On growing a cooperative like you’d grow a garden

My theory about power is that you never feel powerful, you only feel comfortable. Like, rarely are we like, “Ah ha ha, I am so powerful!” It’s more like, “I just feel really comfortable,” you know? But not feeling powerful usually manifests as feeling uncomfortable.

in a cooperative, you are one plant contributing to the larger garden. Has it been hard to learn to operate this way yourself, and then teach other people how to operate this way? What has it been like to create these sorts of non-hierarchical spaces within a country that functions primarily through capitalist and patriarchal structures?

social acknowledgement of burnout, before it gets out of hand and things stop being sustainable, is really important.

Consensus doesn’t mean unanimous support. Often, it means decisions are passed with some people being like, “I disagree with this, but I’m okay with it passing.” That, I think, is really healthy because it doesn’t mean everyone agrees; it means everyone is okay with something moving on because there’s enough trust in the group.

When you trust in other people, really incredible and unexpected things can happen. Usually, it’s things where you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t even think of doing that,” or, “Oh, I don’t think that will work out well,” but it actually does. Part of trusting other people might involve letting go of certain images you have of what the outcome should look ... See more

I like to think of gardening metaphors, like growing trust. You have to water it—not too much, not too little. And things will always grow in different directions and with different outcomes than you’re expecting, but that’s okay.

self-checking means asking, “Do I feel really comfortable?” And if I do, I’m probably holding some power that I’m not too aware of.

a currency of generosity or something. It needs to be reciprocated in some way, in order for it to be sustainable.

There are a lot of organizational structures and lived practices embedded in our bodies that we just enact by default. But through explicit facilitation practices or when we make meetings happen in a certain way, that helps change these conditioned ways of operating. In the process of learning to work this way, what really helps is, again, trust. T... See more

There are a lot of organizational structures and lived practices embedded in our bodies that we just enact by default. But through explicit facilitation practices or when we make meetings happen in a certain way, that helps change these conditioned ways of operating. In the process of learning to work this way, what really helps is, again, trust. T... See more