Building foundations for the ecological and cultural regeneration of the Front Range towards the establishment of a new Bioregional Commons.
SPIRIT is coordinating regenerative cultural and ecological activities and relationships along the Front Range towards the founding and funding of a Bioregional Commons.
Our Mission is to support a regenerating and flourishing bioregion along the Front Range – now and for future generations – that is cultured by living relational networks and governed by Commons infrastructure.
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(noun): A geographically and hydrologically defined area characterized by distinct ecological features that together form a coherent biocultural home.
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“The Commons” points to the living realities of shared place — the commonality of the ecologies and resources for which all residents of a place share responsibility, and on which all residents depend.
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A Bioregional Commons recognizes the wellbeing of human and natural systems (neighborhoods, watersheds, ecosystems, soil) as shared resources that the people who live in and depend on that land collectively steward.
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Remembering our embedded belonging to the living world invites us to reimagine our social, cultural, and economic systems according to ecological webs of relationships.
Commoning on a bioregional level directs our attentions and energies to where we can directly relate to the consequences of our stewardship, labor, and care.
OUR MISSION & WHYBioregional Self-Determination and Stewardship Responsibility
The Front Range of the Rockies is a particular home for us to have — we have the endless plains to the East, red deserts to the South, towering mountains to the West, high plains and river basins to the North.
The Front Range is a long, narrow corridor of transitional ecologies where mountains and grasslands meet, and rivers run through.
It is our job to take care of where we live, and to rise to higher levels of responsibility and conscientious stewardship for the land and the communities it supports.
“Our mutual relationship to where we live implies our mutual responsibility for that place.
This relationship cannot be enclosed because it is, by definition, a commons.
The bioregion exists as a shared ecological context that shapes and sustains all life within its boundaries. Any attempt to privatize or control this relationship fundamentally misunderstands the nature of biological identity.”
— Benjamin Life
OUR WHAT & HOWStory and Resource Coordination Among Neighborhoods and Organizations
Supporting neighborhoods and organizations to undertake diverse activities of cultural and ecological regeneration together, embedding themselves together in place, learning from each other, and developing complexity and harmonics within the larger ecology of the Front Range Bioregion.
Our mutual interdependence is the basis of our mutual responsibility for care and reciprocity.
Purpose & Programming
Commons Teach-Ins
Commons Teach-Ins educate denizens on the historical, social, ecological, and cultural roots of “the Commons” and why it’s time now for the “triumph of the Commons, rather than “the tragedy.” Include a definition of the Commons and an overview of the curriculum.
Solidarity Suppers
Solidarity Suppers are long table dinners where we nourish our community leaders and elders, particularly our Indigenous relatives, and host Listeners’ Councils and storytellings that weave deeper sensings of this time that we are in now, and how we can care for each other through it.
Neighborhood Resiliency Program
Partnering with Neighborhood Villaging Project to provide free training to community members who are ready to organize their own neighborhoods with potlucks, long walks, ecological action days to support neighborhood solidarity and collaborate on their own emergency preparedness.
Fundraising for Regenerative Project Allocation Rounds
We are fundraising in order to allocate resources directly to regenerative ecological and cultural projects along the Front Range Bioregion, according to the enfranchised will of the denizens of the Commons. The Commons will be a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), and not enclosed by any individual or corporation. Our aim is that the institution that is SPIRIT of the Front Range will be run by a board of highly-regarded community leaders, particularly elders and Indigenous relatives. For now, the activating team is made up of Transitional Stewards who aim to become regular commoners in the Commons with no more say than anyone else.
Remembering our embedded belonging to the living world invites us to reimagine our social, cultural, and economic systems according to ecological webs of relationships.
The Four pillars to activate the Front Range Commons
ALLOCATION
Flowing resources to projects that regenerate our bioregion through quadratic funding for projects and mutual aid.
COORDINATION
Providing tools for coordination, collaboration, distributed decision-making and treasuries.
CULTURING
Fueling culture and ethics through gatherings, skill-shares, and trainings
BELONGING
Fostering a shared bioregional identity and facilitating exchange with other bioregions.
Transition Stewards Team
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Jordan Siegel
STEWARDING DIRECTOR
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Benjamin Life
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Kathleen Marie Rose
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
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Niaya
COMMUNITY NETWORKING DIRECTOR
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Cameron Murdock
TECH INFRASTRUCTURE DIRECTOR
Feeling it? let’s talk.
Inquiries. Projects. Collaborations.
We would love to hear from you.