objection round, we had been talking about “range of tolerance” and although we were told that objections needed to be paramount (a reason the person cannot fulfill the requirements of the role) John seemed to be encouraging us to bring up objections that had to do with preference. In this particular instance two candidates were nominated an equal amount of times. One was a white man and the other a black woman. I would have voted for the black woman to balance the rank situation, since they were equal candidates to my knowledge, but there was no space to do this. The facilitator had already chosen the white male to go through he objection round and I had no “paramount” objections, he could do the job. So in Sociocracy the facilitator has the power to choose based on preference, but no one else does? I don't like this at all.

On Friday I went to an event at The Integral Center called “Fuck Dating”. I have always felt like “dating” is a backwards social construct that sets relationships up for failure, so I was interested to see what they would say. It was run by a couple who are trying to bring self-awareness teachings into the daring scene. I think they're going in the right direction, but I still think calling it “dating” is just asking for trouble. I prefer to be friend with people. If something physical or romantic develops from that, great, but it's a totally different situation with each person and putting these relationships in a box and calling it “dating” just limits what kinds of relationships I can have with people.

I got a new housemate this week. His name is Bradley and we are having a great time hanging out together. Maybe wasting a little too much time smoking pot and watching South Park, but I am glad to have the social interaction.

On Tuesday we had another great Incubator meeting. Several people showed up and we talked about Vision, Mission, Purpose, and Goals. I spent a couple hours after that writing it all up for the incubator and came up with some really great stuff that I'm excited to share. I sent out a second Mailchimp newsletter for the incubator, wrote up the notes for this meeting and sent them out to everyone who had expressed interest in coming. I added a function to the website that will automatically sign people up for the newsletter when they make an account.

I hung out with Ava on Monday and we had a great discussion about our projects and potential partners. On Tuesday I had both a Guild Buddy session with Ben and a main advisor session with Ariane. She told me about her projects in her community in Scotland and how she is trying to introduce Sociocracy to her community. I'm glad we can connect on that issue.

I started the six week online Sociocracy course on Wednesday. It was really frustrating because they're using a telephone conferencing system and a separate video system that I can't get onto with my computer. I don't like not being able to see people and there are almost no built in tools. We're using Google Docs, which is fine. I like the layout they have for the class. They made up a pretend community organization that has a farm as one circle. This looks like the kind of organization I would start. We are roleplaying meetings. It's really confusing, I don't know if the other students are studying this enough to even ask intelligent questions. I can see a big difference between the Sociocracy and Holacracy communities just in culture and practice. I will be doing a lot of comparing in this class to see what the real differences are between the systems.

I finally watched the WonderWorks webinar video interviewing a woman from Zappos. It was really good. I can tell that I would get along with both women really well, we have the same level of passion for this subject. I look forward to watching and hopfully catching more of these live in the future.

I've spent a lot of time the last couple weeks processing personal issues. I've been getting so much of what I want lately, it's hard to accept. I am also thinking about the future and trying to decide and define what I want to get out of life. I went to another Non-Duality and Empowered Consciousness talk on Monday. It is amazing how quickly I forget to do what I want and enjoy it rather than worrying. I go back and forth, it's a constant wave.

On Tuesday I worked at the Integral Center again and read about Scrum, taking enough notes to explain it to the incubator group that evening. Willie and Eilzabeth showed up. I presented what I had learned about Scrum, we talked about the processes we'll use in the meetings and came up with an agenda for the next meeting. We also talked about tag lines, one sentence descriptions, and elevator speeches for our businesses and worked on them together. Then we stated our pressing needs and made agreements to help each other. It was a great meeting, the first real one we've had. I am ready for more people to show up next time. Hopefully we can entice more people to show up.

Friday was the Integral Center Halloween Convergence Party. I showed up a little early and helped Ryan prepare by making and putting up signs and hanging Christmas lights. He was very appreciative. I am glad to be making friends and establishing my place in the Integral Center community. Brian Tsuchiya was at the party and we had an awesome conversation where he helped me come up with my one sentence description of the regenerative business incubators. I ran into Jason's office to find a piece of paper to write it down and scribbled it in permanent marker on a piece of graph paper, awesome! I attended some talks going on that night. Robert presented about what the Integral Center is and Marco had us talk to someone in the room we didn't know and share what would make the party awesome. He had me get up and tell the group what my partner said. Robert offered for someone else to come up and present, but I didn't feel comfortable yet. If I had an hour to come up with something I totally would. Maybe next time.

Two random things I did this week were going over the Circles of Engagement that Arthur presented at Emerging Leader Labs last year. I ended up creating my own version of it and preparing a presentation for the incubator. I also spent about 4 hours metamapping the Holacracy constitution. I had tried to read it several times but wasn't absorbing it well. I think doing something with the information to visualize it helps me a lot. Maybe I'm a spacial learner.

On Sunday I talked to Tommy, another Gaia U associate about his idea for combining Mahara with a marketplace software to make an educational social media platform. I think he has a good idea and it would be great to use existing software, but I'm not sure if the Mahara platform is capable of handling everything he wants to do. I am going to explore this idea with what I'm doing on the Regenerative Dynamics website and see if I can put together a usable prototype. He also wants to apply for a grant, which would be great because we could develop apps or widgets for whatever holes there are in the software, but we really need a programmer on board ASAP. I am not going to look for a programmer for Tommy's project, so hopefully he comes up with something or I'll just do it myself through Regenerative Dynamics.

Tuesday morning I met Lewis again at the Impact Hub so he could help me figure out how to demo organizational structures with Glassfrog and what he thinks about my structure for the incubator organization. He showed me how to add circles and roles and how to temporarily create circles inside circles but put all the circles back in the main circle at the end of the day to avoid being charged. I invited him to the incubator alpha testing, hopefully he can help me explain Holacracy to the other participants.

After meeting with Lewis I went over to the Integral Center and got on the Gaia U Google Hangout. Ava, Simha, Charlie, and another associate I hadn't met were on the call. We had a fun time playing with the software and talked about how to get Gaia U associates more involved in the community. We agreed to create a shared Google Calendar and try to embed it in the Activity Hub. We need a better system for discussions and sharing our projects, information, skillflexes, and resources.

Right after the Gaia U hangout I ran into Jason who works at the Integral Center and we had a great conversation about the incubator. He offered to let me hang out in his office so we could work together sometimes. He can't come to the incubator yet, but wants to eventually.

On Tuesday I went to the Integral Center and called into a Gaia U Radio content call on Permaculture and Governance with guest speaker Alexis Rowell from the Transition movement. He talked mostly about how to interact with existing government, not governance, which I am more interested in. I shared how I think that we can create sociocratic governance structures that replace the government one function at a time.

After that I worked on the Regenerative Dynamics website in Jason's office. It's coming together very quickly. I put up an about page and Willie embedded the Regenerative Dynamics metamap, it looks awesome. I wrote a first blog entry where I shared the paper that I re-wrote on Regenerative Dynamics from my last output packet and the video of me giving a presentation on it at Emerging Leader Labs last summer. I was surprised at how well the video still explains what I'm doing even though I've changed a lot and hate watching videos of myself. We set up membership areas that people working on different projects can log into. I am adding links to different software such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Loomio to these membership areas.

After that we had our second incubator alpha testing meeting. Elizabeth was the only person who showed up. We hung up big pieces of paper to make a Kanban Board and stuck sticky notes with ideas for topics we could cover on it. I showed her Glassfrog and we agreed to invite more people to the next incubator meeting.

On Friday Jason and I met at the Fuse Co-Working Space happy hour where I met Brian Tsuchiya, who already knew Jason. I had heard about Brian from Marcelo, a resident at the North Haven housing co-op. We talked about his framework for businesses that he calls Co-ism and I told him about Regenerative Dynamics. He gave me his card and said he'd be interested in another discussion.

I met with my landlord and signed an 8 month lease on the apartment I've been staying in. I want to eventually live in community, but this is a good temporary solution. The previous tenant may lease and/or sell us her furniture as well, which would be great since I don't own any. Everything is coming together perfectly, I am amazed at every turn.

On Monday I skyped with Simha, another Gaia U associate about how he's creating an Activity Hub for Gaia U and trying to use Google Hangouts to bring the Gaia U community together more often. I expressed my need for more support, both online and in-person. We played with Google Hangouts. I would like to use it to present Regenerative Dynamics to the Gaia U and NAPC communities.

Later on Monday I met with Robert, the director of The Integral Center and talked to him about my idea for creating a business incubator there. He was very interested in the idea, they have been wanting an incubator. We talked about how to structure it to align with their Holacracy and financial structure. I told him how I had reserved a room with Ryan, the facilities manager, to start alpha-testing it and he said he will think about it more and we'll talk about structure and money later.

Immediately after meeting with Robert, Michael who facilitates the Holacracy meetings for the Integral Center met with me and we talked about Holacracy and how to structure the incubator organization. He clarified some questions I had about structure and suggested clearly separating the participants(customers) from the organizers(staff) in the organization. He invited me to attend their tactical meeting the next day. It was really awesome to sit in and watch them move through the meeting, using Glassfrog software to enter the meeting results. I decided to spend more time looking at Glassfrog.

I had my first main advising meeting with Ariane since returning to Gaia U on Tuesday. I told her what I'd been up to and we agreed to meet more in November and that she would tell me about her projects. That night I had the first Incubator Alpha Testing Meeting. Elizabeth and Avery, both Permaculture designers who I met at the NAPC, showed up and we talked about what they want to get out of an incubator and I shared my vision. On Thursday I listened in on a live Ken Wilbur webinar, basically just pitching his new Superhuman OS program. I think he's a little too focused on the individual sectors, but I need to read more of his seminal works.

I took a bus out to Elizabeth's place in Eerie on Monday to work on the Regenerative Dynamics website. She is a web designer and organizer of the Colorado Permaculture Guild whom I met at the NAPC. She helpd me figure out how to combine different software like Google calendar and docs with Loomio and Wordpress to try to make a complete project management system. I am hoping to get the website ready to launch by the end of this month. Elizabeth is also interested in being a participant in the incubator so we set up a date to start alpha-testing the incubator at The Integral Center. We will start meeting on Tuesday nights to develop a system and start working on our businesses together. I want to do this for 6 weeks and then re-evaluate.

That evening I went to a Non-duality and Empowered Consciousness talk at The Integral Center by Bentinho Massaro. It was exactly what I needed. I have been feeling stress from everything moving so quickly and questioning myself. I know I need to let go and just go with the flow of what's happening, but fear holds me back sometimes. Listening to Bentinho rant about impediments being all in my own head and doing whatever is the most exciting for me right now, staying in that ecstatic state, made me realize that I am actually doing that a lot of the time and don't need to let this stress get to me.

On Tuesday I had guild buddy meetings with Ben and Amber. I remembered that I need to be doing that and luckily found two guild buddies pretty quickly. Both conversations were good, it's just nice to connect with people, but also a good opportunity to practice explaining what I'm trying to do. I also had coffee with Colby who lives at North Haven housing co-op. We talked about co-ops, consensus, sociocracy, and business design. He is interested in coming to the incubator alpha-testing.

On Thursday I went to a conflict mediation workshop at North Haven put on by the Boulder Housing Coalition. It was great to meet people from all of the housing co-ops in Boulder as well as the organizers of the BHC. I am excited to get involved in their community, but also rather hesitant. They are teaching consensus, which is just the de-facto decision making method for housing co-ops ala the North American Students of Cooperation. The NASCO conference is coming up and Colby is going. I asked him to count how many times the word Sociocracy comes up. I hope to they are starting to catch on, or it might be all on me to explain to the housing cooperative community why consensus as a governance method doesn't work and they need to switch to Sociocracy. I did mention it in quite direct terms to the organizer of the event, since they are having a consensus workshop next month. I told her I'm not coming, and I told her why. I am not comfortable teaching Sociocracy yet, but hopefully after the workshop in November/December I will be and can come back to this community with something other than criticism.

On Saturday Elizabeth gave me and my daugher (who finally got to visit me for the first time since I moved to Boulder) a ride to David's place where they were having the first meeting for the Boulder County Permaculture Guild. I got to see a lot of the people I met at the NAPC and my daughter had a lot of fun making pizzas with us in the wood fired cob oven and playing with two little girl who were there in the garden. We got a tour of David's Permaculture farm, where he has two houses he's trying to build a community in. I told him about my incubator idea and he was interested in participating. I also met Marco from The Integral Center who is also interested in coming to alpha-testing. I am really happy to be a part of this emerging Permaculture community. The timing seems perfect with what I'm doing.

I also met with my landlord and decided to sign a lease on the apartment. They only want a lease until the beginning of June since they're thinking about selling it. That is perfect for me since I didn't want a whole years lease and it will give me time to figure out a community living situation. Also, Alyzabeth is considering leasing us her furniture which would be great since I don't have any. My stuff is still in Kansas. Kaedden went on the Polish Ambassador tour until mid-November so it will be awhile till I get it. It's OK though, my backpack and duffel bag of stuff has proven to be all I really need.

It has bee nice living at John's house. I've had some good conversations with him and the other housemates. It has been nice just laying in the hammock outside in the garden with the chickens. I am also enjoying getting to know the bike paths around Boulder. They are so nice, I can get most places with minimal interaction with cars and beautiful scenery along the creeks. I feel blessed to be in such a nice place, so glad I moved here.

I had a drink with Ava on Sunday, it is nice to connect with her about Gaia U and Boulder. Then I had lunch with Willie, a web developer I found on Craigslist. At the NAPC I told people about my idea for Regenerative Dynamics, a mind map of all of the information, tools, organizations, and people connected to what I call the 12 intentions of Regenerative Social Organisms, also a pattern language for Financial Permaculture. Quite a few people were interested, so I took down their email addresses. I tried to figure out some software to use to collaborate on the project but most things like Asana and Google Apps charge for each user. This could be a massive project like Wikipedia with a lot of users I am going to have to set up my own system. I need a website to present the idea and have tools for people to collaborate on the project. I know I can do some of the development myself after taking programming and web development classes at Oklahoma City Community College in 2012/2013, but I want a professional to work with for the parts I don't know. I need things to get done quickly so I decided to just hire someone. Willie offered to purchase a professional copy of Wordpress Project Manager and just charge me for web hosting and hourly labor. He is also into Permaculture and wants to help with the project so this should work out well.

I went to another circling lab at The Integral Center on Monday. It was really good. I like this model for connecting, it is similar to Forum and a little like Reevaluation Counseling but in a group. I'd like to study Forum some too and see what the differences are. I attended a Gaia U radio call Tuesday on connecting with Nature, which was nice, especially since I spent the whole time on the call wandering around John's back yard eating food out of the garden and wild edibles and feeding the chickens. Then I had lunch with Lewis. We talked about Holacracy, their software Glassfrog which he works on, Regenerative Dynamics, and business incubators. Since I haven't taken the Holacracy Practitioners course yet, I'm hoping to connect with Lewis and Michael who runs the meetings at The Integral Center to get support in setting up a system to organize the incubators. I'm not sure what it is going to look like yet, it's evolving in my head. I need more input, which I got a good dose of from Lewis.

I moved into the new apartment. My housemate Dianna is a Masters Degree student at Naropa, studying eastern medicine and philosophy. I think we'll get along well. The landlord is putting up the apartment on Cragislist already so I am feeling a pressure to make a long-term decision. I need to think about it some more. I got my stitches out and luckily Natural Grocers agreed to cover the bill from the emergency room. Wow, what a load off. I am truly blessed.

I didn't get the position at North Haven, which was a big bummer. I got on Criagslist immediately and started looking for place. I found several possibilities. One is a two bedroom apartment just a mile or so from my work. On Sunday Kaedden came into town with his wife and son. We hung out and talked about regenerative business ideas and co-housing. They took me by the apartment for rent and I met with the Alyzabeth who is subletting the apartment for the last month of her lease. I would have the option of signing a new lease for the next month. It is a nice apartment, fully furnished, in a good location, so I am definitely willing to go at least for one month. It's a bit more expensive than a housing co-op would be, but if there were 3 people in the apartment it would be affordable. It's not ideal, but a pretty good alternative, so I agreed to it. It wouldn't start until October 1^st though. On Monday I went to Kundalini Yoga and Introduction to Circling at The Integral Center. I met John who happens to have a room open until the first of October. I went over to his house on Tuesday and agreed to sub-let starting Wednesday for 6 days, and he's only going to charge me $15 a night, woohoo! Talk about synchronicity. The universe is conspiring with me, I can tell.

Actually, not entirely. What goes up must come down and this morning on my way to work, in the pitch black along the bike path I looked down at my tire for a second and ran off the road, falling sideways on my bike landing not too softly on the sidewalk. A little shaken but thinking I was just fine, I got back on my bike and rode to work. After a couple of blocks I noticed that I was bleeding from my chin. I didn't feel hitting my chin at all, it was weird. When I got to work I saw that I had split my chin open rather nastily. I put a band aid on it and proceeded to work. After an hour I noticed it was bleeding again and went into the office to get another band aid. It was bleeding rather badly and I have this thing where if I see myself bleeding more than a little bit I faint. I sat down in a chair and a few seconds later woke up on the floor. I had hit my head on a desk rather hard on the way down. My boss was in the room and insisted that I go to a doctor. It being 5am on a Saturday, the minor emergency centers weren't open so I had to go to the emergency room. I knew it was going to cost me, but I was really feeling shaken from fainting and wanted to not have a gaping scar on my chin, so I decided to go ahead and go get stitches and my head checked out. Of course as I found out when I got there my insurance charges a $500 deductible for emergency room visits. Fuck! Thanks universe, you're funny, haha.

I have been looking into the business incubators in Boulder. I went to the Impact Hub. It is really cool, but a little too expensive for me and seems fairly capitalist in nature. Rosh, my housemate, recommended that I check out The Integral Center. I went by there and their info says they have a co-working space, but no one seems to be using it. Their membership is much more affordable and I really need a place to use the internet since there isn't internet at the apartment I'm in right now so I went ahead and signed up for membership online. I went by immediately after and met Ryan, the membership coordinator. He told me to come back and he'd give me a tour. I went by on Thursday to work for awhile and talked to Ryan. I told him about my Regenerative Business Incubator idea and he really liked it. He told me I need to talk to Robert, the director of The Integral Center. I am really hoping that this could work out to be a place for me to run my own Incubator that uses Holacracy. As it turns out The Integral Center runs on Holacracy, SWEET!

Arthur and Eric had a webinar on Monday to talk about their Metacurrency project. I attended and then emailed Arthur telling him I want to stay connected and help, and about my Holacratic Regenerative Incubator idea. He sent me contact info for his old housemate Lewis who works for Holacracy One. I emailed Lewis so hopefully I can connect with him soon. I also attended a webinar “Women of Holacracy” put on by Wonder Works. It was a really good talk and I would like to connect with their organization.

I had dinner at North Haven and I'm waiting to hear back about the position. I only have this apartment until Wednesday so I need to figure out something fast. Even if I get the position at North Haven I wouldn't be able to move in right away. I know it will all come together, I'm just hoping my bank account doesn't take too hard of a hit before then.

I managed to pack everything, sort out what I am taking with me on the bus to Colorado, what I'm leaving at my parent's house, and pile up everything that I want Kaedden to bring in the middle of my parents garage by the time I had to leave Tuesday morning. I took the Greyhound starting at 11:25pm on Monday night and rode all through the night, getting to Denver at 11:35am. Then I took a city bus to Boulder. It wasn't too bad of a trip. The Greyhound was packed and I was keeping a really close eye on my stuff since I've had my luggage stolen off a Greyhound before. The city buses seem really good, at least better than Oklahoma City. The city bus dropped me off just one block from the co-op I stayed at the first night. All I have with me is a backpack, fanny pack, and a duffel bag.

I stayed at the Lighthouse Co-op the first night. It's a house full of dumpster diving twenty-somethings. It really reminds me of the housing co-ops I used to live in. They're packed in, 10 to a 5 bedroom house. They have to deceive their landlord and the city to get away with it. I know I could live in this environment since I've done it before, but it's not a long-term solution. I met some cool people the first night. I am really happy to be making friends right away. They're letting me crash on the couch for up to 3 nights, but Ava recommended me for an apartment to sublet for two weeks right off Pearl Street. I borrowed a bike and rode to meet Brian and he agreed to let me rent for $30 a night for two weeks.

I moved into Brian's apartment Wednesday afternoon and walked to Community Cycles to try to get a bike, but they were closed. Community Cycles is right by Natural Grocers though so I was able to stop in my new workplace and snoop around before they know I work there. I went back to Community Cycles on Thursday and bought a nicely fixed up cruiser for $200. I am glad that I have enough money saved up from the last year to be able to get everything I need, but I know it's going to go quickly. I was going to use this money to take the Holacracy Practitioners course, but moving is draining my funds quickly. I signed up for a more affordable online Sociocracy course which was supposed to start in September, but they postponed it till November because not enough people signed up. There's a sign of the difference between Holacracy and Sociocracy for you, but I want to learn both.

I started work yesterday. I work from 5am till 1:30pm ordering and stocking Grocery, Dairy, and Frozen. I really like the schedule because I have the rest of the day to work on my projects. I am just concerned about getting to work when it gets cold out since I'll have to ride my bike or walk if there is too much ice to ride. I need to live close. There is another position open at North Haven and I'm going to have dinner there again next Thursday night. It is making me nervous, I don't always make the best first impression. Finding a place is stressing me out, but other than that I feel great. I'm loving Boulder and everyone I meet is really cool.

This is my first journal entry since I started back with Gaia U. I just took a one year program pause to save up money and take care of my daughter. During my program pause I read five amazing books, continued to think about Regenerative Dynamics, a project that I am carrying forward from my last output packet, and attended the Local Food Enterprise Summit in Miami Florida, put on by the Financial Permaculture Institute. Last weekend I went to the North American Permaculture Convergence and Gaia University Gather-in. I finally got to meet Andrew, Jennifer, Ava, and Kirsten as well as some other associates from Gaia U. I got to see both Mario and Koreen who I met at the Local Food Enterprise Summit back in June. I met a bunch of new people, including a lot of people from Boulder, Colorado where I will be moving to in a few days.

I found out that I got the job at Natural Grocers in Boulder the day before I left for the NAPC so now I'm starting to pack. I met someone at the NAPC who lives very close to where I am now who is also moving to Boulder soon. He has a 20ft trailer and might be able to help me move my stuff. I am trying to get a hold of him and figuring out an alternative plan if that doesn't pan out. It is rather stressful. I will have a week off of work to move, but I start my new position at Natural Grocers on Friday.

I don't have a place to live yet. I've been looking into the housing cooperatives in Boulder. I want to live in community there. There is one housing co-op that is part of the Boulder Housing Coalition that has children in it. It's called North Haven and I think that would be my ideal living situation. I already applied to live there once before I took my daughter to live with her father and stopped in and had dinner with them on my way back to Kansas. She is staying with him for this school year at Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes Colorado. I am moving to Colorado so I can see her more. I considered moving to Denver, but I really want to live in a housing co-op and be able to ride my bike everywhere since I don't have and don't want a car. There are several other housing co-ops that I'm applying to, but I don't know where I'll be staying yet. This is going to be a bumpy ride.