Our Circle of Elders is comprised of inspiration individuals whose work inspires our work. These individuals have agree to support Bloomington Cooperative Plots by providing advice on topics for which they are experts.

To us "Elders" does not refer to age but rather knowledge and given the new territory of many facets of our movement there are 20 year olds whom we consider "Elders".

Lucille Bertuccio

Bloomington resident since 1988
Co-founder and president of the Center for Sustainable Living
Co-founder and instructor of the GOES program
Instructor at Collins Living and Learning Center: Edible Wild Plants of Indiana
Mother of two daughters living in Portland OR
Center for Sustainable Living: www.simplycsl.org

Diana Leafe Christian

Diana Leafe Christian is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. For 14 years she was editor of Communities magazine, and now publishes "Ecovillages," a free newsletter about ecovillages worldwide: http://www.EcovillageNews.org Diana leads workshops, offers consultations, and speaks at conferences internationally. She lives in an off-grid homesite at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina. http://www.DianaLeafeChristian.org

Seth Frey

Seth Frey is a student of community and collective action who has been
learning and living intentional community since his teens. In this
time he has grown in and organized for a dozen cooperatives off of the
East, West and Middle coasts. He is currently a resident at
Bloomington Cooperative Living Inc, near Indiana University where he
is pursuing a doctoral degree in Cognitive Science and in Informatics,
studying group and collective behavior.
email moctodliamg at the same thing backwards
http://worldwideweb.unconventionallylonguniformresourcelocator.com
http://bloomingtoncoop.org

David Haberman

David Haberman, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. Although he teaches about all religions, he specializes in the religions of India and has a particular interest in the relationship between religion and ecology. His most recent book is entitled: River of Love in an Age of Pollution. He teaches courses on Deep Ecology and has organized an annual summer intensive course on Permaculture for college students, which takes place at the Lazy Black Bear in the middle of the Hoosier National Forest. He is also a forest protection activist, being a council member of Heartwood and the president of the board for the Indiana Forest Alliance. He is passionately interested in visioning and pursuing more sane ways of living on this magical life-supporting planet.

Keith Johnson

He was raised in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and has been a commercial landscaper, stonemason, botanist, and organic gardener for over 35 years in places as varied as subtropical California, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the mountains of W. North Carolina. He's been teaching Permaculture for since 1985 and has instructed more than 700 students. He now manages a mini-food forest, Renaissance Farm & Permaculture Center, on Bloomington's East side and offers permaculture design consulting services, Patterns for Abundance http://permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html , with partner Peter Bane, publisher of the Permaculture Activist magazine http://permacultureactivist.net/. They have been providing consulting advice and design since 1997 and have developed an intimate knowledge of various regional landscapes and resources. With their wealth of experience in temperate climate permaculture systems they can offer a range of consulting services to regional and distant clients. Keith also blogs at http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/ , http://transitionindiana.blogspot.com/ , and http://permaculturepolitics.blogspot.com/

Ann Kreilkamp

Ann Kreilkamp, Ph.D., is a philosopher who, in 1973, was fired from New College of California as “too experimental” for that experimental college. Since then, Ann has lived at culture’s edge, experimenting with various ways to integrate both a larger cosmic vision and authentic human values into our impoverished society. She is a professional astrologer and mentor, a community and neighborhood activist, a permaculture designer, founder and steward of the Green Acres Neighborhood Garden, author of the book This Vast Being: A Voyage through Grief and Exaltation as well as dozens of astrological and philosophical essays, and founder/editor of three magazines the latest of which is Crone: Women Coming of Age. She lived for 18 years in a yurt community in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and currently resides in a multi-household urban farmstead in Bloomington, Indiana. She is the mother of two children and grandmother of two more.
www.tendrepress.com
www.cronemagazine.com
www.celestialnavigations.net

Andy Mahler

Andy Mahler is a forest protection activist and community organizer with more than twenty years experience. He helped found Heartwood http://www.heartwood.org and several other organizations, including Lost River Community Co-op, which operates the Lost River Market and Deli, a member owned, natural foods grocery in Paoli, IN http://www.lostrivercoop.com/; and Orange County HomeGrown which operates two successful farmers markets and a variety of other projects http://orangecountyhomegrown.org. He is also involved with efforts to stop the devastation of mountaintop removal coal-mining and recently partnered with musician Jason Wilber to produce the compilation "Coal Country Music" http://www.coalcountrymusic.com/, a companion to the award winning documentary "Coal Country".

He and his wife, Linda Lee own a rustic and eclectic farm and lodge called the Lazy Black Bear surrounded by the Hoosier National Forest in the rolling hills of southern Indiana where they raise, rehabilitate and release orphaned possums and other critters. They host a variety of events at the Lazy Black Bear including house concerts, a two week permaculture course every summer, and the annual Heartwood Reunion which takes place over the Columbus day weekend in October every year.

David Parsons

David Parsons has been a member of the May Creek Farm intentional community southwest of Bloomington since 1987 and a friend of the community since its founding in 1976. He worked as a mason and built various passive solar and efficient wood-burning structures prior to being employed at Bloomington Hospital in the mental health and computer education fields. He has always sought an inclusive spiritual path with a special focus on Sufism through the Sufi Order International, the teachings of Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti a.k.a. Samuel Lewis as well as through Nature, the universal scripture.

Recently he started REAL Compost, a business dedicated to making quality compost to enrich the soil and put carbon where it belongs, in the ground! Since 2006 he has become active in the Unitarian Universalist Church, Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan and Transition Bloomington. You may contact Dave at 812 824-6875, dashparsons@bluemarble.net or see more about:
REAL Compost at www.indianaholistichealth.net/realcompost.htm
Sufi Order International founded in 1910 by Hazrat Inayat Khan at http://www.sufiorder.org/
Sufi Ruhaniat International founded by Samuel Lewis in the tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan at http://www.ruhaniat.org/
Intentional Communities website at http://www.ic.org/
Transition Bloomington website at (today) http://transitionbloomingtonind.ning.com/ (in the near future) http://transitionbloomington.org/ (Feb 01, 2010)
Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan at http://www.hchp.info/
Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington at http://www.uubloomington.org/

Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He teaches media studies at the New School University, serves as technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures around the world.

He has just released his most important book to date: an analysis of the corporate spectacle called Life Inc. for RandomHouse, as well as a series of short films called Life Inc Dispatches.

Art Sherwood

Art has an extensive business education and several years of experience managing an organic farm as well as a private consulting business. He is well-versed developing business plans, setting up management systems, tracking financial data, and keeping a business running.

Art holds a PhD in Business from Indiana University and is a business professor at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. When he can find a bit of spare time, he hops on his motorcycle, plays with his shaggy dogs, or entertains his charming children Rett and Zosia.

CDS Consulting: www.cdsconsulting.coop
Nature's Crossroads Seed Company: www.naturescrossroads.com
LIFE Certified Organic Farm: www.eatlifeup.com

Emily Lippold Cheney
Dex Conaway
Amy Countryman
Christopher Reinhart
Scott Routen
Andy Ruff
Lisa Schelling