3 Lights Design, Creativity Matters, The Temple of Soil, and SoilDAO
Principal of 3 Lights Design; Author of The Shoreline of Wonder: On Being Creative; Head Minister of The Temple of Soil, C0-Founder of SoilDAO
Sebastopol, California
Austin Hill Shaw is the founder of 3 Lights Design, a relationship and ritual-focused architectural design firm, the author of The Shoreline of Wonder: On Being Creative, a deep dive into humankind’s fundamental drive to create, the Lead Minister of the Temple of Soil, a weekly service and celebration of Gaia, the living Earth, from whose bounty all life springs; and the co-founder of SoilDAO, a pro-Gaian, pro-community regenerative land restoration platform.
His mission in life is to reform human activities, including architecture, design, and human relationships, as they are practiced today from transactional, material-based, consumer pursuits to ones that are transformative, to ones that honors and celebrates the intelligence and generosity of the natural world, and to ones that are deeply collaborative, co-creative and fulfilling for everyone involved.
Offer
My theory of change is that human beings, first and foremost, have an innate drive to want to make the world a better place. And, for the most part, we humans also have viable solutions to today’s pressing challenges. And yet, (and yet!) we are still very much learning how best to work together. Accordingly, my unique skills revolved around: Rapport building - Building intimacy from the outset and continuing to nurture those relationship throughout a project Ritual - Consciously preparing, opening, abiding, and closing spaces so that all participants can be fully present during a discussion/experience and also leave it behind when we’re complete Realization/Healing - Deepening our ability to to appreciate, acknowledge, and empower ourselves, and all those around us, including the land that supports us all.
NEED
First, identifying those skill sets that we don't do with ease and grace and finding amazing people who can bring their unique magic and abilities to take on those roles. Second, deepening our ability to communicate by identifying and learning about new and emergent ways of organizing communications, such as Sociocracy or Holacracy, and committing to learning those systems. And third, funding. We have been self funding most of our projects with gains from our design and contracting businesses, but we definitely have our limitations, both in time and in money. In short, we need funding to bring in more talent to help build the platform and the marketplace.
Call-to-Action
My call-to-action to the Earth One Community centers around organizational structures and governance. How do we create “containers” that optimize our ability to get our core needs met, including connection, contribution, and meaning, while, at the same time, allow for the arising of insights and the ability to act on/manifest those insights in the most optimal ways?
