Deluge...community work

Another story from my adventures hunting cacao in Ecuador with Nova Monda Cacao and Chocolate.

Arriving into the little coastal village of Caimito, I hopped out of the old beat up ranchera, a rural van-like public transportation

with wooden bench seats bolted to the floor, and out into a torrential deluge of biblical proportions. It does not rain anywhere on earth like it rains on the coast in the tropics- imagine millions of gallons dumping from the sky in a thunderous crash. As I jumped down off the ranchera my friends Raul and Yor beckoned me to take shelter with a big group of neighbors gathered underneath a tin roof. Within seconds I was smiling and completely soaked, for in the time it took me to rush the 5 yards from the road to the roof it was as if I had been swimming the whole way.

With grins, hugs and handshakes we all greeted one another. I quickly realized I had arrived right in the middle of the weekly Minga. Mingas are an indigenous cultural tradition from the Andes where everyone in the community gets together to work on a project for the common good, or help out a particular community member. Today we were heading over to Ecoaldea, an eco village in Caimito, to see how the swale system and erosion control work that Ben

Murray had designed was holding up to the torrential tropical downpour. With hoots and laughter we all ran out from under the thunder of the tin roof and into the forest to check on the swales. Before reaching the work done at the eco-village to control erosion, we could see rivers of soil washing straight down the steep hills, running a reddish brown towards the ocean. As we approached the swales and ditches dug by Ben on contour around the eco-village it was a different sight entirely. Whole rivers of water crisscrossing the landscape, moving slowly and then sinking into the soil and finding its way to the springs and creaks below. We all marveled at how well it was working, and busied ourselves repairing places that had blown out in the intensity of the storm.

This kind of cooperative work party forms the foundation of how Nova Monda works with our friends and community members in Ecuador. By working beside them we all learn together and then can apply the wisdom of the whole group to projects that make life better, halt erosion, deepen soil, and protect the livelihoods of campesinos and chocolatiers a like. It is a truly community oriented, ecologically sensitive model.

Syndrome of Oppression, Conspiracy and Thrive

Lately I've been struggling to articulate exactly what is off about the consciousness that is growing about the global financial elite that "control" world events and seem to be leading us towards environmental and social catastrophe. There is something easy about blaming a small group of nefarious men who smoke cigars, stroke their persian cats, and plot world domination.

And that is not the real story. The real story is much much harder to come to terms with because the responsibility does not merely lie with "them"...but instead it becomes clear that the roots of this problem dwell within the shadowy psyche of our collective and individual consciousness. The cutting, and loving truth of this more challenging reality is expressed with eloquence and clarity by friend, mentor and brilliant thinker Andy Langford in his recent blog entry:

Thrive, Charles E and expressions of rage

Check it out...and join the conversation about transition, economics and empowerment that is building in the Gaia University Community through the interactive Thrive call series.

The blog entry ties together the powerful blog about the Thrive Movie written by Charles Eisenstien, author of Sacred Economics.

Beyond Fair Trade: a new world

Nova Monda, a new world of business: Regenerative Enterprise, International Commerce, and Chocolate in the days of Occupy.

Question:

What does chocolate have to do with planetary regeneration, social change, monetary policy, and the future of human kind?

Answer:

Everything.

Cacao, the almond-sized seed responsible for crafting chocolate, has an ancient history as a currency; sacred offering; and holy drink. Nowadays, like so many things in our commercialized world, it is little more than a commodity. Cacao is one of the most valued and traded commodities in today’s global market, and it is second only to coffee in terms of its economic importance in the Global South as a luxury commodity.

Cacao and Chocolate are as intimately intertwined with the global economy as we are. All the complexities, injustices, inefficiencies and downright insanity that define the globalized economy are at play. In the midst of this complexity, there is a small group of Fair Trade businesses and entrepreneurs trying to shift the market. By advertising and selling products produced according to a standardized set of practices, these businesses hope to ensure social and ecological health.

Unfortunately, the Fair Trade solution still operates completely within the current dysfunctional global system. The products are sold at a premium to the final consumer, and only a very small portion of that premium ever makes it back to the farmers. Consumers in the Global North shop at stores like Whole Foods and buy expensive bars with environmental sustainability and social justice written all over them...literally. But, this expense still relies on externalization of costs in order to compete with all other chocolates. In the end, very little money ever makes it back to the hands of cooperatives and farmers who are certified Fair Trade or Organic.

Cacao prices are still subject to the whims of global speculation. Unpredictably rising and falling, prices cause farmers to lose control over their production. Fair Trade offers no solution…‘Organic’ gives an extra few cents per bushel…farmers ultimately lose their ability to feed their families. Meanwhile, their children are swept into the storm of consumerist coco-cola culture becoming addicts of television and sugar. Debt-loads and desperation lead farmers to sell to big corporations who are eagerly waiting to buy up valuable land shifting the land-use into larger-scale plantation-based farming. Heirloom varieties of cacao are lost; family farms and invaluable expertise disappears; biodiversity, cultural diversity and the hope for a better world vanishes in a flash flood of money and flashy marketing promising a better world. Meanwhile, consumers continue to shop at Whole Foods buying the latest raw, organic, and fair trade bars - they feel good about how they are doing their part to help. Is there anyone to blame in this predicament? How do we accept responsibility for and how do we understand our part in this carousel?

At this point you might ask yourself: ‘Why on Earth is this man, an owner of a chocolate business, telling us all this and asking these questions?’

Well, there are two reasons:

1. Transparency is essential – in business and personal relationships. If we forever hide the truth from each other it becomes a cancer.
2. Nova Monda Cacao and Chocolate is not a “Fair Trade” business. We do not rely on third party certifications to convince consumers we are doing things the right way. We do our absolute best to make direct connections between growers of cacao and lovers of chocolate. We do our best to tell the story, to bridge the gap, all while supporting and nurturing the building of real community. Our business is regenerative.

What is Regenerative?

Instead of paying an outside certification company to certify the co-ops we work with, we do it ourselves. We document our adventure by directly connecting and communing with the beautiful people who grow the cacao that ultimately becomes Nova Monda Chocolate. We become their friends and we become their community members. We also do our very best to offer opportunities to the growers in Ecuador and Nicaragua to become community members with the community of people who enjoy their chocolate. In turn, chocolate lovers are afforded the opportunity to become community members with the folks growing cacao in the hills of Ecuador and Nicaragua. In this circle of community, a beautiful story of mutual indebtedness occurs and it is the lifeblood of our regenerative business model.

Nova Monda is a quest to answer the question: What if we acted as if we lived in a world where everyone knew everyone else?

Thankfully, through social media this is truly possible: The farmers we work with are our friends on Facebook, we talk with them regularly on Skype, and we work with them personally every harvest. We do this because we believe the world is much too small to go on pretending. We recognize we live in an interrelated and interdependent web of life and we understand it’s time we start behaving in a manner that honors this truth.

We pay prices negotiated independent of the global commodities market – prices that represent our true costs and needs and the true costs and needs of our growers. We cooperate to add real value in the locations where cacao is grown. We invest in their future, infrastructure, and communities just as they invest in ours. We create reciprocal trading relationships. We learn, we grow, and we most certainly don’t claim to be perfect. We believe we bring something to the marketplace that is of real value...not only because it’s the best damn chocolate your likely to taste anywhere in the world...but because it is crafted with real care. It is the application of strong ethics, strong vision, and constant questioning and questing. Our unabashed and uncompromising goal is to have a business that is carbon negative - putting more carbon into soil and forests than we emit through our activity - with no externalized costs. We want to give more than we receive. We call this Regenerative Enterprise.

Regenerative Enterprise is an idea born from the Financial Permaculture Institute's work in participatory economic design. This is a process where communities come together to imagine and design the businesses, organizations and institutions that will support a healthy human and non-human community. In this framework it is the participation of the whole community that empowers the creation of a “business ecology” meeting the needs of the entire community. Instead of entrepreneurs pretending to “go it alone” and the government trying to regulate on behalf of constituents, creating a system where everyone is serving opposing purposes while lobbying and shouting for their own selfish ends…Financial Permaculture and the participatory design process offers a place for consumers; producers; and processors to come together and act like citizens. The thoughtfulness of this vision is especially apparent when we all realize that there is NO ANSWER to the questions we are asking. There are no answers to the questions in your heart. How do we live in a better world? How do we create a better world for ourselves, for our children, and the planet?

We keep trying.

In our quest for the holy grail of cacao we have found something unimaginable: the Holy Grail is the quest itself. It is not the answer. It is the question.

IT IS NOT THE CERTIFICATION THAT MATTERS. IT IS THE PEOPLE AND PLANET THAT MATTER.

This is a radical idea for green capitalism.

This idea was nothing new when we started using it to empower our actions four years ago. However, this idea has now spread across the Nation and world like wildfire. It seems to me this radical idea is the very foundation of the Occupy movement.

Now, I will end this blog in a way that pushes my edge, making me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. I want to ask you, the person who is reading this, to join me. I want you to join me in a simple way: buy the chocolate I help bring to the market. This business model has no margins for large ad campaigns. But, it does have room for storytelling. I’d like to tell the story of how permaculture, ecovillages and social activism led me to start a chocolate business. How an old hippie and Sandanista sympathizer showed me the ropes and conned me into starting a business to ‘walk my talk’...but all of that will have to wait for another day.

Nova Monda is striving to walk the talk. We bring chocolate to market that is absolutely uncompromising in integrity. We spend time and money to be friends with farmers and consumers. We plant trees, we build soil, we live our story, and we tell our story because we believe in a better world.

Buy our chocolate. Join the adventure. This is not a scam, this is not a scheme...it is a plan. It is a plan to create a better world. Vote for this plan with your dollars and follow us as the plan unfolds.

Occupy my blog

In the midst of all the hope I feel looking around at the Occupy Movement and other signs of LIFE, I have been too busy to post regularly. I am hoping to pick it back up again.

The True Cost Of Culture

Last night I had this amazing conversation with a researcher here writing a book about Hovensa (3rd largest Oil refinery in the world). We spoke about Marxist theory, the eco-socio-political impacts of corporate capitalism. At a certain point I started sharing the emerging framework of Financial Permaculture. I was explaining "cultural capital" and he asked what our working definition of culture was. I thought for a moment and said: Culture is the emergent property of society/community. Art, Music, Heritage, Stories, Myths, And everything that weaves us closer and makes life worth living.
To my surprise he told me that is precisely the definition of culture being generated and used at the leading edge of anthropological theory these days.

So, what is the value of functioning culture?

Jon Young and the Cultural Mentoring Community define culture as the invisible structures that increase bonds and strengthen relationships between:

• individuals and individuals
• individuals and the group
• individuals and nature

They clearly state that the post modern globalized society that has emerged from the ashes of the natural world (yes I am aware I am using sloppy human-nature dichotomy here) is really an anti-culture. By their definition, the current social habits of breaking bonds with, family, other humans and the natural world is more like a viral tradition than a culture. The emergent properties of this degenerative system are competition, strife, alienation, isolation and rapid environmental degradation.

How might we go about measuring the value of culture, that ephemeral emergent property that takes the form of traditions, music, art, and myth that weaves us closer to one another and brings us closer to nature?

To calculate the cost of creating or maintaining culture, we could find the cost incurred by wealthy members of post modern society to re-create culture in their lives: consuming art, music and experience in order to feed the soul.
How much per year would it cost a New Yorker to re-gain the cultural integrity of the Kalihari Bushman?
We might tack on health and wellness into this equation. There is a lot of research emerging linking health issues to lack of connection with other humans and nature. As this process to quantify the value of culture continues, the cost and value of culture sky rockets (in relation to the fickle value of Financial Capital like US Dollars).

This type of valuation is called an exchange based valuation. What would people be willing to give in order to receive something.

Another way of valuing culture might be to determine its utility or use value. How much is it worth in terms of its usefulness.
What is culture useful for? It is useful for human health, it is useful for community cohesion and resilience (that worth will be even more apparent as the world's climate, economic conditions and social conditions fluctuate as the weight of humanity's avarice makes the world shudder and shake).

What is the use value of culture? What is culture useful for?

Connection.

Perhaps at this point in my monolog it might be useful to inject another key idea that is shaping many people's understanding of our current situation and how to heal it.
In traditional culture, the traditions, art and stories generated by culture have a very practical utility. They weave together the collective consciousness and un-conscious of a group of people. They form the story that children are initiation to and this in-turn forms the foundation of life.
In practical terms what does this mean?

This means that before a man or women can be trusted with leadership they are initiated through a cultural process. This initiation dissolves and transforms the ego and allows for connection with the whole. Initiation brings with it a vision of how to serve the whole. This process is articulated by the cultural mentoring community as the process of moving from "me to we".

Without functioning culture, this initiation is impossible. Without initiation, psychological development stagnates at a child or adolescent level. The consequences of this stagnation are people who have adult physiology and brain development with emotional intelligence impaired at the level of a pre-teen (at best) and a toddler (at worst).

This means that there are powerful (mostly men) running the show, who have never been initiated into a community or culture. These adults are wounded by alienation and isolation and are running as fast as they can hoping to be recognized by a community that no longer exists because it has been systematically destroyed. So, these “boys with toys” run amuck trying to manifest an initiation that is impossible because community coherence and culture (emergent properties of healthy human relationships ---e.g. regenerative society).

So, now we are caught up to today.

Back to the discussion of value.

What does value have to do with uninitiated men charging around the planet on a mission to receive acknowledgment from a community that has been dissolved?

The most accepted form of attention, acknowledgment and value in our society today (notice I did not use CULTURE to describe the set of social contracts that form our society) is MONEY. MONEY is a currency that allows the exchange of value. What exists now is a contest of initiation between boys with adult bodies and access to huge amounts of power (Oil, Nuclear). Their contest to be acknowledged now has the potential to impact the entirety of the biosphere: mother earth herself.

So, the value of functioning culture? Its usefulness: creating ceremony and ritual to initiate boys into manhood and gift them with a task of service to earn the acknowledgment and praise of a society that is happy to receive their gifts.

Price tag: in US dollars: Priceless. If you want to generate a price for culture, it will end up being the same as generating a price tag for functioning ecosystems priceless.

If we speak about it in a third way (moving away form any established theory of value towards a systems oriented theory of work, exchange and value), we find that there is a price tag that can be spoken about clearly, used to design projects in order to regenerate human attention. Thanks to the work of the Cultural Mentoring Movement, Initiation Experts, and culture repair technicians the world over, we have formulas to repair culture, in place, over time. We can create long range plans to regenerate culture, and re-weave the un-initiated males (and females) who are running amuck back into a functioning culture and sing their praises for being clever, resourceful and hard working (which they most certainly are).

Let me know and I can give you an itemized budget and phase plan.
If you’re already in the know...DO IT

Design Process

Design is a powerful tool to help shape our choices to meet our goals. Permaculture Design is the science and art of consciously designing to fit human goals within ecosystem constraints.

This is a presentation I created for the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute 2011 Permaculture Design Course. The design process high-lighted is the process taught by the Conway School of design that I learned from Dave Jacke and Ethan Roland.

Associative economics and social start up labs.

After a chat with Ethan Roland about a very exciting upcoming design we will be collaborating on I have come to realize that a large part of what we are working on was pioneered by Rudolf Steiner before I was even born.

My work with the Financial Permaculture Institute has often charette focused on participatory design as a tool for creating enterprise that meets community needs in a ecologically regenerative and social just way. Our strategy to bring investors, entrepreneurs and consumers together mirrors the Associative Economic business planing model to plans businesses with Producers, Processors and Consumers. Its always refreshing to know that there are other people out there working on a similar path.

Another little drop in the bucket reinforcing my suspicion that this kind of collaborative economic design is going to become the norm is the awesome work being done by Social Startup Labs. I am inspired by their vision as I work to create a model that supports and empowers people to get out and work to regenerate the earth and her peoples.