Hi!
I'm Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker, an evolutionary primatologist, Biomimic, and the author of TEEMING: How Nature's Oldest Teams Adapt and Thrive––all about the deep patterns superorganisms like ants, bees, and ourselves rely on to grow abundance from one generation to the next.
I’m also the Director and Founder of the Biocultural Institute for Living Design, 501(c)(3), a wilderness field school for life's proven strategies of place: native species and native peoples.
In 2020, just as the pandemic began, I took on the role of Dean at Geoversity's School for Biocultural Leadership in Panama. Their 13,000 hectare cloudforest campus, with six species of primate including the two-legged variety, was a dream come true for me. I'd always had the idea of a design school aimed at awakening people's connection to our fellow creatures of Earth, and here it was.
The pandemic threw a wrench in that, of course. No travel. No students. And then my favorite wilderness, the Anza Borrego State Park, closed to the public. I was upset. I thought, maybe I could find my own place to give Biomimicry workshops and retreats? And here it is!
A deeply sacred wilderness, practically a State Park in its own right. It was for sale, but it was in danger of becoming an ATV track and industrial water facility! Not on my watch!
It seemed like destiny, how could I refuse ? With the help of a lot of amazing people, I was able to secure the Biocultural Institute for Living Design! Thank you!
Now we have our 501(c)(3) and are actively seeking funds from family offices and granting agencies. We have a dynamite coalition coming together!
Did you know it was a felony for Native Americans to study their own sacred sites until 1978? It's true. The BILD is actively applying for funds with a coalition of friends including the Kumeyaay Community College Humanities Program to support a unique Living Design Field School for Kumeyaay, Cahuilla, and Cupa to renew the traditional ecological practices that enabled their success for 12,000 years. This effort is part of a larger initiative to restore watersheds and build climate resilience throughout the County with traditional expertise.
Here are some of the transformative educational programs we have planned in Biomimicry innovation (inspired by species adapted to life in their ecosystems over millions of years), Biocultural practice (shaped by and for life in these ecosystems over tens of thousands of generations).
- Indigenous-led Field School
- Wildlife Monitoring using traditional track and trail methodologies
- Collaborations between Indigenous and academic scientists
- Nature of Place Workshops and retreats that attune participants to their deep patterns of place as the basis of sound design
- Biomimicry design workshops and retreats
- Biomimicry R&D Learning Lab
- Biomimicry Trail
- Desert Spring Restoration for unique groundwater-dependent ecosystem
If you like what we're doing, please consider donating! There is so much to do! By way of thank you for reading this far, please enjoy a free copy of my new book for leaders doing impossible things the way life always has! https://www.skool.com/your-teeming-transformation-8140
Thank you for all your support, and I hope to see you out here sometime soon.
Tamsin
Some of our Current Collaborators
- Borrego Institute for Living Design
- Seeding Change
- Kumeyaay Community College
- Institute for Ecological Civilization
- San Diego State University Anthropology Department
- San Diego Bird Alliance (Audubon)
- Living Earth Movement
- Brand Earth
- One World Community
- Renascence
- The Biomimicry Institute
- Geoversity
And friends like these
- Anza Borrego Desert Tracking Club
- Anza Borrego Desert Natural History Alliance
- Tubb Canyon Desert Conservation Alliance
- Arizona State University Biomimicry Center
- Biomimicry B3.8
Organizer
