This is the beginning of a 3 part discussion series to communicate clearly to those who are curious and inspired to understand the history (part 1), where we are now (part 2), and where we see the future steps (part 3) in the development of this labor of love that we now know as Diamante Luz.
I intend to give a concise history in this part of the series without too much (some seems warranted) of the story that got us here. Maybe there will be a book in the future that can give more color and tone and give a more complete picture of the magic, synchronicity, and wonder that catalyzed us. I will share the initial vision as it was written and shared in June of 2020 as well as links to the articles and documents that were being revealed and shared in conversations with the initial core group of participants at the time. And I will reiterate the intention of the place from my perspective.
A bit of backstory
Tien and I arrived in Costa Rica in March of 2019, but we met a few years previous to that at a Landmark Forum transformational event in Denver, Colorado (where we both lived). We quickly realized that we had many similar visions of where we saw our lives going and how we wanted to contribute to a change that we wanted to see in society. We were coming from different angles and we saw this as a strength to come to a greater perspective. Soon after we met we started to work on a business plan and model for tiny house communities as a way to address many economic, human connection, and collective interdependence needs. As we explored the collaboration we ran into many statutory law roadblocks for the business and at the same time some personal changes took me on a spiritual journey that led me into a prolonged meditation and yoga journey. During this time Tien was traveling to Asia and Mexico when he could get away from work to look for possible places to live in more connection to our food and the land. We kept a loose connection while on our respective journeys with an awareness that our paths would likely cross again.
We reconnected as our journeys started to sync up again from across the world. We decided to meet in Costa Rica to see if it resonated to invest here. We had already gone through many changes in perspective and were aware that we didn’t know exactly what we were aiming for in the details, but we knew we were following a feeling and intuitive guidance system. We were fully dedicated to property exploration and information gathering with the locals and the extranjeros. This opened a lot of opportunities for magic and co-creation with our human and natural surroundings. It all moved very quickly in the flow and within 3 weeks we were led to the 13.1 hectare property in San Salvador that is known now as Diamante Luz. It was bigger than either of us wanted to steward and yet it was also more magical and magnetic than either of us dreamed of. It was priced very reasonably due to the fact that the owner bought it as an investment property to split up and sell for a profit. In their haste to make money they didn’t explore the property to realize it wasn’t just cow pasture and they didn’t know about the amazing waterfalls that border the property. For us, we knew that we could reduce our financial and physical stewardship responsibility in a number of ways, so before we had the language and awareness of sociocracy we made our 1st decision based on “good enough for now, safe enough to try”.
Very soon after finding the land we met Travis. He walked the land with us and discussed the permaculture potentials. We saw very clearly that he was a great potential collaborator and he felt a resonance, but had some difficult community experiences in his past. He agreed to work with us if we paid him by the hour. He was teaching us a lot about permaculture, introducing us to technologies like sociocracy, and bringing a lot of valuable connections. We genuinely liked him and wanted to support his family in the ways that felt good for us. We agreed to pay him and offered him a lot of influence in the decision making process and we committed to trying to find a way to work together for the benefit of us all. Tien and I organized and funded work party days to start planting erosion sensitive areas on the land. We worked together with Travis for 9 months (with many beautiful volunteers…. Juanpa, Karina, Cacao Magic Family, and many others) planting 2 times per week, planting trees and support species on the land and a nursery of more than 500 trees. Tien and I worked many of the other days without Travis there and continued to listen and dream what the land was asking of us. We were also starting to harvest bamboo at other farms and we were working on organizing a permaculture internship program to start generating some income as both of us were funding the project from our savings. Neither business took off at that time but we learned a lot in the process.
After Envision of 2020 I needed a break and I took a trip to Colombia. I arrived in Colombia 3 days before the COVID shutdown and was locked down in a 5th floor apartment in Bogota from March until September. During that time I was talking often with Dave but getting little interaction with Tien and Travis. In my desire to contribute from afar I decided to write some brief documents outlining what had been visioned and intended (over the last year of listening) for collective land stewardship and the feel of the community structure as I had seen it. Here is what I created.
The Seed Documents
At the time the land project was tentatively called “Diamante Bridge”, the conflation or confusion between Diamante Luz Land Process and the Diamante Bridge Collective will be further discussed in following writings, so please don’t get hung up in that detail.
Originals:
Onepager
Land Stewardship/Land Use
Membership types & Investment
Organization
Land Use Master Plan Option 1
Working Docs after being shared - with comments, revisions, musings:
Vision and Mission Draft
Land Stewardship/Land Use
Current:
Vision Mission
Seven Stages
Community Living Agreements
The originals were written in March through July of 2020 with consistent discussion with Dave via phone conversations while I was in Colombia. Around that time Dave met Danibelle and started talking with her about Home Farm collaborations. He shared the documents I wrote with her and she resonated with “being a bridge”. We had a few exploratory meetings in July and August and this started the information upleveling that Danibelle brought with her network and experience with community building. The nested fractal of organizations that the vision included started to become more clear, there was a Land Node with a nested fractal of organizations (Trust, Commons, Regenerative Enterprises, Stewards…), and a Collective Organization of Land Nodes (DBC) on a higher octave…… and both were formalizing at the same time. The Land node was to be a testing ground for the governing and funding models that were being implemented from web3 organizational structures and DAOs. It was a beautiful convergence of the intuitive visions Tien and I received (combining inputs from our surroundings) with Danibelle’s vision, experience, and network of thought leaders in the field of commons creation and management. For me it was very reassuring to know I wasn’t alone or crazy and it was super inspiring to read articles written by people who had been working on this for years before I stumbled my way into the scene.
Important shared docs in June July August 2020:
Participatory Commons Whitepaper
Scaling Loving Kindness
Disco Manifesto
Are you an Anarchist?
Large list of other shared articles, videos, podcasts
When Danibelle came on board there was a lot of energy focused on the creation of the collective, and the Land project was informing and being informed by the creation of the Collective. It is pretty easy to see why there is confusion between the 2 fractals of organizations. It will be good to address how to more clearly define the boundaries and the overlaps of these creations in Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.
As early as August of 2020 there were already questions of “what are we doing”… needing more specifics on what the focus was due to the fact that the next steps weren’t clearly prioritized.
The seed feeling and intention
I am going to try to address the questions of “what and how” with a “feeling” - “inspired loving presence in action”, and a “why” intention - “re-conditioning to our true nature”. The Diamante Luz Land Process is an organized space and a safe place for a nested fractal of interconnected elements that are cooperatively and collaboratively choosing how to grow and evolve together. It is a shared home for radically responsible individuals and employee owned ecologically and economically regenerative enterprises. The distinct areas of the land need defined functions, goals, rules…… Aka “what”s. This is largely defined by the people showing up to give their input to the vested leadership council of Land Stewards and Trustees for the collectively informed decision making process.
In Part 2 I will give an overview of some of the historical decisions that got us to where we are now. And I will give a clear picture of where we are financially and organizationally for Diamante Luz and to differentiate it from the DBC. I will discuss some of what I have learned in the process. And I will ask for what I see can help the process in the next step of its evolution.
This whole process is a spiritual journey that hasn’t been talked about too directly to this point. In Part 3 I would like to discuss how to bring spirituality into more focus and alignment for the future. I also plan to call into further clarity the types of foundational collaborators we are looking for in order to bring Diamante Luz into its highest vibrational stewardship.
Thank you so much for your curiosity, your prayers, and your questions. You are all teaching me so much on this journey.
