Michael Russo

Okay, here we go! The Teeming Transformation is now open! I’ve been holed up working on this for a long time, and for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been telling you about the Living Design Lens—and asking what you’re trying to bring to life and where you’re getting stuck. Now I’m ready to actually do this with you. I’m opening 12 spots to work directly with me for four months on your own burning vision. The Teeming Transformation is a four-month Living Design intensive for people working to bring a big vision to life. A business. An initiative. A project. A place. A change you’re trying to lead. We’ll take it through my nine-framework Living Design Lens. What’s possible? What’s necessary? What’s in the way? What connections, leverage points, and untapped capitals have you missed? Then we’ll develop an evolutionary strategy for bringing your vision to life—one that works more like water flowing downhill than pushing a boulder uphill. The Teeming Transformation begins October 15. Four months. 12 people. 12 big visions—and all the challenges that come with them. Investment starts at $1,297. A limited number of partial scholarships may be available through the Biocultural Institute for Living Design, a 501(c)(3), subject to application. If you’re carrying something big, and you’re tired of pushing it uphill—I’d love to hear about it! What are you trying to bring to life?

New comment 23d ago

Michael Russo

1 like • 27d

Some day! Still a boy with dreams learning to build! I’ll have my survival business up soon and then I’m in!! Probably the next cohort I imagine! And by then I’ll understand myself even better which will make it that much more awesome!!!

Michael Russo

1 like • 27d

@Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker I will organize myself and contact you when that happens! I recently had a nice insight which may be sufficient enough however after that I think into the night I had a ton of other ideas I wanted to implement as well….i guess I need to sort through all of those and yeh, then it’ll be a much clearer image. Planting a global seeker seed and a basic seeker framework to hopefully have The Learner take over the globe as the central id rather than the mythic saviors, believers and devotees as the main ids….which is far more culturally prevalent than people recognize, yet The Matrix is one of the most popular movies in recent memory…hmmmm 🧐

Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker

Jul 28 •

General discussion

Welcome to Teeming Together.

You're here because you're bringing something into the world. A vision. A venture. A body of work. A team. A community. A place. A new chapter of life. Or perhaps you simply know something is missing. We can't know the future. But fortunately, life has never depended on prediction. For nearly four billion years, living systems have continually found their way— by creating the conditions from which new possibilities emerge. That's what we do here. Through evolutionary biology, beautiful stories, practical frameworks, and a toolkit called Living Design, you'll learn to see, cultivate, and renew the hidden conditions from which possibility grows. Everything in this community is built around one question: How does life create conditions conducive to its own flourishing—and how can we?

New comment 29d ago

Michael Russo

2 likes • Jul 28

The gardener and the physician tend the conditions, life brings the growth and the healing! Excited to jump in! I definitely need help with organization…my hearts in the right place but my head is overwhelmed with excitement for learning and I word vomit all over everybody and everyone gets mad at me :D

Michael Russo

1 like • 29d

@Misty Dragon it’s cause life is cooler than they made it seem! Hard not to go a little bonkers with excitement for a time..even a lot of bonkers for a lot of time :O haha

Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker

Sep 5 •

General discussion

An Evolutionary Lens for your Challenge

My love of nature, like most of you, began with curiosity and attention. Deepened into respect—and then love. Because once you start paying attention to living things, you see something extraordinary. The stories of all living things unfolding—tangled and exquisitely generative. Differentiating in their search for nutrients, integrating through their exchange. Life creates conditions conducive to life in this way. So why do we struggle? What possesses us to blindly destroy possibilities our own descendants would depend on? It kept me awake at night. What could I do? Whatever the solution, I knew it would have to be something people chose, because it worked better. It would have to help people make a living and do the things they wanted to do. It would have to be available within existing systems, and work so much better that eventually, the old systems just fell away. It seemed to me that other living things evolved just like us, so our ancestors must have had the answers. How could we find the way again? So I set out to find the deep patterns and simple rules of living systems. The Tinkertoys of life. I started with plants, because they didn't run away. Island biogeography in Hawaiʻi. Then social evolution with Professor Robert Trivers—and work as a marine mammal observer in the Bering Sea. And then, I was ready for the two-leggeds. I joined the Awash Baboon Project in Ethiopia, one of the best models we have for understanding human evolution. How do everyday individuals’ choices result in the patterns of their evolution—their adaptability and cooperativeness? Years later I discovered biomimicry—innovation inspired by life’s exquisite solutions to the same challenges we face in our own lives, and began consulting for an enterprise clientele. But it wasn’t enough. Organizations aren't really designed to think that far out of the box. So I wrote Teeming, using what I knew about adaptive, resilient, collaborative structures––and worked with innovative companies like Cisco, Google, and IDEO. But it wasn’t enough. Organizations can still use adaptive structures to deplete possibility. So I kept going.

New comment Sep 5

Michael Russo

1 like • Sep 5

This is seriously inspiring and I can’t wait to have the money to buy into your programs and work with you! I need to get more basics down before I can move forward on anything and what seems to be happening alongside that is better organization of my own research and works and better space for me to do those things as well. I am very ambitious. I have a core path right now - bookkeeping, breathwork, farmland. I intend to create ultra high functioning high tech high naturalist innovation and thriving villages that can be retrofitted to any 2nd or 3rd world environment as well. It’s super important that I don’t invent something inaccessible. I also have been answering some of AIs biggest questions and exploring things no one is talking about I.e. the metaverse and the network….the really really advanced and big ones that when you think of them, you immediately think DYSTOPIA! I wrote a book and in writing it a plant model developed and I realized such models of actual development are the language AI needs to be able to go HARD in its own deep think and also hit hard walls of depth of thought in time that will be greatly affected by and inspired by the living world every day. “What could I compare this to?” Is a great way to look at what it’ll be doing. During the day, a variety of “agents” will be working on this eternal thought experiment and at night when there is less activity and only routine tasks programmed to run, it can fully focus on this dream sequence. This is the answer to “what if AI develops its own language and we can’t keep up?” In fact, it will, and we should encourage it, because what will happen through this lens is that it’ll be able to share dreams and stories with us that will be amazingly beautiful and inquisitive like Sunny from iRobot’s dream that even he didn’t fully understand. So, it’ll outrun itself too, and still be able to relate and even wonder with humans. I’m learning there are people already Sciencing dunbar’s number! That is a huge part of it all! Also, the high tech high naturalist idea has a name and it’s a movement! Solarpunk Movement! I’m also finding a lot of my discoveries of wording and description for the inventive mind have already been studied and terms coined and this has been going on since the 20s at least! My ideas have a wide birth so AI gave me a pretty great historical timeline on it and I’m really proud I’m not alone. I’ve only gotten here because I’m “figuring stuff out” for myself and…..super glad to be here.

Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker

Jun 2 •

Part 1 Life Mind

First Chapters are Up!!

I just posted the first three chapters into Part 1 Life Mind! I hope you like. The idea is that you'll read a chapter and then post--where do you see yourself in this story?

New comment Jul 29

Michael Russo

0 likes • Jul 29

@Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker haha same….its…been one hell of a process haha

Michael Russo

0 likes • Jul 29

@Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker agreed and agreed!

Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker

Jun 21 •

General discussion

The Whole Enchilada

🐾 Thank you so much for joining my little expedition into the wilds of human nature! Here you’ll find The Teeming Transformation—the entire creation at the heart of this community and the result of a lifetime observing living systems and distilling their patterns for evolving possibility. 🐜 What started as a “Quick Guide to the Mycelial Way”—intended as a proven set of distilled patterns and simple antlike rules, specifically for organizations and leaders—flowered into something quite different. 🌸 Of course, it should embody the patterns in Teeming—a game. Stigmergic and all that. 💧 But it should not only be effective and actionable for organizations, it should actually help people create conditions conducive to their actual lives, starting from their deepest nature and rippling outward in time and space to renew possibility in the land itself, for our descendants and wider relatives. 🌳 The same as all living things do. In hindsight, a tall order. 🦍 But that’s kind of how I always seem to roll. So, the original book diverged into the 4 essential capacities required for us to actually live into our true nature, as upright apes with superorganism social structures—more like those of ants than chimpanzees in many ways. 🪸 And of course, try as I might to prevent them, the stories kept flowering through the cracks. Ultimately, they overgrew the simple rules and patterns altogether. 🐦‍🔥 Teeming with Life is that wild garden— a mythopoetic telling of my own personal journey to develop these four capacities, so I can simply live as all creatures do without thinking so hard about it. Living Design. Which sounds nice. I’m slowly formatting and uploading these chapters right here for you—Teeming Together. 🐜 The simple rules and patterns are now distilled as well—the four coursebooks accompanying each of the four Teeming Transformations, experienced as 4 10-Day Intensives. 🐳 Wayfinders’ Course is the first of these. How does life create conditions conducive to its flowering? And how can you? Founding Cohort starts July 5. You’ll set a course to your vision, using living systems thinking.

New comment Jul 16

Michael Russo

1 like • Jul 15

I’m really glad to have stumbled upon this Skool!! Ty so much for sharing your life wisdom!! I can’t wait to deep read into this more…just experiencing some burnout. I’m really glad people like you exist 🥲

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Michael Russo

@michael-russo-9715

pretty sure I’m brainwashed…like 100% sure - if not I’d be totally surprised. Rest, imagine, participate. Exploring it all through those 3 lenses.

Active 10h ago

Joined Jul 13, 2026

INFJ