From Sacred Inquiry to Living Practice
The evolution of Indigenous Commons, from 2020 to 2027 and beyond.
Indigenous Commons is a planetary collective born in the early days of the COVID lockdowns in 2020. A small group of organizers, spiritual practitioners, and systems thinkers began gathering for weekly video conversations.
As the world shut down, systems that had seemed impossible to change were suddenly changing. We saw possibility alongside crisis.
We gathered across cultures, traditions, and time zones in what we called the Virtual Temple. We were not meeting to build an organization. We were creating sacred space to listen, reflect, and explore what might become possible.
Our differences were not obstacles to overcome. They were gifts that helped us see beyond the limits of any single worldview.
From Inquiry to Practice
Each phase of our journey grew from the questions, relationships, and experiences of the one before it.
The Virtual Temple
During a period of global disruption, we gathered in sacred space across continents. Through contemplation, dialogue, and spiritual practice, we explored our relationship to Life and what ancestral wisdom might teach us about living differently.
Before seeking to build anything, we practiced being together.
Spirit-Centered Design
With support from R3.0, we explored Indigenous-led approaches to decentralized and regenerative finance. Our inquiry revealed the importance of innovations already present in communities.
We turned toward BioKultural innovation and the relationships among people, place, sacred purpose, gift, exchange, and care. Spirit-Centered Design emerged as an approach guided by collective wisdom and the intelligence of Life, rather than predetermined solutions.
STREAM
Conventional development often begins with what communities lack. We began exploring the value already flowing through relationships, knowledge, care, and creativity.
STREAM emerged to identify, create, and strengthen this value through Sacred Space, Time, Relationships and Respect, Energy, and Attention. Matter and Money come last, as resources in service of living relationships.
Kinship Fund & BioKultural Praxis Labs
We began exploring how communities rooted in different lands, cultures, and knowledge traditions could shape new approaches to economy and value.
The vision of the Kinship Fund emerged to move resources in ways that strengthen local relationships, lifeways, and care for the land.
We also envisioned Praxis Labs as spaces for ethical research, shared learning, and developing evidence that honors different ways of knowing.
Collective Stewardship
Our attention turned toward the agreements and practices needed to sustain collective work.
We strengthened approaches to shared governance, community authority, mutual support, accountability, and navigating conflict and repair.
We learned that the integrity of what we create depends not only on our ideas, but also on how we care for relationships and share responsibility.
KinHubs & the Kinship Fund
We are preparing to bring these years of learning together through our first integrated practice.
Through locally rooted KinHubs, Spirit-Centered Design, STREAM, BioKultural learning, collective stewardship, and the Kinship Fund will come into relationship.
Each community will begin with its own knowledge, relationships, and lifeways, while participating in a wider network of mutual learning and support.
A Living Practice of Kinship, Care, and the Flourishing of Life
What began as a gathering in sacred space is becoming a living practice of economies rooted in kinship, care, and the flourishing of Life.