Reversing the Telescope

I’ve reported in earlier entries about the struggles I’m going through this year to find enough time with my partner, Ma’ikwe, as she focuses on building a house and I focus on earning the money to pay for it. [See my blogs of July 29, 2009—"A House Divided" and April 19, 2009—"Stretching the Ties That Bind".]

As I drove out to Virginia Tuesday (13 hours alone in the car) I had ample time to contemplate this dynamic and how I could better cope. I achieved a breakthrough of sorts about 600 miles into the trip when it occurred to me that things would look a whole lot better if I simply looked at them through the small end of the telescope instead of the large end.

Let me explain what I mean.

When we got married in April 2007, Ma’ikwe and I made a big deal out of taking control of the ceremony to create our own definition of commitment. I realize now that I failed to look deeply into rhythms of married life and unwittingly brought into the marriage some unintended baggage about what marriage is “supposed” to look like. (So much for taking control). Most married couples live together. Ma’ikwe and I never have. While we acknowledged that prospect going into the marriage (she was going to continue to live in New Mexico while I continued to live in Missouri), it got more complicated when Ma’ikwe moved to Missouri in July 2008.

While Ma’ikwe moved to the same county as me, she didn’t move to the same community. I live at Sandhill Farm and she moved to Dancing Rabbit, three miles distant. While three miles is demonstrably closer than 900 miles, it’s not at all simpler. It used to be—when Ma’ikwe was living in the Land of Enchantment—that when I was in Missouri I was essentially focused on Sandhill; when I was in New Mexico, I was focused on my marriage. Now, whenever I’m home, I’m dancing between the two.

Prior to Ma’ikwe’s moving to Missouri, I was either with her every day or in a different time zone. Now I’m juggling. And it’s just occurred to me (finally) that this isn’t fitting with the pattern of marriage that I’ve been imprinted with from childhood. Married people are typically together every day, unless one spouse is on a trip without the other. Well, Ma’ikwe and I are typically not together every day, and there’s been heightened tension about being close, but not together.

Looked at from the fat end of the telescope (where everything shrinks), my marriage was too small. Even when we're both in Scotland County, Ma’ikwe and I are together, on average, only two days a week—which is pretty paltry spousal contact when compared with most marriages. I wasn’t being a good partner, I was getting out of sync with my wife and we were spending a significant portion of our precious two days each week wading through the misunderstandings and reconnecting (rather than simply enjoying each other). Ufda.

Tuesday, it occurred to me that I had the option to "reverse the telescope" and start seeing those two days through the small end, so that they looked bigger, rather than puny. Laying aside the traditional pattern, I could just as well choose to see how blessed I was to have two days a week with someone who loved me and truly cared about me (which was excatly two days more per week than what I had prior to Ma'ikwe & I getting together romantically in October 2005). I could more regularly celebrate that I have a wife who is fully present with me and who consistently enjoys my company.

Having been proud and excited to have crafted my own ritual around marriage commitment, I see now that I neglected to appropriately recalibrate my expectations of married life. Oops! Loving and appreciating what one has is a far better strategy than lamenting that you don’t have more of it. (It amazes me that Ma’ikwe has put up with this shit from me as well as she has—she must really like me.)

Home Echo

Terry Winkelmann & Phil Rudd are trying to create community where they are: in South County St Louis. Terry grew up in the neighborhood where she and Phil have their store Home Eco at 4611 Macklind Ave, where they’re trying to inspire and support St Louisans to be more sustainable and ecologically conscious. It was my pleasure last Monday to be on hand at their store to help bang the drum for their efforts.

Their store is the only one in the city devoted solely to environmentally friendly products. They’ve just been open for two years and are still trying to figure out a product mix that will be a successful business. Right now they’re trying a wide variety of things—everything from natural bristle vegetable brushes to rain barrels; from low VOC paints to seminars on the basics of photovoltaics.

Last month they offered a Monday night class on beekeeping (only two showed up). This past Monday they offered me—fielding questions on Everything You Wanted to Know About Intentional Communities. There was an lively audience of 15, who kept me hopping for about two hours.

One of the most interesting questions was whether I thought it was wiser to try community in the city or in the country (the poser was particularly worried about the potential of imminent economic collapse). After assuring the questioner that I didn’t have a crystal ball that was any less foggy than hers about the proximity of urban breakdown, I advised that it was a matter of style.

I equivocated by declaring that community was needed everywhere. I’d advocate for a country life if you were especially concerned with violence, or the security of one’s food source. I’d lean toward city life if you wanted the chance to help more people, or preferred the cultural richness of the urban stew.

In the case of Terry and Phil, they’ve made the choice (at least for now) to try the city, using their store as a lightning rod for attracting interest in cooperative living (based on the stock-it-and-they-will-come theory). Terry came from a traditional Catholic upbringing—her neighborhood is just south of The Hill, St Louis’ stronghold of Italian culture. She developed seriously Green-shifted values as an adult, and is now back home, offering to her traditional neighborhood an echo of decades past, where household products and building materials were more benign and contained far fewer polysyllabic ingredients.

I was excited to meet this couple in their 30s. Not sure of how best to manifest community, they have nonetheless rolled up their sleeves and are trying something to live out their values. They are an excellent example of the kind of people FIC had in mind four years ago when the Board adopted Creating Community Where You Are (CCWYA) as part of our mission.

The reason I was at Home Eco Monday night was that Terry had stumbled onto my blog one day while web surfer last winter, and invited me to speak at their store. Though it was months in advance, we agreed on August because I knew I’d be on my way to Virginia for the annual Twin Oaks Communities Conference (happening Aug 14-16) and could stop en route without any extra driving. Terry and Phil provided overnight accommodations in the basement of their post-WWII brick bungalow (with Meggy and Socks, the resident cats), and I thoroughly enjoyed swapping stories with living, breathing prototypes of the Fellowship’s CCWYA constituency.

I’m hopeful that next visit, we might be able to set up a Community Dialog in St Louis, where I can return to facilitate a conversation among attendees to explore their personal interest in community and cooperative living. Perhaps it will spark a forming community—or at least a more vibrant, engaged neighborhood. Blogging is the proselytizing equivalent of floating bread on the water, and it’s fun to see some of those seeds find fertile soil.

A Cut Above

Saturday I spent all day helping Ma'ikwe build her house. She has seven close friends from her Albuquerque days (2003-2008) visiting this week, and it was fun being part of the menagerie for a day.

It was essentially a three-ring circus, with occasional side shows. One locus of worker bees installed purlins over the northeast quadrant of the roof, one mounted rafters over the northwest quadrant, and the third prepared meals and kept the cold drinks coming (it was hot and windy all day).

While there were no assignments ahead of time, and people were more or less free to work where they wanted (excepting who'd cook each meal), I wound up assisting on the rafter crew, doing one of my favorite jobs—cutting boards to exact specifications. As a 59-year-old, I leave the rafter dancing & hammer pounding to those with younger legs and more practiced arms.

My tools were a circular saw, a straight edge, a carpenter's pencil, a tape measure, a speed square, and a hand saw. Simple as this tool set was, there are a number of nuances about using each element well, and I got considerable satisfaction out of dusting off old knowledge and harnessing my hands and head to contribute even in a small way to my wife's house.

1. Carpenter's Pencil
These construction oddities are soft lead encased in a distinctly oblong wooden shell. On site, where few surfaces are level, they simply won't roll. They'll stay where you put them. You can easily sharpen them with a utility knife. The trick to getting a clean line is to resharpen frequently and to hold the pencil at the same angle every time. In general, it works well to try to replicate the angle at which you've sharpened the point when you hold the pencil against your straight edge.

2. Straight Edge
As the rafter wood we were working with was recycled 2x12s, I needed a straight edge to extend the lines I'd mark out with a speed square (while they make a larger version, ours was the standard size with sides only a hair longer than six inches). While I could have used a framing square instead of the speed square/straight edge combo, the speed square is such a quick layout tool that it was preferable to use two tools. In this case, I chose a two-foot level. It was light and plenty long enough for my purposes. The trick was being diligent about how far away from my line to hold the level (about 1/8-inch is usually right) and then using a constant angle when marking with the pencil.

3. Speed Square
First invented in 1925 by a carpenter named Swanson, this cast aluminum tool is a workhorse on a construction site. In addition to making layout of perdendicular cuts a snap, it's the perfect tool for laying out bird's mouth rafter cuts. These are the angled bites of wood taken out of the bottom of each rafter such that they rest flat on the beam (or top plate). There's one at each end. Once you know the angle at which the rafters lay, it's simple using the speed square to replicate the exact same cut, board after board.

4. Tape Measure
As all the lumber for the house has been recycled, there's considerable variation in dimensions. While they were all nominally 2x12s, some were nearer to 11" wide and some were proud of 13". Some were 1-1/2" thick; others a hair over 2". The tape, or course, is used constantly to measure these variables, and to determine the exact location of the gap between bird's mouths—so each rafter will fit snugly at its specific location.

Because we were mounting rafters with joist hangers, and they're all constructed for modern milled lumber, we frequently had to trim down the tickness of a rafter to fit within the 1-1/2" stirrup of each hanger. That meant I needed to measure the tickness of each rafter within a sixteenth of an inch, and then set the depth of cut on the circular saw to exactly waste away the excess. Accurately reading a tape measure for readings under 1/2" can be tricky. It's important to make sure that the steel tab at the end of the tape is used properly, and to avoid confusing 1/4 inch from 3/8 inch.

5. Circular Saw
When making precision cuts (trying to keep margins under 1/8-inch), the most important thing is understanding kerf—the thickness of the wood removed by the blade when making a cut. When executing bird's mouth notches, I needed to constantly remind myself which side of the line was waste. Also, when making interior notches, I had to be vigilant about not running the cut deeper than the mark. It's virtually impossible to do this work without safety goggles, as you constantly need to be checking where the blade is working—placing your face directly in line with flying wood chips.

6. Hand Saw
On every bird's mouth, I had to stop the circular saw short before the cut was complete (because the cut at the top of the board is more advanced than the cut at the bottom), and finish each cut with a hand saw. Because the kerf of a hand saw is considerably less than that of a circular saw blade, it was imporant to press the hand saw blade against the line whenever I was finishing a cut.

There's a satisfying rhythm to working a hand saw cleanly. Western saws cut on the down stroke (Japanese saws cut on the pull stroke), and you need to keep the blade in line with the cut, start the stroke lightly and then accelerate into the finish. As you near the interior corner of the bird's mouth, you need to steepen the angle of attack, until the last few strokes are made straight up and down.

• • •

With Steve and Denis up on top (each working a different beam), Sarah and I worked below. Sarah would help me schlep boards from the stack in the yard, hold the tape for the critical measurements between bird's mouths, help me wrangle the boards up to Steve & Denis, keep the upstairs crew supplied with hardware, and keep my workspace clear of wood scraps (tripping over scraps with a powered up circular saw can be more excitement than anyone needs). Sarah and I could just keep ahead of Steve & Denis, and we mounted about 20 rafters before dinner.

At dinner, people remarked on how joyful the work site was and how substantial the productivity-to-swearing ratio. In all, it was a very satisfying day.

Trying to Be Less Conflicted About Conflict

Sandhill is heading for some changes. We're expecting a membership inversion this fall, and we've started talking about where we are and where we want to be, which is a compelling conversation.

See Change
While we've enjoyed remarkable stability over the course of our 35-year history, we'll be losing Käthe & Michael Nicosia this October. After seven years with us, they're returning to a piece of property they own in southern Missouri, where they used to live before coming north to join Sandhill in 2002. Käthe's son is builidng a home for them there and it's conveniently located between Käthe's two adult children: Andrew in northern Arkansas, and Molina in central Missouri.

Going the other way, we're expecting Joe & Trish (a couple in their late 20s) to join us this winter, along with their infant son. So although we're only be four adults and Renay (Gigi's 13-year-old who splits time between Sandhill and her father nearby) come October, we're fully expecting to be six adults and two children by next spring.

Last week, for the first time, the four members who will be the remaining adult core—Stan, Gigi, Apple, and me—met for the first time alone, to dip our collective toes into the water of Galadriel's mirror, peering into Sandhill's past, present, and future.

Knowing that we'll be seeing change, each of us painted a picture of what we wanted Sandhill to look like in five years. Not surprisingly, the responses substantially affirmed much of what we're now doing. We intend to stay the course when it comes to our strong commitment to growing our own organic food. We intend to remain small enough that we're more of an intentional family than a village. Still, there were some important departures from the status quo.

Sea Change
Stan and Apple voiced a clear desire that we return to a deeper level of engagement with one another—harkening back to what we'd created in the mid-90s, when we'd typically explore some modality of personal growth work as part of our annual retreat. In recent years we'd drifted away from working at a deeper level in meetings, and had even held fewer meetings. Much decision-making was handled on the fly over morning coffee, or during dinner on the front porch. Check-ins had gradually become more superficial (often more about agricultural observations than intimate disclosures).

In particular, there was less reliance on the group to create a container in which to resolve interpersonal tensions. Instead, there was more emphasis on being nice (or toughing it out when triggered by something another had done).

C Change
While I had an immediate positive response to Stan & Apple's request for more engagement among the members, Gigi was more cautious. She's been at Sandhill for 15 years and does not look back on the days of greater intensity with fondness. Reasonably enough, Gigi was translating the request for greater engagement as an invitation to work conflicts more regularly in the group, and this didn't excite her. She was thinking of "C" as in "Conflict," and altering our culture to intentionally spend more time in the lion's den did not feel safe.

Over the last decade, by far the prickliest dynamic among the membership has been between Gigi and me. We have substantially different styles, are fairly out there in expressing our views, and have frequently run afoul of each other. Our attempts to express this and sort it out in the group have not commonly gone well, and this informs Gigi's coolness about an invitation to "return to battle." In Gigi's view, we've tried a number of ways to help sort things out constructively and nothing has proven particularly effective. Why do it more?

While I substantially agree with Gigi's assessment of how successful we've been at working conflict in the past (meaning not very good), I have two reasons for being much more optimistic about doing better now: Stan and Apple.

In my experience, a group is much more likely to be successful in engaging with conflict if it has members with the gumption and skill to navigate emotional distress when they are not key stakeholders on the presenting issues. For the last decade, we've rarely had that. Now perhaps we do. And I'm eager to put this in place before Joe & Trish arrive.

[Ironically, working conflict is one of the bread-and-butter aspects of my group process consulting business. My experience in this volatile arena is one of most frequent reasons I get hired to work with groups, and yet this is of almost no value when I'm one of the players in the soup. While I'd know how to work with me, for most of the last 10 years at Sandhill there has been no one sufficiently neutral, skilled, and motivated to manage the dynamics that Gigi and I have manifested. As a result, there's a been a lot of suffering and it's no wonder that Gigi is chary of returning to the crucible.]

I'm buoyed by Stan & Apple's paired request that we shift the community's culture to disclose more with one another. While they're no doubt picturing this as a much richer stew than just devoting more time to working interpersonal tensions, there's also no doubt that they realize that conflict comes with the territory. The fact that they're willing to give is an exciting prospect for me.

This Old House

Two nights ago Ma'ikwe and I got together with a mutual friend (Tony Sirna from Dancing Rabbit) and spent about an hour talking about the weak spots in the foundation of our relationship (see my previous blog of July 29). Tony did a good job of making sure that each of us was heard and helped us identify where to effect repairs. As often happens, shining light in the dark corners helped reduce my fear of disaster, and helped get me out of what John Bunyan styled "the Slough of Despond" in his allegorical novel Pilgrim's Progress.

In fact, we felt solid enough yesterday to spend the whole day together, working on Ma'ikwe's actual house. Just as we're working through some dramatic shifts in our relationship, she's at the point of dramatic changes on the construction site. Almost half of the rafters are up and we nailed up the first purlin as the last act before quitting time. We took receipt of the metal roofing yesterday and with any luck it will all be screwed down within the week. Then it's time for the strawbale infill, taking advantage of the crew of seven friends arriving next Wed from Albuquerque for a week of helping-Ma'ikwe-build-a-house (which is sure to provide the crew with fun answers to the questions they'll get in the fall about how they spent their summer vacation).

• • •

While I'm still nervous about how many shoes are yet to fall (how many more patterns in my behavior Ma'ikwe will reveal are non-trivial irritations), she's clearly aware of my anguish, and has done a great job of steadfastly hanging in there with me. While I'm weighed down by the accumulation of announcements (and especially by those whose delivery has been delayed by months), she feels unburdened and more hopeful. While I'm staggering under the uncertainty of when we'll hit the bottom of the barrel, she's buoyed that we're getting to this level of sharing.

There's a tendency I have that contributes significantly to why these moments are particularly difficult to navigate. When I receive serious feedback (which happened last Tuesday) I want to bore into what I can do on my side of the equation. In an effort to be vigilant against any desire to blame the other person unfairly and deflect responsibility for the part I've played in what's not working, I typically spend a few days concentrating on what I can shift. Instead of examining the other person's options, I focus exclusively on what I can do differently.

Ma'ikwe, understandably, feels left out of this. (She even feels huffy that I'm hogging all the responsibility for what's not working—every couple should have this kind of problem.) Her preference is to tackle problem solving together, after we've jointly come to some agreement about what the problems are and what would constitute acceptable remedies. She was worried about a number of things:
—I might invest considerable effort in trying to make changes that may not be things she wants.
—I may be overreacting, taking a criticism too heavily (while she's feeling relieved to be getting things off her chest, I'm questioning the viability of the relationship).
—I'm not available to help her sort out what she can do differently.
—While I engage in this intense exploration, I'm not available to her; she feels shut out and that's neither connecting nor partnering.

While my Dark Nights (and days) of the Soul tend to be productive periods for me, they're no fun to be around and Ma'ikwe is frustrated with my disappearing act. At least they don't tend to last long—about 2-3 days at the most.

In any event, here's the constructive outcome of our Thursday night house party. Ma'ikwe's willing to look at how she can communicate more directly what's going on for her and what she wants. This will help me be accurate in my responses, and help me undertsand right away when something goes awry.

For my part, I'm going for the trifecta:
a) I'll try not to interrupt, and let her complete full statements before responding or asking a question;

b) I'll try to pause to ask what kind of answer she wants before luanching into the first thing that occurs to me. This last is especially potent in that Ma'ikwe could want any of the following, in any combination:
o A sympathetic ear (no response needed)
o A response on the feeling or heart level (how am I touched by her story)
o Technical advice (about process, content, or both)
o Background information on the topic

When I guess, there's a fair risk of my getting it wrong (and while it takes a bit longer to inquire about what kind of response Ma'ikwe is looking for, she's never had a bad reaction to my asking—which makes it rather embarrassing that it's taken me almost four years to start focusing on asking the question).

c) When we uncover a recurring weakness in the relationship, I'll try to stay in the conversation long enough to get a full sense of what Ma'ikwe considers her part of the dynamic and what she'd like from me (if she knows).

• • •

Building a strong house can be tough work. But living in poorly constructed one is worse. Thankfully, I have a partner who is not afraid of hard work (and can swing a hammer).

A House Divided

Yesterday I learned how frustrated my wife, Ma'ikwe, has been that I have not been actively designing and managing with her the construction of her house at Dancing Rabbit. Ouch!

When she moved to Missouri a year ago, it was her intent from the get-go to build a house, assuming only that the community was a good fit for her. As she integrated into the community well, and quickly found a place for her considerable dynamism and social savvy, she was excited to manifest a house at her home. What I didn't know, was how much she wanted me to build that house with her.

Building a house (as opposed to having one built for you) is both an exhilarating and exhausting project. Having done house construction at Sandhill, I knew that—not just in my head; I knew it in my bones. I knew that the opportunity to design your own home is a rare chance to express yourself three dimensionally. For most of us, it's the single larget investment we'll make in our lifetime. I also knew that it would be a statement of values that will last for decades, if not the rest of your life.

The one time I was in charge of a house construction project, it was the dominant theme of my life for six years. Knowing that managing house construction would require me to substantially set aside the other main calls on my energy (promoting community as the main administrator for FIC, doing social change work as a group process consultant, contributing to the health and vibrancy of Sandhill, spending time with friends and family), I considered the price too high, and focused instead on the question of how best to support Ma'ikwe.

Mistaken Assumption #1: I thought that I had talked through this with Ma'ikwe at the outset. Yesterday I learned that that was not her experience. She tearfully pointed out that she never wanted to manage the house project alone and was deeply disappointed that I rejected partnering with her in that role. For Ma'ikwe, our early talks about this were never a discussion; her impression was that I was making an announcement (not stating a preference), and that her only option has been to cope with that reality as best she could.

From my perspective, my choices for supporting the project seemed to fall into three categories. First, I could help with the design.

Second, I could help with the actual work. This further breaks down into: a) being a grunt whenever I was on site and and could provide an extra pair of hands; and b) committing to handling specific aspects of the project (think subcontractor). As it's played out, I committed to cutting the posts for the main framework (there are 16), overseeing installation of the plumbing and wiring, and constructing a cistern.

Third, I could finance the project. In my view, I was an especially good fit for this role. Houses eat money and I'm in a particularly generative phase of my consulting career. The downside was that this choice exacerbated a general challenge that Ma'ikwe and I face around finding the time needed to cultivate and enjoy our relationship (for more on this see "Stretching the Ties that Bind," my blog of April 19, 2009). Where she needed to be home more to manage the project, I needed to be on the road more, to fund it.

There was also another layer below this. I felt that it was important that this be Ma'ikwe's house. I live at Sandhill; she lives at Dancing Rabbit. In addition to the vagaries of all relationships, I am two decades older than my wife and she figures to have many years in this house without me. I felt it needed to be hers, not ours.

Mistaken Assumption #2: I see now that I never worked through this issue with my wife. Where I saw myself as being thoughtful and strategic; she felt cut out. She wanted it to be our house, and I never joined the party. This was—and remains—tricky stuff. While Ma'ikwe has turned down living at Sandhill, I have not. I already have a home. In fact, part of the reason I was unwilling to take a lead role in the house project was my need to continue to invest in my community, to have my oar consistently in the water at home. It's been hard for me to be willing to stretch as far as I have to play a significant supporting role in the house project, and then face Ma'ikwe's bitter tears over how she feels spurned by me in her time of need.

On the good side, I believe that it's worked pretty well where I've taken on specific aspects of the project. On the not-so-good side, the design discussions have been prickly. Ma'ikwe wants to involve me, both for the connection and because she knows I have construction experience. Often though, I'm not available when her questions arise. While I don't have any expectations of her consulting with me—and try to be cheerfully available whenever she asks—these conversations often go poorly.

It goes like this:
o She'll ask a specific question.
o I'll want to know addiitonal information than what she's provided (because I'll typically approach a design question differently than she does, and will want more background).
o She won't understand why I'm asking the questions I do and get frustrated (compounded by the dynamic that she's often working at the limit of her construction knowledge and may not know the answer to a particular question).
o In the presence of the rising tension I'll back down and suggest that we just let go of my opinion on this matter. I figure that my relationship with Ma'ikwe is more important than the house, and I've learned that once Laird-giving-Ma'ikwe-advice conversations go off the rails, they don't tend to get better.
o Ma'ikwe feels miserable. She didn't get help with the design question, she didn't get connection with me, and now there's tension that wasn't there before. Yuck.

Unfortunately, it's even worse than that. Overlaying everything above is another dynamic which is undermining our ability to connect. It goes like this:
o I'll ask Ma'ikwe a question.
o She'll begin to answer and I'll interrupt (to either rephrase my question more precisely once I see that her response won't give me what I'm looking for; or to follow an important side road that opened up in the course of her explanation). I think I'm taking care of my emerging needs and being up front about what those are.
o Ma'ikwe will get frustrated because I haven't allowed her to finish. My interrupting comes across as disrespectful, impatient, and perhaps condescending (don't I have any faith in her ability to answer my question; I give long answers, why isn't she allowed the same courtesy?).

My part of the above sequence is rooted in communication patterns that I've developed over decades—long before I got together with Ma'ikwe. Our struggles over this dynamic however, are now common enough that I believe the viability of our relationship is at stake. I think it's up to me to find a way to overhaul how I ask questions and listen to the responses—and soon.

Ma'ikwe has given me the gift of her reactions to my behavior, and yet I'm uncertain what I'll be able to turn around, and how quickly. I'm starting to get pretty self-conscious around her, pausing frequently to reflect on the ways in which what I was about to say may be irritating. At this point, the tunnel is dark, and I'm uncertain which way to turn or how long I'll be in there. I'm confident that Ma'ikwe is worth the effort; I just don't know what I'll be able to achieve. Luckily, I'm not afriad of the dark.

Looking back, I can see that Ma'ikwe and I did not built a sufficiently solid foundation for the house of our relationship. I'm hoping there's still time.

Incubating Green Eggs

This weekend I met with three friends (David Waskom, Susan Short, and Elph Morgan) in Ann Arbor to explore the creation of a business consulting consortium for cooperatives that we're styling GREEN EGGS—Guild for Relational Economics: Experts in Neighborly and Entrepreneurial Growth that's Green & Sustainable.

The Ecovillage Design Education curriculum sponsored by GEN identifies four foundational elements of sustainability:
—worldview
—economics
—social
—environmental

Our premise for Green Eggs is the dynamic marriage of the economic and social components. While our group may not be world experts in economics, nor the only tools in the shed when it comes to the social aspects of cooperative living, we believe we have something special to offer when it comes to the two together—analyzing cooperative businesses in such a way that we expressly factor in the community and social features.

Like all new commercial ventues, the market place will soon tell us whether our thinking is sound.

• • •

My observation is that the economic leg of the EDE formula is the weakest. Many cooperative groups disdain regular economic tools because they're so strongly associated with traditional capitalistic thinking (and are therefore evil). Marketing is eschewed because promotion is linked in cooperators' minds with Madison Ave and manufactured demand. At Green Eggs, we believe we have to do better than that. If you have a product or service with sound values and you believe in what you're doing, it shouldn't be a debasement to tell people about it, and with enthusiasm! We're not talking about twisting arms; we're talking about not hiding your light under a bushel.

Our point of leverage is to help cooperative ventures get over whatever humps they encounter on the path to profitability and excellence. We've embraced the egg as an icon because our idea is to either help birth businesses or to offer them rebirth. (While we aim to assist in live deliveries, we don't figure to be particularly involved in raising the offspring.)

We won't just look at bottom lines and supply lines; we'll also look at communication lines and feedback. The revolution is going to have to make social sense as well as economic cents, and we believe this can be fully realized without compromising values. In addition to offering financial and social analysis, we'll broker financing, and examine management and staff selections and relationships. We'll look at how well the business fits with the values and make-up of the community in which its embedded, and at how well the business recognizes and leverages its advantages while coping creatively with its liabilities.

We're launching the Green Eggs initiative on the belief that there are enough cooperatives out there who get it that setting a high bar for social dynamics doesn't mean you have to settle for a low bar for financial success. While we may or may not be prophets; we believe in profits. In the coming months, we'll find out if this concept is profitable.