About Our Sacred Earth
VISION
An Earth cared for and sustained by people who live from a place of deep relationship with Spirit and the Earth as Sacred Presence in their lives and who create life decisions and behaviors, which sustain life on the Earth for the good of the whole, of all life and for every species, ecosystem, and element.
MISSION
Our Sacred Earth’s mission is to assist people of all ages
To deeply connect with the Earth and Spirit as Sacred Presence in our daily life
To create Earth and Spirit connecting practices in their lives
To create responsible ways to care for the Earth and
To care for themselves and others within this context
To encourage collaboration with one another and organizations to care for the Earth
As part of sustaining the Earth now and for future generations
Board and Staff
Barbara Magill, board member since 2020, is a lover of plants, trees, rivers and all things nature, from tamed gardens to the wild woodlands, mountains and deserts.
In Vermont, Barbara managed a 2-acre organic vegetable and herb garden for two years and then became a master gardener when she arrived in Boulder, Colorado. She has studied with many local herbalists for over 20 years, obtaining an herbalist certification from Tammi Hartung of Desert Canyon Farms in Cañon City. Also a beekeeper, Barbara knows the importance of listening to the Earth and its creatures and acknowledging the plants as our teachers.
A practicing Buddhist, Barbara maintains her own xeric garden and bikes everywhere and hikes to get outside everyday, wishing for more time to just sit in the forest. She is on the city of Boulder's employee Green Team at the library and recreation centers, trying to get Boulder closer to its Zero Waste Goal, and she is a representative of the Boulder Municipal Employee Association, helping to provide support for employee rights and welfare. Barbara recommends the "How to Save a Planet" podcast to connect with energizing stories and practical actions toward reversing climate change, and the book "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer for a beautifully written, Indigenous and refreshing connection to the natural world.
Paul Beique, a board member since 2020, lives in Boulder and is an editor for the University of Colorado, where he recently wrote new style guidelines for using inclusive language. Paul offers technical and website research and support for Our Sacred Earth. He went vegetarian in 2015 and vegan in 2018. Paul supports the Earth by biking and walking as much as possible, and using public transportation. In the 1990s, Paul led a union effort to support all workers at the Gannett-owned Burlington Free Press in Vermont. In his spare time he enjoys biking, hiking and film photography.
L to R: Bonnie, Coco, Harry
Coco Gordon: (middle in above photo) Board Member since 2015, lives in Lyons, Colorado, and has participated in many Our Sacred Earth activities. She is foremost a prolific artist in many genres, a permaculturist and PC design teacher/believer.
She is a Gaia University graduate, MSc in integrative eco-social design, Gaia University, 2012.
She worked as co-chair of the Sustainable Futures Commission in the town of Lyons, including being liaison to two other commissions — UEB Utilities Engineering Board and Ecology Board.
She created a two-day charrette, Ecological Wastewater Eco Machine treatment for Lyons in 2011. It put in motion a proposal for a biodiverse wastewater treatment process that takes the usual end unusable B biosolids to the highest quality A to prepare the town for a public-private partnership that will be the first ecologically engineered wastewater for Colorado.
As an artist, Coco made 60 books in various editions using her own hand-made paper; many small editions of art/poetry books, sculpture, prints and etchings, drawings/paintings and performance art; and is a published poet. Her artworks and artist books have been shown and are in international collections of many museums, galleries and private collections, including MOMA, Whitney and Fogg. A solo exhibition featured 37 eco-art installations with earth and salt in Messina, Italy, in 1990. An exhibition of 150 of her life-size books was held at the Caserma Zucchi (an old armory exhibition space) in Reggio Emilia in 1989.
Coco also is an urban gardener. Beautiful vegetables and flowers surround her home in Lyons.
She is a.k.a. Super SkyWoman, a modern heroine of action on behalf of the Earth, reinvented from the Indigenous Haudenosaunee People’s creation myth of the beginnings of our first world.
Coco’s burning interests: creating an Earth-based public policy, re-inhabiting the commons, sharing healing techniques, permaculture design, taking people on walk-talks with nature, bioregional ceremonial village, growing her own food, watershed design, and being proactive procuring rights for the Earth's living nature.
Bonnie Sundance, board member and Executive Director, Our Sacred Earth
I carry a big commitment to live my life toward and to collaborate on the work of raising consciousness and changing our culture toward putting EARTH FIRST — understanding the needs of the Earth and then designing and living our lives so that we live in harmony with all aspects of Earth, cherishing biodiversity and human cultural diversity. I hitchhike for the Earth from the Rocky Mountains to Boulder, Colorado, and lived off the grid for four years without a phone. I am happy to have a local internet connection and good community-oriented, Earth-caring neighbors, human ones and the forest beings of my local ecosystem.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, an experience which shaped my Global Citizen focus. I helped build feminist culture in the 1970s in Seattle. I participated in Whidbey Island Institute in the 1980s in their Earth and Spirit programs, and in the 1990s with Naropa University programs in eco-psychology and with a local neighborhood environmental organization. I am a member of Pachamama Alliance, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Mountain Forum for Peace, KGNU Alternative Radio, the Boulder Eco Dharma Sangha, Bioneers Salon Boulder, the Shambhala Climate Salon, and I support through email a number of environmental organizations’ efforts.
See my Journey of Activism
Harry Albert, board member in spirit now b. 12/12/36 d. 10/27/17
I have had long involvement with and supported pro-Earth NGOs. I’ve hiked and traveled extensively in the western U.S., nourishing my pantheist enthusiasm and Gaia sentiments. I seek to help redirect majority public sentiment and corporate policy in English-speaking countries toward understanding, caring for, and respecting the climate and the planet, as other countries are already doing much more effectively. In particular, I support alternative transportation (electric bikes, smaller cars, more passenger railroads), non-fossil energy sources, energy conservation such as by appropriately downsizing residential buildings, and by expanding organic agriculture, including the development of perennial grains and a shift to the healthier plant-based food economy.
I attended Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement, studying chemistry. As a U.S. Navy officer, I sailed the western Pacific, visited Asian countries and learned of the workings of the Defense Department. I earned a PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Colorado, and worked at IBM's main research center, in Yorktown, New York. I taught Analytical Chemistry as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, then did research there until I got fired after whistleblowing. I worked as an optical engineer at Ball Aerospace, first on space shuttle components, and finally on some absurd star-wars projects, getting fired for refusal to work on a particularly anti-Earth proposal.
I happily support the work of Our Sacred Earth and enjoy participating in the activities it offers.