Terran Collective
We are a collective with a common vision of a world in balance
We are a small band of humans based in the California Bay Area navigating towards a way of life in service to life. We are committed to living our values and agreements in order to to bring about the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
Our Approach
We learn from nature
We embrace our interdependence with the web of life, and believe that there is abundance for all on this beautiful planet. To get there, we must re-design how humans relate to each other and the planet, applying the lessons of emergent strategy: adaptation, decentralization, fractal awareness, resilience, and iterative change to our work.
We aim to help humans coordinate effectively outside of the current market/state system that is leading our civilization to existential crisis. These systems have divided us from each other and our more-than-human kin, turning the ways we care for each other into transactions, commodifying nature, and decimating our ability to coordinate without the coercive power of money.
Our theory of change is that birthing a regenerative civilization requires bringing trust back to our relationships, removing the corrosive power of the market from our personal lives, and embracing community as a way to be in solidarity and care for each other.
Our Vision
All Beings Thriving
Collapse is already here. If we continue along our current path of extracting resources from the planet to feed infinite economic growth, we will destroy the ecosystems that support life on Earth. To avoid crossing this boundary, we must unify around a shared purpose: Recognizing our interdependence with the web of life and creating a world that works for all.
Why thriving? Our vision is of a world in which all beings have what they need to thrive--where each of us has the opportunity to live our best lives, where the abundant resources of this planet are distributed equitably, where every community has the tools for resilience, and where the purpose of human society is to cultivate wellbeing for every human, plant, animal, and being on this planet.
We use the phrase all beings because we believe achieving this goal requires a shift towards interdependence and away from anthropocentrism. The view that humans are separate from nature is what has led to the extractive systems and ecological overshoot. It is time for us to once again remember our place as a part of the web of life, and to become responsible stewards of the land we inhabit. Thus we must offer our care to every being we are in relationship with - all beings.
Our Core Beliefs
We are interdependent.
We are all interconnected. Everything we do impacts humans, other animals, plants, and the whole ecosystem around us, and likewise we are affected by the actions and wellbeing of every part of the planetary whole, in infinite ways we can and cannot know.
There is abundance.
There is enough for all, on this incredible Spaceship Earth we call home. We have all the resources needed for all beings to thrive on this planet, if only we commit ourselves to that goal and reconcile the fact that resources are not currently equitably distributed.
We have a choice.
We can create systems and tools that liberate our attention and empower us to choose well, from a position of sovereignty. As a global keystone species, humanity has agency to choose our story, design a new path, and decide how we want to live together on this planet.
Principles and values
The principles we have identified are related to how we act in the world. Our principles come from the relationships, dynamics and tensions in our values. The values we have identified come from the core beliefs we collectively share.
Our beliefs, values and principles are alive, and will evolve over time to accommodate the diversity of voices we welcome into relationship with us and as our collective view of the world changes.
WHOLE & HEALTHY SYSTEMS
We are building tools to reinforce healthy relationships at every level
How we relate
We practice and experiment with community technologies and individual/group techniques that foster healing, trust and collaboration.
Community of Care
We support each person as a whole human being.
We consistently show up for each other in times of need.
We learn and practice tools for individual and collective healing and wellbeing.
We facilitate healing processes for each other, through ceremony & group councils.
We mediate conflict and practice alternative, restorative justice together.
Our Community of Practice
We collaborate on projects together.
We empower and support each other in pursuing our purpose.
We mentor and share knowledge with each other.
We participate in workshops and trainings, and share what we learn with each other.
We organize reading & study groups.
We share work opportunities and make helpful connections.
We practice collective governance and ownership, and the land has a seat at the table.
Re-Building the Commons
We share resources, starting simply with things we already have like spaces, tools, books, and technology subscriptions.
A few of us already practice financial solidarity, and soon we will begin to pool money for group purchasing decisions, such as a coworking space, and group insurance.
We plan to expand our experiments in financial solidarity by creating a loan pool, insurance pool, and basic income for our community.
We aim to co-buy land in a few years, so that we can deepen our exploration of the commons by living in landed community.
One day, post currency, all resources will be shared and distributed where they are needed when they are needed.
WE ARE GIVING FROM THE HEART
Our core stewardship team
We are a small group of people, with a limited set of perspectives. We are building a foundation to grow on, and are trying to find the others. If you are interested in helping steward the collective, please reach out to anyone on the team and connect.
We are still in the process of formalizing how stewardship works in the collective, but invite all to come and participate.
Kelly Erhart
[email protected]Kelly’s passion for innovation and environmental stewardship has led her to devote herself to focus on areas where she sees the largest imminent threats to our planet. She is committed to reframing complex issues into solutions that foster emergence and facilitate growth for impactful technologies. She has cultivated a multidisciplinary background, with a focus in systems thinking - with experience in international event production, disaster relief project management, and commercialization of sustainable technologies and carbon capture methods. She is currently Co Founder & COO of Ecozoic Resources, a waterless biofiltration toilet company and Co Founder of Project Vesta, a project to sequester carbon dioxide by accelerating the weathering of olivine.
Clare Politano
[email protected]Clare is an eco-social entrepreneur and movement artist whose mission is channeling resources to healing. She has worked in architecture, refugee resettlement, yoga, nutrition, and regenerative agriculture contributing her skills in design, communications, and software engineering. She is creating a future where humans remember our destiny as responsible stewards of the Earth, living in reciprocal partnership with the land and the more-than-human community.
Tibet Sprague
[email protected]Tibet is a communitarian since birth, a technologist for good, and a passionate evangelist of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. An entrepreneur since college, he founded and/or led the software teams for five startups. For seven years he helped grow the residential solar industry at One Block off the Grid, guiding the company through two acquisitions as VP of Engineering. After watching the corporate industrial complex destroy everything they had built he co-founded the Terran Collective to figure out how humans can cooperate fully at every level with each other and the earth. While building the foundations of Terran, Tibet has also worked closely with DAOstack, building the decentralized governance dApp Alchemy, and has co-created an international Community Weavers Guild. Tibet is devoting his life to be of service to his bioregion, and to working for a world where all beings can thrive!
Neha Sharma
[email protected]Neha is committed to tapping into collective insight and foresight in order to restore and regenerate our relationship with the planet. She does this through strategy work and impactful partnerships. Currently, she is focused on improving energy efficiency and intelligence in the built environment, exercising facilitation for group alignment, and bridge-building between disparate networks & nodes. She involves herself in many side projects and shticks to ensure that her soul is always activated. Inquiries of this season include: What will allow beings to cooperate harmoniously across scales? How do we ensure all voices and stakeholders are represented in conversations about building the future?
Aaron Brodeur
[email protected]Aaron is a systems designer, artist, musician, builder and entrepreneur. His work in technology building social apps, sales systems, satellite solar design tools, distributed governance tools, nationwide activism platforms and product designs, has touched millions. He is dedicated to designing systems and tools for thriving in an uncertain future.