CURRENT MISSION

Fostering regenerative, beautiful, biodiverse, thriving outcomes through meeting needs and enjoying life!

ABOUT ME

Born & raised in the Pacific NW, USA through college. Migrated to the SE, planning to return west within 3-5 years. 21 years later, I'm briefly west, couch surfing with family, spending precious time with my 90-yr old Dad & 90-yr old Grandpa.

After a couple of decades of environmental consulting, I'm in the process of launching a non-profit org, Aye Open Outcomes, for stimulating and reinforcing regenerative outcomes.

The inaugural project is iOpenMoney.org, a web-based platform using metaphor and geovisualization simulation tools, empowering individuals and communities, alleviating poverties.

iOpenMoney.org's Mission: Fostering systemic economic improvements - reducing risk and waste, increasing equity and benefits - by enabling intuitive cognition and exploration of economic reality and opportunity through transparent visual simulation of monetary facts, including connections between finance and fulfillment of human needs in the real economy.

PHILOSOPHY

be...Regenerative.

Foster conditions conducive to life (thanks Janine Benyus for that succinct way to sum up my philosophy)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I was introduced to CS while a master's student in Italy. Not being at home much since then, and having basically no furniture in the house (it migrated west without me), I've been primarily a surfer. Was happy to recently host 4 people who camped out on my floors (my house is on the market with one bed and one couch thanks to FreeCycle buddies :~) Really enjoyed sharing dinner with 8 interesting people ranging in age from 17 to ~60 before they left.

Looking forward to being at home to host more often.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Couch surfed in the Netherlands (while trying to be more help than in the way) on a sustainable fishing vessel on the shallow Wadden Sea. Wading with a hole in my waders...straightening the nets out (trying to NOT walk like an elephant), chasing fish into the nets (TRYING to walk like an elephant), then taking them out of the nets by hand. Saving my soul by letting a large bass loose (by happy accident). Followed by taking the fish, (primarily mullet) to the eco-market and spending a night at an Amsterdam squat community, in a former locker room/current art studio apartment.

Just two official (arranged through)CS experiences. First, in Amsterdam, stayed in a wonderful attic with two travel buddies from my Torino, Italy masters program. We enjoyed this beautiful place on our way to our research destinations. Did find it odd to walk past the red light district with my just-showered wet hair. Felt the sidelong looks from people, wondering "Is she just getting off work? Or on her way?"

Also, a kind, welcoming man allowed me to floor surf on a pile of cushy throws (felt like Heidi), shared soup, and loaned me a bicycle to use while attending the Slow Money conference in Santa Fe - even though he was under the weather and uber-busy. Thanks Haj! And thanks to your roommate who picked me up from downtown in the dark.

Most of my couch surfing has been with family and friends. Thanks!

Interests

Enjoying nature, friends, music, art. Harvesting water. Cooking tasty, healthy food. Dancing to live music. Re-designing and transitioning...how we live.

I'm passionate about systems change. Working on this through engraining needs fulfillment and ecosystem regeneration into integrated designs and informed business decisions; delivering economic, ecological, and social benefits with intergenerational value. So I formed a non-profit to pursue my passion!

• fish
• arts
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• traveling
• music
• live music
• fishing
• surfing
• scuba diving
• business

Music, Movies, and Books

MUSIC:
I dance to anything (except disco) with a rhythm, world music, blues, fusion hip hop, reggae, latin, jazz. Love to sing vocal harmonies, and discover creative lyrics.

Playing my piano - Beethoven is my catharsis.

BOOKS:
"Birth of the Chaordic Age" by Dee Hock
"Human Scale Development" by Manfred Max-Neef
"Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon
"Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus
the 'Water Harvesting' series by Brad Lancaster
Grew up with my nose in a book most of the time - lots of sci-fi, mysteries, novels.

The Dune series by Frank Herbert may have influenced me to be so obsessed about water...but then again, maybe I'm just paying attention?

MOVIES:
Love em. From light entertainment, comedies, double-entendre-thick, tacky B-movies, and swashbucklers, to dramas, and life-changing documentaries. Almost anything but slasher/horror films - which hurt my spirit, and action-for-the-sake-of-action-no-story films, which are just...boring imho.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

What amazes me even more than participating in wonderful physical activities like diving off of Bonaire - which is like being in another world, is experiencing kinship with people in many cultures - in both the real world and virtual communities - who are also working to recognize and pursue possibilities to achieve sustainability.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Italy, United States

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