Help Leaders TEEM with Life through Living Design!

Hi!

My name is Tamsin Woolley-Barker. I'm an evolutionary biologist and anthropologist known for my work on baboon social structure and evolution, and the author of TEEMING: How Nature's Teams Adapt and Thrive, regarded as the defining work on organizational biomimicry – organizational processes that work with our inherent potential to grow conditions conducive to life.

I've provided biological innovation and strategy for some of the world’s most innovative companies and design labs for over a decade, helping leaders of communities and organizations make the shift from mechanistic thinking to living design. Check out https://Teemlab.com to find out more about that.

I'm also the Dean of the School for Biocultural Leadership at Geoversity, a 30-year 501(c)3 in Panama working to grow biocultural habitats and leaders, and recently co-starred in The Endangered Generation? a full-length feature documentary from Cannes-award winning Australian filmmaker Celeste Geer. Narrated by Academy Award winner Laura Dern, the film follows scientists and First Nations leaders coming together to regenerate the systems that all life depends on. Check out the trailer here.

Change how you see…and see how things change.

I believe that disrupting mechanistic thinking and fostering a living mindset is the first step to unleashing our natural capacity to live as other living things do: in synergistic alignment with local patterns and relationships, "surfing for free” on flows while renewing and enriching them, growing trust and reciprocity; growing true wealth the way our ancestors always have.

Mechanistic designs fade like a bad dream or healed infection.

Living Design offers a reset on the way we live and work, based on the way other living things do, as articulated in my books and lived by Indigenous cultures worldwide. More than conservation, sustainable business practices, cultural preservation, or climate restoration, Living Design seeks to restore human organization patterns in our communities and organizations, and remember proven land-practices and understandings.

You may say I’m a dreamer––but I’m not the only one!

Living Design is a movement to root people in place and restore human nature – the ways we like to work and live – and remember proven cultural practices for renewing healthy water, air, and soil, so ecosystems and communities can teem with possibility.

Help me move leaders from mechanistic thinking to “Living Design,” so their communities and organizations can learn to work with living flows and relationships, to grow true wealth in place!

(We are applying for 501(c)3 status for BILD and have interim access to a fiscal sponsor for donors who need tax deductibility for any donations used for eligible activities.)

I invite you to join the movement for Living Design, and support me in disrupting mechanistic thinking and growing living minds, so we can unleash self-organizing potential wherever it has been suppressed, obstructed, or severed by mechanistic imposition, so our communities and organizations can align with and renew relationships and sources while “surfing for free” on local patterns of place. Our mechanistic straitjackets fade like a parasitic fever!

We could be TEEMING!

OK, that all sounds amazing, Tamsin. What do you need??

Most of the pieces are in place, but I really need your help! If you feel moved to support my work then click on the button below and make a generous donation to this critical impact mission!

What I need to keep doing the work:

1. Funds to polish and publish these two books:

The TEEMING Transformation: A Trail Guide for Living Design is a series of rigorous developmental journeys aimed at helping leaders reframe their endeavors through a living mindset, revealing previously unseen possibilities that open the door to teeming futures.

[and you can still buy TEEMING here!]

2. I need Sponsors for The Endangered Generation Podcast!

This is a 10-part audio and video podcast series produced by Auditvita, sharing inspiring Indigenous-led efforts to regenerate communities and ecosystems through traditional arts and practice. Beginning with behind-the-scenes accounts from The Endangered Generation? each episode highlights people, places, and projects in Living Design: a powerful movement emerging at the nexus of ecology, business, local arts, and proven Indigenous practices in place. How might empowering human nature grow true wealth? The answers are within us, rooted in place beneath our feet.

And 3. Funding for The Borrego Institute for Living Design, a 501(c)3 field school where leaders can experience the shift from mechanistic thinking to a living mind.

Located on 86 acres in the International Dark Sky Community of Borrego Springs, the only town in the US surrounded by State Park – San Diego County’s remote and vast Anza Borrego Desert, this historic ranch and vital wildlife corridor was home to the nomadic Kumeyaay, Cahuilla, and Cupa people for thousands of years.

[photo is of the Park]

The canyon's delicate wildflowers and endangered desert bighorn sheep were threatened by developers wanting to ride ATVs and build an industrial-scale water conveyance – not something I could accept! I had the equity and the will, and most importantly, a lifetime dream to create a field school for honoringlife's self-organizing expression.

This acquisition was difficult, and ultimately I sold my home to make it happen. By teeming up - with leaders like Nathan Gray and Verne Harnish from Geoversity, Harry Uvegi from Brand Earth, generous members of the Biomimicry community, Jon Ramer and Charles Betterton from One World, Faith Green from Seeding Change, Rick Corrado from The Four Cups, and many more – the Borrego Institute for Living Design is a reality.

The hardest work is behind me, but I really need your help!

I am in urgent need of about 10K to cover start-up bureaucratic costs, and another 10K to open our doors to retreats, residencies, and events for 12-24 people in January. An additional 20K will make it possible to accommodate 60-100 people for exciting events in the Fall. What can we do together?

Please help us acquire things we need:

Give us a Running Start by joining these offerings:

Help us Fund Scholarships

We would love to be able to underwrite creative residencies and internships for the many artists, writers, researchers, and students, who would like to develop their work in the canyon's inspiring solitude.

The BILD is a special place for anyone to experience Living Design, but this land was home to Kumeyaay, Cahuilla, and Cupa nomads scarcely a century ago. The possibility of their descendants studying here is profound. We are developing exciting collaborations with the Kumeyaay Community College Archeology Department, and actively seeking funds and partnerships.

If you are moved to help me disrupt mechanistic thinking and grow living minds, so our communities and organizations can align with deep patterns of place to “surf for free” while growing diversity, resilience, and true wealth, then click on the button below and make your generous donation to this critical mission!

Thank you for your kind wishes and generous support!

https://BorregoInstituteforLivingDesign.org

https://TEEMLab.com