Borrego Institute for Living Design
An Urgent Appeal!
A call to all visionaries, nature lovers and changemakers to save the Borrego Institute for Living Design (BILD) and help protect Tubb Canyon’s Middle Spring and surrounding wilderness!
As an evolutionary biologist, I have long been drawn to the remarkable resiliency of life in some of the world’s driest deserts. The wild Anza Borrego Desert in particular has my heart. She has been a great comfort and inspiration to me, filled with all kinds of distant relatives.
When the pandemic hit, the park closed. Just one month prior, I’d joined the Geoversity team as Dean of the School for Biocultural Leadership - and that closed too.
I’d always planned to give design experiences in the desert…maybe it was time. And then this place found me. 86 acres of unique and dramatic desert wilderness. It was for sale.
I had no means to buy it, but the canyon’s delicate wildflower-carpeted sand dunes were threatened by a cash buyer who liked ATVs, and a proposal from the water authority to dynamite through 40 miles of this unique place for a water conveyance pipe.
This was unthinkable.
I poured my life savings into it and secured the purchase. I pledged my personal home as collateral and campaigned for donations to make the payments. I spent sleepless nights on lawn chairs, went to City Council meetings, gave 4x4 expeditions, MCed strange events, made hundreds of phone calls, shed a thousand tears – whatever I had to do.
The final balloon payment is due July 1
I need your help!
Today I’ve put approximately $300,000 into making the Borrego Institute for Living Design a reality, but I still need to raise $450,000 to secure the land and keep my personal home - which my three children and I depend on!
I realize this may seem a little nutty. You did what? To save what? But this was no impulsive whim.
My architect father had taken me to this desert many times as a child, pointing out Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic domes and art gardens, telling me about Black Mountain College and Arco Santi, talking about architecting society by architecting the structures we inhabit. Creating my own kind of Black Mountain College for experimental design had been a lifelong dream, and I could not envision a more perfect location. Letting the canyon go was not an option for me, because the vision was so much bigger than just myself.
The BILD represents the more beautiful future we know is possible, and I want as many people and organizations as possible to join me in creating it.
The historic ranch belonged to Gale Gordon, producer of the old I Love Lucy Show. The old pool table still rolls smooth, though the 1970’s Baja LandCruiser and bits of Model T don’t. But the real gem is what surrounds us: 86 acres of spring-fed desert wilderness, a dramatic ecotone between the mountains of the Pacific and the vast Sonora, surrounded by the vast and lonesome Anza Borrego Desert State Park - California’s largest.
An ancient spring-fed bajada carpeted with tiny pink monkeyflowers, attended by a thrum of jeweled hummingbirds. A herd of endangered peninsular bighorn sheep even passes through, nervous for the mountain lions. Old metate grinding stones watched over by an ancient forest of gnarled ironwood trees – some of them eight or nine centuries old. What have they seen?
As the Dean of the School for Biocultural Leadership at Geoversity, it is my vision for the BILD to become a living classroom for desert immersions, exercises in teeming and ecosystem regeneration.
Your support for the Borrego Institute for Living Design helps rehumanize structures, processes, and minds in service of life’s potential.
Please help me save the BILD and join my efforts to bring about the more beautiful future I know is possible - because I see it in places like this.
How can you help?
1/Join my TEEMLab Patreon Community as a TEEMER, BILDER, or Supporter for any monthly amount!
Discover TEEMING resources, videos, updates, discounts, and exclusive access
2/Join my 6-week LIVE Your TEEMING Transformation course starting September 15th!
Completely unlike anything else out there, I believe these ideas have the power to transform our world and how we go about it. This may be your only chance to do it LIVE with me, as we will record it in the Fall as a foundational on-demand course for business schools and organizations. Course participants will also receive The TEEMING Transformation IN COLOR two weeks before publication, with get ringside seats to the book launch.
Now forming private cohorts for organizations.
Find out what organizations like CISCO are so excited about––don’t miss out on Your TEEMING Transformation!
3/ Join me for BILD events like these!
TEEMING Workshops with Dr. Tamsin
Rehumanized Minds Retreats for Creative Naturalists
Women’s Leadership Retreats
Pattern Mind Retreat with Regenesis Institute co-founder, Joel Glanzberg
Living Story with Regenesis Institute faculty, Chris Lopez
Biomimicry Design Jams
The historic ranch belonged to Gale Gordon, producer of the old I Love Lucy Show. The old pool table still rolls smooth, though the 1970’s Baja LandCruiser and bits of Model T don’t. But the real gem is what surrounds us: 86 acres of spring-fed desert wilderness, a dramatic ecotone between the mountains of the Pacific and the vast Sonora, surrounded by the vast and lonesome Anza Borrego Desert State Park - California’s largest.
An ancient spring-fed bajada carpeted with tiny pink monkeyflowers, attended by a thrum of jeweled hummingbirds. A herd of endangered peninsular bighorn sheep even passes through, nervous for the mountain lions. Old metate grinding stones watched over by an ancient forest of gnarled ironwood trees – some of them eight or nine centuries old. What have they seen?
