A small reading list.

The book that won Ostrom the Nobel and dismantled Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons.” Eight design principles for how communities actually steward shared resources together — without private enclosure or state takeover. Foundational reading for anyone serious about commoning at any scale.

Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants — woven together. Kimmerer (citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, professor of botany) writes the bioregional ethic better than most policy papers manage. If you read one book on what belonging means in a place, this is it.

The parallel, member-led civic body SPIRIT feeds and protects but does not control. Commoners elect a Wisdom Council, which appoints Common Stewards. Where the day-to-day work of caring for the Front Range will live. Founding membership is opening — see Connect.

A cultural history of how worldviews shape civilizations — and why the dominant Western metaphor of “nature as machine” is at the root of our ecological crisis. Useful for understanding why the Commons isn’t a policy proposal; it’s a cosmology shift.

The mathematical mechanism behind the Front Range Commons’ planned grant rounds: the matching pool amplifies the number of contributors, not the size of contributions. A wealthy donor’s $10,000 funds less than 100 neighbors each giving $5. Designed for genuine pluralism in resource allocation.

The cleanest current resource for sociocratic decision-making. SPIRIT operates by consent (not majority vote) inside the Stewardship Council, with circle-level autonomy — patterns SfA documents and trains. If you want to bring sociocracy into your own organization, start here.

A specific gathering form: one person speaks at a time, holding a token; others listen without preparing a response. No cross-talk, no debate. The form draws from many lineages — Indigenous councils, Quaker meetings, the Way of Council. We use it at Solidarity Suppers when the conversation matters enough.

The slanted sandstone slabs above Boulder — 290 million-year-old conglomerate from the Fountain Formation, lifted and tilted during the Laramide Orogeny. The signature backdrop of the Front Range and the geologic punctuation that says here. Walk Chautauqua at dawn.

Colorado’s only nationally designated Wild & Scenic River. Headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park; flows through Fort Collins on its way to the South Platte. The watershed that holds the northern reach of our bioregion and grounds the work of regional water stewardship coalitions.