Building on our previous explorations of Triphora's identity as a "metabolic bridge" and the orchid metaphor, this session focused on translating these foundational concepts into a tangible digital presence. We further clarified Triphora's purpose, audience, and aesthetic direction to inform the V0.5 website development process.
This meeting served primarily for James to deepen his understanding of Triphora's vision and build alignment with Lauren and Rob around the aesthetics, structure, purpose, and content of the website. Through open dialogue and collaborative exploration, we established shared reference points that will guide the V0.5 brand and digital presence development. The conversation helped translate Triphora's complex, multidimensional identity into concrete elements that can be represented digitally while maintaining the organic, fluid nature of the organization.
Our previous session established Triphora's connection to transformation and the power of three. Today, we articulated how this manifests across three specific domains:
These three domains collectively address what Lauren described as the "pandemic of disconnection" - Triphora's core challenge and purpose.
We refined our understanding of Triphora's relationship network through three key categories:
This mapping clarifies that approximately two-thirds of Triphora's focus centers on next-generation development, with complementary work supporting adult developmental growth.
Building on the previous session's exploration of the biological wisdom of the Triphora orchid, we defined specific aesthetic elements for the digital presence:
These elements honor both the "ancient wisdom" and "new emergence" dynamics identified in our first session.
With a clearer sense of Triphora's identity and aesthetic direction, we established a pragmatic approach to website development:
In this session we navigated an important transition from the metaphorical richness of our first exploration to the practical considerations of digital creation. The tension between maintaining the fluid, living nature of Triphora's while creating a structured digital presence mirrors the organization's larger work.
Lauren's image of the "human chain" extending like octopus arms to pull others up from isolation into connection provides a powerful visual metaphor that might inform both content and design elements.
As we move from vision to implementation, we're honoring Triphora's commitment to transformation by creating a digital presence that itself feels transformative - something that doesn't just describe the work but embodies it through every aesthetic and interactive choice.
The website development process becomes a microcosm of Triphora's larger challenge: how to structure fluid wisdom in accessible ways that invite genuine connection and growth.
Design and development of simple v0.5 first version of the Triphora brand and website. A beautiful initial digital presence for Triphora.
Lauren Tenney: Hey, James. Hey. Are you. Are we Audi? Are we connected on audio? I cannot hear you.
James Redenbaugh: How about now? Okay, we can go analog. Is the audio quality okay here?
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, yeah, totally cool.
James Redenbaugh: Still on the slopes.
Lauren Tenney: He's on the slopes. He was just trying to join, but he didn't completely join, so. I know he's trying. I bet he's trying to sort out his WI fi situation. So. And I was just in the document. Just.
James Redenbaugh: So awesome. Do you want to get started? Do you want to sit in silence until Rob gets here? We should do.
Lauren Tenney: I think we can get started. Gravel. Just weave in. Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Right. So first of all, I'm curious what's come up for you guys in the document, if there's anything that you want to share there.
Lauren Tenney: Well, I'm only just getting into it and, you know, I think where I feel a little like I get wobbly is when it's like, who's the audience? And I'm like, great question, because there's probably several. But how do I group that group? So I think some of that is definitely what comes up for me is like, oh, crap, I suck at this stuff where I'm supposed to, like, know a thing more than I do. And so I was noticing that experience happening just around how to. Because I think the truth of the matter is that our vision has. It's.
Lauren Tenney: It's complex and it's not all to happen at once, but because it's complex and has a web, like, form in the vision space, then it's like, well, different parts of that web are different, maybe audiences, but also there's a common space, I'm sure, where. Where folks will resonate. So I just. I feel that come up. James is like, oh, yeah, I gotta be clearer. We gotta be clearer. And then. Yeah, so that's the first layer that I noticed.
James Redenbaugh: Cool. And, yeah, let's not be too limited by. By our sense of traditional terms and audience and things like that. You know, audience implies a stage and a theater, you know, or a show. And those metaphors can be helpful and I'm sure are a part of what you guys are doing, but it's also just a part. There's also other.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Ways to consider who's this for?
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
James Redenbaugh: And maybe we can start. Start there with just a broad question of who is this for? Or what?
Lauren Tenney: Like, what is it for? Not who.
James Redenbaugh: It can be. It can be a who. It can be a what. I'm sure it's nebulous because it's for you guys, it's for who you want to impact. It's for the earth, it's for cosmos. Not to put voices in your mouth.
Lauren Tenney: Right?
James Redenbaugh: Well.
Lauren Tenney: I don't know. I'll just start here, but at our IF retreat that just happened in Halifax, which was our second in person retreat of the cohort that we're leading, had this, were doing a group experience and I had this sense of like a, a visual image of a vast kind of chain of humanity, like bodies literally climbing on each other, making a rope where that rope is kind of coming from, like in a way the dark landscape of like so much struggling that humanity is part of the human experience. And then that sort of like, almost like imagine like octopus arms where like, you know, people grab onto the chain and then they grab other people onto the chain.
Lauren Tenney: And it was kind of an image like that of like, you know, all the world's traditions and the various manifestations of psychological, interpersonal, mythic wisdom. All the forms that, that the transmission of love and wisdom can take are all trying to scoop up like those octopus arms, more humans to connect. Like, there are so many ways, you know, so many paths to, you know, keep a, keep waking up to the great telos, right? Of, of kind of consciousness and love. So I don't know, I guess I just. On the one hand I see like, oh, this is a thing for right now to try to do more of that. Like, this is a project that will live for a period of time with these people.
Lauren Tenney: But I can speak from my own experience that I deeply feel it's for the switching on of a kind of like wildly loving creative participation in the world that's like, for so much more than my own life. And as people come into that relationship, they make beautiful things as they come into that experience. So that's a super high level. And then if I bring it down a little more, I'd say like, well, I know some stuff and the other people I know some stuff about working with adults and like their psychological and emotional healing and being together with other adults. And so there's that. It's for that for sure. It's for the next generation and their next generation. It's for beauty.
Lauren Tenney: I think it's also for me in a kind of simplistic way, like it's for the natural world of life, not the artificialized world of life. Like, it's for the preservation of that too. And it's for like Full on. Like game A to game, post game, a transition. Like it's for that, you know, it's for wisdom in the kinds of organizations and schools and educational experiences that people make. And it's for families to not be crushed under the weight of modern life trying to do the great art of raising little humans. Like, it's for all of that. I think for me it's for like my life as art. That comes up too. So. Sorry for being everywhere.
James Redenbaugh: No, you're. That's exactly where you should be.
Lauren Tenney: I'm going to eat a cookie while I talk to you.
James Redenbaugh: Please. Wonderful sounds and feels very familiar. Like the playground that I feel like I'm here to co create as well. And I love those metaphors of the. The human chain or. We talked on the last call a lot about weaving and colorful and beauty. And I just see these somewhat messy but like beautiful and natural and designed, but in a way, but also as if they were grown out of life. Tensegrity structures and pavilions and creation stations.
Lauren Tenney: I was just writing like Buckminster Fuller.
James Redenbaugh: Yes. Yeah, Bucky, everything. Such a pioneer. Beautiful. So it's like. Well, let me ask this. If, if Triphora would. Or a state of matter, how would you describe that state?
Lauren Tenney: Wow. I feel like I need more chemistry and physics knowledge, but.
James Redenbaugh: No wrong answers.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, I mean, in some ways I want to go back to the like, it's. It's an organic living thing actually because of the name and the metaphor there of the saprophyte and that it's alive, which means it dies. Like it's not a, A gas or a solid or a metal or a liquid only because that's not. It's too abstracted from life really. So I think like it's a living thing that's moving energy in certain ways that it can do and it's flowering within that potentiality and those constraints. So I know it's not like a state of matter. I first, if I was just to go with that abstraction, I would go like. Well, I guess the interesting thing about a liquid is that it can like. Like water. It's really simple.
Lauren Tenney: It can be a gas, it can be a very hard solid, it can be a vast ocean. But like the fact that it moves in these very many forms is what makes it ubiquitously available. And so there is something about being fluid, I think. I think about the different points we want touch and the different ways we want to be a web weaver that moves energy and also does programmatic Stuff like those are all. There's a fluidity to that.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, yeah. I, I asked because there was something very fluid about what you were sharing and it, I, it felt like this liquid light moving like Triphora as a source of this energy that can activate and synthesize and catalyze in different ways but it's also structure, you know, and I presume will become more and more solid and you know, tensegrity isn't a good metaphor for liquid but I thinking of it as life as an ecosystem is way more accurate than picking a single state because will grow and respond to different environments and change over time and you know, and give birth and die and all of those things. And I, I almost don't want to ground it at all in the practical and to stay in the abstract. But I feel a.
James Redenbaugh: We must, we must find ways to tether this blimp to the ground for now. Yeah. So people can get on. And then once people are on there, you don't have to describe the thing. You know, you don't have to.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Name it because everybody's like it's the thing. It's the thing that we're all on. So practically speaking there's the thing itself and then there's the outputs or its expressions and those are going to be easier to pin down because those are made to be understood. Everybody doesn't need to understand the whole model and everything that you're doing. Right. But they need to understand how to engage.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Is it for them? And, and so it, and that will evolve over time as your offerings evolve over time. And it sounds like in the beginning it's operating as a kind of think tank kind of consultancy, kind of laboratory, kind of a vent. Cree creator. Is that accurate?
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, maybe. Let's see. So I think there's the convening function which means there could be events in that. There could be, you know, other non in person ways that folks are getting convened or invited to join. So there's a kind of convening because the communing and community is really essential to it. Like that's sort of, that's the web. That's like the mycelial web. So there's this convening. Yeah, I think there's what I. When I think of content, when I think of like written material or digital content, I think of that stuff as bat signals. It's bat signals for people to be like, it's food for my. Like it's like, oh, there's beauty. Oh, there's goodness. Oh, there's wisdom. It's like it tunes me maybe or it draws me towards a signal.
Lauren Tenney: So I don't think like media for media's sake, but I think like to the extent that's really useful to send signals out, like produce some stuff, you know, so that has a basket of possibility. But then really concretely in the action spaces of like what would we be doing that we would say we did this. Like it wouldn't be. We put out a white paper. It would be, you know, we convened a nine month program of transformative wisdom, generative experience for this cohort of humans that are in these spaces of work that would never otherwise have been able to do this. And that happened and that's now tracking out words from those humans, these ways of being in the world and considering, you know, what we're making and why. So whatever all the values that come along with that.
Lauren Tenney: Another thing would be, look, I would really, I would like to see there being low to no cost support provided for people who want to have children or have children, the caregivers, the parenting of children. Like there's a whole note in the mandala that's like the family or the parental dyad or whatever that is. And what are the specific offerings? Maybe it's, I mean when Rob and I talk about it, we say like, well, men's and women's work lives here and like support relationally for partners to become relationally centered, you know, able to really give and receive love so that they can transmit that with their children. Like that's real, a real need. Like. So I think about stuff like that happening in the family, like programmatically or from an offering perspective. There's specific services actually and projects that offer support for that audience.
Lauren Tenney: So I think there's. But one of the things that is Triphora isn't necessarily doing all the delivery. Like Triphora could be a convener of folks who can practitioners who do that work. But were the. The linker of those humans to the humans, then the funding, like there's like, so am I making any sense?
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, yeah. Awesome lot of connecting.
Lauren Tenney: Like here's a concrete example, James. We just are about to graduate this cohort of IF certified folks this year. And, and what I notice is like, you know, like say Doctors Without Borders, like we need facilitators without borders. Right? That that's a thing that once existed. I don't really think it exists anymore. But all the humans in this program, like many of them are switched on, especially because of the world moment right now where they want to convene and facilitate human conversations that are much needed or human relating that's much needed. And when I think about like, you know, because you went through the program, like, what are people doing? Like, some of us could be out there convening and hosting and stewarding in ways that are really needed. And I just feel the ripeness of that.
Lauren Tenney: So when I think about that's not a project that necessarily 10 directions can like make happen, but what can happen is a Triphora and 10 directions partnership where like, there's a space of, you know, ongoing projects of humans convening other humans and having conversations and being together in a kind of villaging way. And it doesn't have to. It can. So that's an example. Like, where does that live? Where would it live? So there's things like that I think about.
James Redenbaugh: Amazing side note. But I want to mention it since it's coming to mind right now. But I, I'm working with some wonderful people in the Bay Area. One's a deer all friend of mine from when I lived there in from my integral we space community times. And they're creating an app called Alex which is, it's an AI designed to help people better understand their relationships and grow their relationships. Their company is called Village Builders. They're all about building villages and this technology to kind of help people get away from technology and not connect them to new. Like, oh, I think you might like Jeff, but like you talk to it about who's in your life, who do you want in your life, how do you cultivate deeper relationships and connections? It's really beautiful.
James Redenbaugh: And I thought that they might be a good person, good people for this Hollyhock event or just to know. And I, I, I mention it right now because I'm wondering, I'd love to gauge like is how might what they're doing connect to what you're doing? Not that it has to, but just so that I couple things.
Lauren Tenney: Great. How exciting. How, how like what's a good way for me to, should I go to their website or what's the.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I'll screen share it real quick. Actually, we just launched it. It's really cute. They're just getting started and so this is kind of a flag in the ground for them. Statement of purpose. They're going to be seeking funding, but aren't yet. They have a, a prototype for the app but they're coming With a lot of science and research expertise and perspective around. I just realized my. My share is really big around loneliness and these different things on the staging site. For some reason, they're showing up down here. But, yeah, it's. It's marketed. It's not for, like, integral folks to become more integral. It's for, like, people in a life transition or struggling with loneliness or in a new city or. Or just wanting to grow more connections to learn how to do that better. And just because I understand.
Lauren Tenney: Oh, I know Simone.
James Redenbaugh: Oh, yeah, yeah. She's my friend.
Lauren Tenney: Okay. Okay. You were in different cohorts, but yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Oh, yeah, she was. She did. Of course she did. Yeah. Okay, cool. So. And they put me on there under. I'd love to understand how organizations like this or people like this might. How you might see them interfacing with what you're doing in the future.
Lauren Tenney: That's a great question. And I think Rob is here, so I don't know if he's able to talk.
James Redenbaugh: Rob.
Rob Sinclair: Hi.
James Redenbaugh: Hey, Rob.
Rob Sinclair: Good to see you both. I'm sorry I'm late. I got. I was all set up. I was in a nice little sunny, quiet spot. Zero reception. So I apologize. I'm here now.
James Redenbaugh: No problem. We were carrying on. Are you about to drop in on. On a half pipe? Are you gonna.
Rob Sinclair: Been shredding all day, man. It's time to take a break.
James Redenbaugh: Nice.
Rob Sinclair: Whatever. Whatever flow you're in, it's still okay.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: Okay. It's a little tender. That's good. Yeah. How are you two?
James Redenbaugh: Where are you two tender actions? We are good. We're diving into purpose. Possible functions of Triphora outputs, what that can look like. Who's it for? We started really abstract, and then. I was just asking.
Lauren Tenney: I did.
James Redenbaugh: I brought up some friends of mine who have this relational app, and they're doing Village building. So I can better understand what you guys are doing. If somebody like them would be in your audience or a potential participant. Like, what would that. What would that look like?
Rob Sinclair: Nice. Thanks for catching me up.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah. Like James, I guess I don't know yet because I think I don't know enough about what. Like, I guess it strikes me that there would be folks who are in an orbit because they share a view of the world and they share cares and they share aesthetic kind of sensibilities that are connected to that. But I don't know that everybody would be, you know, like. I don't know, what would that. How does that connect? Sometimes I feel like I suffer from a Failure of imagination around certain things like that. And Rob sees things that I don't. He's like, well like this. And I'm like, oh. So that's kind of what comes up for me is I'm like, I guess I have to know more about the project and what they're trying to do and who they're trying to talk to.
Lauren Tenney: And you know, what are all the different ways that other projects can be connected? Like are they convened? Because projects that share a similar view of the world, even if they're doing very different work, want to hang out with like minded people and see what arises and is Trophor can make stuff like that. That's cool. Yeah. What comes up for you, Rob?
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, I think the like, I don't know if you two have played with this distinction at all today, but the idea of like our ecosystem having some differentiated kind of categories for lack of a better term. But like Lauren and I've been playing around with the language of like partner, beneficiary, sponsor and then someone like a group like that and I just kind of caught the tail end of what they're up to. But if I hear community building, I'm going to make a bunch of assumptions and say like, yeah, like community, you know, we want to be networking with the others, but I wouldn't imagine they're a direct beneficiary or partner. And so if we're looking at more direct, like what is our purpose, who are we trying touch and reach and what impact do we want to have directly on them?
Rob Sinclair: I don't think those kinds of parallel projects or like minded folks are the ones we're intending to influence most directly, especially right now. But that's just what comes up for me there if we want to be hanging out with them. But our early convenings will be more about direct partner, beneficiary, sponsor relationships more than who are the others doing similar cool stuff that we can learn together from and with.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, cool. So tell me about, that's super helpful. Tell me about who you're imagining could be these partners, beneficiaries and sponsors maybe. Let's start with partners.
Lauren Tenney: So like early and obvious example of a partner would be our friends at Valor because they're collaborative, like minded partner. We're doing some work with them and some of what they're cooking up for young people is in, it's like an expression of what we're also cooking up for adults in their learning and development. So Valor. Now see, the question is who Is it really? Because basically it's our friend who's a leader and founder at Valor and he may in a few years leave Valor to do this more innovative work elsewhere. And maybe he's doing it in Triphora, but right now, at least it's an example of a partnership because he's homed in that organization and they're serving young people in the high school age population. So that would be an example of a partner.
Lauren Tenney: Another partner would be, I think 10 directions is a possible partner. I think I talked to a friend of mine in the Bay Area who runs an organization where he serves in kids in a gap year program, like a developmental, transformative gap year program with very land based, indigenous, spiritual, developmental stuff going on. That's an example of a partner. Who else? Rob, what would be?
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, maybe like you want to say a bit about Catherine. Maybe not her specifically, but someone in that type of role or space.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah. So like my cousin is a somatic experiencing. Like she's a therapist with a lot of range in her approach and she's part of a collaborative of therapists that are just part of their mission is to serve populations and families differently through their therapeutic practice. So for example, that practice or something like that could be a partner that's working to address that family parental node on the mandala. What's Dan's organization? The Mind. Mindsight Institute. Could be mindsight, a partner for our work, either on the education node or the adult kind of business node. Leadership circle could be, I don't know, like organizations like that where we have relationships that are focused on practitioner development could be partners.
Rob Sinclair: So effectively they're another person or body who works directly with the kinds of beneficiaries that we want to be serving. And so we imagine them as a kind of inner circle with whom we're both learning from and sharing what we're synthesizing and learning back to them to be applied in their context. And we're creating and offering programs that would benefit their direct beneficiaries. So we sort of share an interest in serving the people they serve. And we're working directly with them to add value, create value with them as well.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. And moving on to beneficiaries who. Who do you guys see yourselves serving directly? Being your beneficiaries?
Rob Sinclair: I think for the sake of simplicity, there would be like in each of the three spaces the kind of like this is tough and help me here, Lauren. But because both the organizational space we have a kind of indirect beneficiary, like we're working with practitioners potentially who are a beneficiary group. But we're also working directly with leaders and teams in organizations who are a beneficiary group. So that kind of has two rings would be one way to think about it. Ultimately, the beneficiary is, you know, people in a position of authority or leadership. And sometimes we're working with the people who work with those people. Similarly, on the education side, ultimately the beneficiary are the, you know, the kids having a different attuned, relating experience because we've worked with the educators or the leaders in the education system.
Rob Sinclair: The beneficiary is that we would probably be working with are more the educators or people in the education field. And the ultimate beneficiary is the kids having a different experience. And then in the third space is, you know, if we're working with relationships, couples, families, the actual beneficiary of our work is probably the parents. And ultimately the down the line beneficiary is designed to be for the young humans being loved and nurtured in that system, you know, just to keep it simple.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. So how it, how focused is Triphora on? It's obviously very core, but how much of what you guys are doing is really directly for the kids and parents and future generation and education system?
Lauren Tenney: I mean, you could say 2/3 of it, like, because there's 3 points and 2 of them are about that. But yeah, I'm, I don't. There's a lot of ways I could think of what how much means. So I'm just sort of pausing because I'm like, well, if I just look at the areas where we want to drive energy and attention, there's two out of three of them are really centering young people. And it's not that the adult one isn't, but it's like, it's indirect. It's even more indirect.
Rob Sinclair: So yeah, we're centering developing humans across the lifespan. So that's young humans and young ish humans in two of the three categories and then adult humans who are still in important developmental stages. So it's like nurturing and then stewarding the next generation of more wise, relating humans.
James Redenbaugh: Lauren, you mentioned the three points. Which, which three points are those? Because we've had a lot of those.
Lauren Tenney: It's the dyad of parents, the unit of family, the one point. The next one would be like the educational space in which a young person is dropped like a tea bag and the people that are the adults that are doing the transmitting of educational Stuff with that young person. It's like that environment. So the learning spaces that are outside of the home that are not, I would say I would exclude from that even like traditional schooling or I would have like questions about whether Triphora is really working closely with traditional schooling because I think we're working in like a horizon to horizon three focus way around education. And so I think it might actually not touch the horizon one situation so much.
Lauren Tenney: And then I think the third space or group or node on the mandala is adults who are in their environments who are being shaped by stories of value that are destructive to their well being and destructive to life. And they're struggling to turn those into different directions. And they're also struggling to be connected and to be effectively connected with each other and to experience that their life force is going in a meaningful direction. And so all of those things have to get. It's like the adult therapy, consulting, coaching work. That's kind of all, it's all getting touched there. And those people are also parents. So you know, comes in a circle.
James Redenbaugh: Cool. But they don't have to be necessarily right it.
Rob Sinclair: My bum's cold. That's probably more information than you need.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Great. So very focused on future human development. And.
Lauren Tenney: We may not know James yet. Like for example, maybe homeschooling families and networks are a really perfect channel. Right. That we'll discover maybe alternative educational projects. And the funders of those projects are a really important channel for us. And we don't yet know that because like how are we meeting these people and becoming trusted partners of their vision of the world. So.
James Redenbaugh: Cool. Awesome. Yeah. So in sensing that the purpose is to impact the future and life on earth and you're seeing I think accurately that the greatest way to do that with the tools that you guys have is to affect future generations in these ways and the development of children from different angles and the empowerment of adults to develop themselves and become better leaders and developers and creators. Is that accurate?
Lauren Tenney: Yes. And I would add like with some emphasis and specificity like the pandemic of disconnection is precisely what we're trying to address on those three points. So like what is it that's actually happening is not anything that makes you feel good in those three points on the thing. It's like. No, actually it's attunement and connection oriented development. Because that's like there's a central something that we are animated by from a, like what we've been learning in our work and also you can go and read a lot of books about it. But where are you going and getting immersed in the context that shapes your ability to be an attuned connection centering parent or co worker, leader or educator. Like those contexts don't seem to exist very much.
Lauren Tenney: So there's an experiential focus that's like, it's not just because we have, there's great books, you can go read about that. But there's not community and there's not experience around it. So that matters there.
James Redenbaugh: Amazing.
Rob Sinclair: And it's tricky because we are, we have talked about, you know, thought leadership and like forwarding the understanding of these things. But to your point, Lauren, I think one of the major differentiators is we want to be actually creating the context where people can grow these muscles of deeper and more authentic relating and understanding how to be a more attuned caregiver for the people they interact with and actually doing participatory developmental work. Not just theoretical.
James Redenbaugh: And in my personal life my partner and I are back here in Philly and for the time being I, I used to as you know, facilitate these co living retreats in California. And my whole life there's been many community focus points in which I missed the Bay Area and the connections I had there. And Emily and I both now feel in a way more disconnected than ever. Even though we're closer to family and we have some friends here in Philly, there's not a lot of like minds. But we both know and have talked about this since we came together on the IF retreat that having kids will change us more than anything. And I can only imagine what it's going to be like to be a parent.
James Redenbaugh: But I can already intuit that the kinds of relationships that I will form with not only my kids, but other parents and their kids that are in my kids life. And you know, and we're gonna, we're gonna base ourselves based on where we think our kids are gonna grow the most, you know, and have the best life and hopefully be in some kind of a village. And you know, we know we'll enjoy that the most as well. And you know, they'll enjoy us if we're in a place that's really beautiful and fulfilling us. But I can just see the, the future web of relating that I really yearn for to be in as a parent as being this whole new echelon of community and connectedness.
James Redenbaugh: Like up until now I've just been in community school, you know, I'VE done a lot of experiments, but it doesn't really get real until we start creating the next generation and then start creating with them and learning from them. There's just sharing my understanding of the breadth and depth of possibilities that are there because there's very little conversation about that. Like people choose where to live based on their kids. They're like, oh, you know, we live in Phoenix. Our kids will go to this place, public school and you know, they get what they get. And it's like, who benefits from that? You know, why not be so much more intentional about all of this? And the more we learn about conscious parenting, the more we realize there is to learn. And it's just endless.
James Redenbaugh: Like we're not going to figure it out in this lifetime. I don't think it ever gets figured out. It's just the beginning of this field. Anyway. Now I'm.
Lauren Tenney: Well, yeah, so if I can like join you and say, yeah, it, this is partly my own suffering speaking, but it's my experience that parenting in this modern context is so deeply bucking over parents and children that a lot of the potential to be in community is actually limited by the profound exhaustion and isolation that families, the nuclear family structure conveys. And so like rare are the people who say, I'm going to live in an intentional community because this and rarer still are the communities that can do it well. And so on the one hand you have the yearning and on the other hand you have the modern reality where people know that they need something and want it.
Lauren Tenney: But I don't know a single person, I have not yet met a single person in my life of all the like minded people who was like, I'll sell my house and go like, even I am like, would I do that? Can I do that? Like, it's real. We all experience that. And so I think part of the dilemma, question, possibility space here is can we convene and cohere in a way that amplifies those desires and points out some possibilities, experientially provides tastes of those things so that God willing, some other families out there can say, let's do the thing together. Because I think the communing is what the deeper willingness to sacrifice from the individual for the community is part of our struggle and is part of the struggle of parenting and part of the struggle of the next generation.
Lauren Tenney: So there's a work there that has to do with like revealing possibility that I think I experienced the Triphora Heartbeat is doing something in that direction.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Awesome.
Rob Sinclair: Yes.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I'm very much waiting for that and looking for that because I really don't see it. I have some friends that are in some neat intentional communities, but it's way too rare and that seems ridiculous because I don't really know people that aren't somewhat interested in that, you know, and there's more and more of a deep yearning for that deep wanting to create villages with everybody I talk to now and it's like okay, where is it happening? And there's all these like giant like new city projects where we'll like top down design these like whatever bi cities that are probably going to feel like prisons. But where's the villages happening?
Rob Sinclair: So what if there were a. Go ahead.
James Redenbaugh: No.
Rob Sinclair: I was just gonna say like. Yeah, so when I dream into Triphora space it's like, okay, so what if there were a cohort of like minded parents or people planning to become parents growing their communing capacities, you know, like what kind of deep relating and understanding of all of our programs, you know, self interest and individuality and how that detracts from actual real communing. What if we actually had a place in a space to face all those things, digest that programming, metabolize it differently and equip ourselves to commune better. And wherever or however the communing then happens after that you're, we've done the equipping, the capacity building to relate differently, parent differently, commune differently. It's all about attuned conscious relations.
Lauren Tenney: Which by the way, this is a major economic issue because like, you know, so you're attuned but you have to pay for childcare because you have to work and you're exhausted and you're not able to be with your kid very much because you're busy doing all the other things that are logistical requirements of raising children. And you didn't realize what it was going to be like to be so deeply sleep deprived and to not see your friends and your family and for people to treat you like that's totally normal, which it's not. It's deeply traumatizing actually in some ways. So like that it's also an economic context that we want touch, which is like what would happen if families got therapeutic, let's say a grant? Like what would happen if every family had therapy?
Lauren Tenney: Every parenting couple in their first two years of child rearing had therapy freely given to them and what would happen if they had renewal retreats with other early parents where childcare was available and they could actually go and get some. Like we're talking about changing the story of human making because so much of what we do in our work in organizations is to repair slowly and painfully and in suboptimally the wounds that occurred. Because I was kind of just the product of a certain experience that my traumatized parents delivered to me. Right. Like. So, yeah, there's a lot of complexity here and we have to keep segmenting it. That's why I said to you at the beginning, like order of operations. Like I can talk all day like this and then I feel like what the. Where do I start?
Lauren Tenney: But the order of operations matters, but so does the seeing of the bigger field. Because resource movement may be one of the simplest things that we can do as Triphora. To move, to do good storytelling, to convene the right people and to move resource. That's the saprophytic kind of engine, I think Rob, or how would you say that?
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, yeah. It's that combination of things. Resource movement or capacity building. It's that like alchemical. We sit at the intersection of. We want to create a vehicle that can be a flow through of resources, that turn those resources into human capacities to relate and connect and restore a different story and enact a different story of what it means to be alive.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, that story weaving about, like, what's the story that makes you want to be in a village? Like, what is it that makes you realize that's what you need or helps you awaken to that? Like that's a space, you know, what's the activity there? I think story sharing. We like, it's like.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: So maybe can I ask at this point, James, what are you hearing and what do you need from us for like this first phase?
James Redenbaugh: Great question. So I am hearing and seeing the landscape of possibilities vehicle that you guys are co creating and the potential ripple effects that I find deeply exciting. And I'm also holding in my awareness what your flag might. Might look like and what might be written on it and what my draw. The kinds of people that you want to draw. You know, what can be both bold yet humble and nuanced, complex yet powerfully simple to for now be the invitation into connection with you guys. So you can keep creating this. So I'm thinking about words, but I'm also thinking about visuals and aesthetic and what kind of palette is. Is most appropriate here. I'm having no idea about colors yet, but I'm seeing lots of different structures. On our last call we talked about, you know, a hand drawn aesthetic in the beginning.
James Redenbaugh: I think that can be, that can be very appropriate. So much of what we're talking about is so new and non traditional. You know, it's very next horizon. And so I think that whatever we create needs to be accessible and you know, not perceived as like out there and hard to understand, but very out of the box. And I, I believe that the most powerful signals are transmitted through fractals. The most powerful antennas are fractals. The most powerful computer chips are these fractal things. A fractal is like also a plant and an ecosystem on. You know, if you look at the whole of it's resonating on the same frequency that as all of the parts are.
James Redenbaugh: And then people as they interact with it, whether they're grokking it or not, they can recognize is this the bat signal that's for them even if they didn't know that they were looking for that. So you mentioned the, you know, stories about why we should seek villaging. I think there's so many people that don't know that they should be seeking villaging or would be seeking villaging because the messages that they've had are, you know, Disney, Pixar, really basic understanding. Or that, you know, we're so enmeshed in this individualist culture where words like commune and communist or are demonized and we all need to be in these nuclear families. How do we break people out of that without. In the right place? So that was a lot. That was a big. I'm curious what's present for you guys right now.
Lauren Tenney: I think like one of the pieces that comes up for me, James is like break people out. Like when I just take in the language there it's, it comes up in me too. But what I notice is like lure or love are actually equally effective ways to get people out. Like the, like there's a trail of honey, you know, is sort of how it feels to me. So I just noticed from a way of being place that, that just comes up real quick. It's a big thing, but it's a small thing too. It's just like a. Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: Which is important in terms of the transmission.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: I love the language and the kind of the idea of fractal representation and experience.
Lauren Tenney: Love. Yes. And I just sent you, James are working on a Miro board which we've been doing.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: Resonates a lot of stuff on there, visual and aesthetic. I don't want to put this on you exclusively, Lauren, but I am leaning into Lauren's aesthetic sensibilities more than my own. But it's less my wheelhouse.
Lauren Tenney: I can narrate some of this too, James, when Rob has to drop off, but.
James Redenbaugh: Totally. And I'm gonna just share my screen even though I'm watching you. So, yeah, walk me through this. What's in here?
Lauren Tenney: Well, so the. If you zoom in there, where like the text on the watercolor is, you'll see the header like winter 23. So these were some images and some writing. We were doing a poem that's a good fractal, actually, that poem. So there's just a light collection there of some things and then there's some notes from us that are pasted to the left, which are the handwritten things. Just some stuff were tracking. But conversations. And that may or may not give you anything, but it's more stuff. And then we started doing just really quickly over the weekend, some image collection. And we each independently put stuff up there. So that's like clustered there around like imagery from winter 25. And it kind of goes. That cluster kind of goes there. So some of these are Rob and some of these are me.
Lauren Tenney: And we're going to find our alignment, but like, yeah, we can. You can ask about anything and we can say more. So.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Tell me about this guy.
Rob Sinclair: Just. I think what appeals to me is the three dimensional nature of a something representation. There isn't much more behind it than. Not necessarily. I was moving pretty quickly through some. What kinds of images distract me. The relational, interconnected nature of that. Whatever that is attracted me.
James Redenbaugh: And. And this one, the symmetry here.
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, similar. Like I. I'm. I'm drawn to the, you know, some of the symmetry that shows up in nature. Fibonacci type stuff and, you know, mandalas. And I just think, again, it's a fractal thing, like what we're depicting and how we represent things. Just beauty as a kind of beauty in there.
James Redenbaugh: Reminds me. This was a video I made 15 years ago. These flowers just.
Rob Sinclair: Oh, wow.
Lauren Tenney: I put in there, James, some architectural drawings, because not all architectural drawings are what I mean by that. So what I mean is like the hand drawn early stage, like conceptual sketching, not the refined pencil, like digitized stuff. And that similar aesthetic in the lovers imagery of the kind of the watercolor and the sort of unfinished nature, something about that comes up. And then this book, I pasted this is a book that I have, of which there are a few images, but this is like a book that was printed, but it was handwritten and then printed from that. And so you can see that the text and the font is handwriting, actually. And then it's illustrated with these kind of pencil sort of sketches. And it, the aesthetic is very unifying. Right.
Lauren Tenney: It's, it's of a piece, the whole expression of the thing is congruent with the content. And that quality is really. That congruence is really something. So wanted to share that.
Rob Sinclair: Yeah.
Lauren Tenney: And then there's a PDF I just added, which is the brown one up there with this orange sticky note on it and that you should take a look at the whole PDF, because the content, the approach to their research, their sensibility as well as their illustrations, like, I find the illustrations not only beautiful and appealing to me, but like congruent with their work. So.
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, yeah. In terms of a transmission, that's just a wonderful example of how they put language and imagery and, yeah, Their process all into an artifact. Excellent.
James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Great. I'll prove this.
Lauren Tenney: So I think there's a lot more that we could get, you know, shaken up by and aligned around that. We don't even know where to look for it. But.
Rob Sinclair: I have this image in my mind and it was. I'm just going to jump in and share this. Stop me if it's not helpful, but Lauren, when were doing the visioning stuff on the big piece of paper and I got the idea in my mind, or we did. I don't remember the sequencing of it, but the. That there would be a kind of depiction of the triangle, you know, kind of ecosystem. One that is about the who, you know, it's like, who are the partners? Who are the beneficiaries? One that's about like the story, but like a similar depiction, just different content. One that's got like the story of what's happening in family systems or what's happening in the educational space, what's happening in adult life.
Rob Sinclair: One that's about like our content, that's like, you know, this is what we believe and what makes a difference. So I don't know, I have this image of like. Or the idea of some kind of a depiction of the triangle. Three spaces as an ecosystem of some kind that then we populate with slightly different content. I don't know if you layers and whether those are different pages or they're kind of three dimensional, I don't know. But. But I'm going to Just pause there and add to that.
James Redenbaugh: Cool.
Lauren Tenney: Is this a client website, James?
James Redenbaugh: Huh? I made this a few years ago. I just thought of this. The triads that they have here, this is a pentagon, but this is a nice kind of interactive thing. Obviously very clean aesthetic. This one's pretty clean as well. It's regenerative architects. Another interactive triading.
Rob Sinclair: Nice. Yeah.
Lauren Tenney: I really love James, the last one you were just on. I love the like pageless, expansive quality there.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah, yeah, it's.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah, the transmission of the thing through the. Yeah.
Rob Sinclair: Anyway. Yeah. Wow.
James Redenbaugh: And then other pages are more contained, but they all have this, a different background and we wanted everything to feel like it's on this kind of sheet of glass. For the Triphora, I'm thinking in the first iteration at least for it to feel like a big piece of paper. Maybe even have a parchment texture to it and maybe it's even navigated in a non traditional way. Maybe, maybe it even is kind of like a Miro board where you don't have to just, you know, scroll down and put all the content in a big list. There could be three different directions that you move based on, you know, you click into something and it moves to the upper right. You click it and then you can navigate and you can zoom out all those things. Anything's possible in webflow.
James Redenbaugh: We could, we could create a custom font, a handwritten font that's unique to you guys and you know, feels handmade but is still readable and is still accessible and, you know, readable by. With assistive technology, we can have different spaces that you feel like you're entering into and then the content is presented in a more poetic way. And yeah, I think it's right for a V1. We're gonna have to look at what's the, you know, what are the handful of techniques that we want to employ to make something really powerful and achievable. So we should also, we should start. Not start with, but start right away thinking about content and structure and what are we actually going to put on this page? What do you want to say right now? And we'll design the user interface around that, you know, to best frame that.
James Redenbaugh: So what is your sense right now? What wants to be included in this V1 in terms of content?
Lauren Tenney: Well, there's definitely the storytelling at some level of detail that we have to do about the three spaces or points. I think there's also some who like want there to be some who. Who's here rolling up their sleeves right now to do this, and also who's in the influencing of our thinking and envisioning. I think that both of those matter.
Rob Sinclair: Yeah, I don't want to oversimplify, but, like a why, who? What would be one way to think about it? A little bit of, like, why the why story? What are we up to? Why do we believe this matters? And then there's the who's here and like you said on who's here and who's a four for a little bit. And then a little bit of the what, like, what is what's been shaping us? What are we offering or conceiving of? And yeah, like, I don't think we need any kind of call to action type thing, but there's an invitational tone that I think we're trying to convey.
Lauren Tenney: I mean, a call to action could be connect with us and people can reach out to both of us. Maybe book time. That might be like the obvious kind of call to action for now. Yeah, Just thinking about that.
Rob Sinclair: Reach out and reconnect. I am needing to make a move at this point.
James Redenbaugh: Cool.
Rob Sinclair: So I'm gonna leave the two of you to wrap. But I really appreciated what you were saying, James, about conveying, you know, enough nuance and complexity, but also powerful simplicity, having it be accessible. You know, like, I love what you said about a sort of Miro board type navigation. And yet, you know, we don't want it to be so far outside the box that people get confused and lost on a site and we have to retrain people how to think about how to use a website. So finding that delicate balance of accessibility and outside the box. Yeah, there was a number of notes that you hit there that felt really great.
Rob Sinclair: And if we're now into the practicalities of, yeah, let's write some words and send them to you, and we can continue, you know, looking at sites and dropping images and things like that hopefully fuel your creativity. But I, at this point, open for you to kind of take a driver's seat and tell us what you need from us. And away we go.
James Redenbaugh: Great. Wonderful. Well, thanks, Rob and Lauren. We can just take a few more minutes to discuss next steps and some practical things. But, yeah, I'm excited to continue the process and give you some things to work on and start working on some things myself.
Rob Sinclair: Amazing. Yeah, thank you, James. I'm super excited and very grateful that you're joining us here on this adventure. And thanks, Lauren, for holding this while I go play in the snow a little More.
Lauren Tenney: Have fun.
Rob Sinclair: Thank you. I'll see you real soon.
James Redenbaugh: Ciao.
Rob Sinclair: Bye.
Lauren Tenney: I haven't teased yet, Rob, yet, but some of the things he added here, I was like, no, no. Like, is that a gladiola? I hate gladiolas.
James Redenbaugh: Is it? Are they still on here? Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, you guys can point that out.
Lauren Tenney: Keep highlighting things for you. I stuck sticking on the ones that I was like, oh, I like that.
James Redenbaugh: Nice.
Lauren Tenney: That's interesting.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah. Awesome. So, yeah, I think you guys can start to organize content in. In Miro as well. You can start with sticky notes also. So really tiny.
Lauren Tenney: Whenever we go to visioning, James, like, we did this with a big sheet of paper on Friday last week. I start by, like, drawing the big triangle. It's like, it's just how we usually start. And I think it's because it's the compass. Mandala of the whole story. Yeah. That keeps happening.
James Redenbaugh: Great. Do you think that this initial page will be. Will be one page? Do you think it'll be a homepage and an about. Are you even thinking about that yet?
Lauren Tenney: Well, so far, when I imagine it, I imagine there's some. What. What is encountered first is more of the story, and then there's somewhere you would click to see who the people are. So, yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Mm. I don't need to create all this for you, but. But just to get the ball rolling and how you can think about things and use this tool. So let's say we can have home.
Rob Sinclair: Here.
James Redenbaugh: Team, slash people. You can add other pages as needed. Just drop things in. Let's use blue or white for ideas. And then if you have content that you're working on that you think will, you know, could end up on the website, let's put those in green stickies and, you know, add. Add stickies as needed. Image ideas can be yellow.
Lauren Tenney: Great.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah.
Lauren Tenney: And I. I don't. I know that, like, my aesthetic is always not in my budget, so I know that about myself just generally in the world. But, like, when I think about, like, something that's drawn on textured paper, you know, like the way watercolor paper is textured or something. And. And, like, the experience I have initially in my imagination is. And this is just one possibility, but, like, I arrive and it's. And it's drawn like, it's drawn. And then. So there's some way that I'm experiencing it coming into being, and then I can interact with it. But I appreciate that I have no knowledge about what it actually means to make something do that. So I just want you to know I'm really naive. Like if I were a home builder, the finishing people would be like, oh my God, it's a cash cow.
Lauren Tenney: Because she has no idea what she's asking for in terms of. So just like, I just want to own that naive thing going on here.
James Redenbaugh: Cool. No worries, no worries. We'll figure it out. You can share all the ideas and then I'll reel them in as needed and we can focus on what's going to bring the most value with the least amount of effort. So, you know, in any idea you have, there's going to be an expensive way to do it and there's going to be an easy way to do that. So like maybe it's just a loading animation where, you know, part of what's there is drawn in and then it appears and maybe all the text, we just put a simple effect on it. So when you scroll to fades in one character at a time, like somebody's writing it right there, you know, that kind of thing is easy enough. Right.
Lauren Tenney: Okay, so to keep the visions coming.
James Redenbaugh: You'Ll filter, I'll shoot them down. Okay. Hopefully not too much. Yeah. And.
Rob Sinclair: Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: And so for March, we're going to kind of scope things into this Prism scale. Right. And get as much done as we can on this with that budget and get a simple V1 up. You know, it might even better to think about it as like a V 0.5 or something like that. Yep. And then it can evolve from there and. Yeah. Any questions about the process?
Lauren Tenney: Well, I guess my question would be are you. What do you need from us? When maybe is the question.
James Redenbaugh: So it would be great if midweek next week we could have a sketch of the content that's going to go on the website and I'm happy to help with that, but at this point it's probably better to focus my efforts on the visual stuff. If you're, you know, if you're getting, I'll give you my WhatsApp number and if you're getting stuck about what you think you should go on there. Want to run something by me? You know, shoot me a message? I'm happy to talk to you about it, but I'll let you guys think on that and have a, you know, high level view of what's going to go on there and then we can create a wireframe from that. At the same time, I'm going to be pondering aesthetics.
James Redenbaugh: I might start looping in Lunia, who's a really wonderful designer that I work with, to have her start thinking about things as well. Probably share this video with her and see what she starts to create in a. In a few hours around some possibilities for the brand. Also looking at typography, colors. How do we, how do we write Triphora? How do we want to emblemize it? We're going to have to be like touch. You know, we could easily spend 1800 on a logo process. So.
Lauren Tenney: V. What I mean, a logo can be at 0.5 level.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah. Yeah. It can evolve and it can feel hand drawn. Sometimes a good hand drawn feeling is more difficult than. Yeah, I understand a clean circle, but let's find a good starting place. We can have her start to iterate stuff. We'll get your feedback on it and take it from there. Put the, put the pieces together over the next few weeks, start to see it take shape. I think that we'll use webflow to build it out. I can't think of a reason to use a different tool and so we'll start playing in that space when the time comes and also lose Figma to. To do actual designs. I think Mira's gonna be a good place for mood boarding and collecting and we can share some things here as well. I'll. I can.
James Redenbaugh: If I have added access, I can drop some things in here to get your tick on them. We might do the same and. Yeah. And then we can. I don't think we have to. I'm happy to schedule calls in advance, but I think we should play things more or less by year but stay in close communication around what we're doing, what we're liking, what we're moving forward on and steer dynamically until we have something that you guys are stoked to put online with your name on it.
Lauren Tenney: Yeah. Yeah. Great. I'm just zooming in on that. That's wonderful. That process feels great. James. I was just zooming in on that PDF because one of the things if you click through it you'll see like there's not a ton of illustrations, but there's a way that the. Their use of color is really. It's really great. I think artistically. And the way that they flip between a kind of white back, brown back and then the. I'm looking for another illustration page. Yeah. Like page 10 has another beautiful different. And they're all from the natural world and they have that old botanicals kind of aesthetic going on. So I just noticed. Yeah. Something you said made me jump to color and feeling. But I agree, like close loop. Play it by ear.
Lauren Tenney: Have us iterate and keep it like we know we're V05 just to kind of stay in that story. Yeah.
James Redenbaugh: Cool. Awesome. Great. We can also use AI in key ways. Like if we have a diagram that we want to be in a certain style, I can. There's different image generators that I can use to feed in that diagram and then have it make it in this kind of illustrated style and have flowers growing off of it and things like that without having to draw them off ourselves.
Lauren Tenney: : Well, I haven't. Not my world, but I'm glad it's yours.
James Redenbaugh: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Well, thanks for taking the time today.
Lauren Tenney: Thank you. Rob and I will get into the words awesome.
James Redenbaugh: And I will be really important to.
Lauren Tenney: Us on that because you can tell there's a lot of incarnation has to happen, you know.
James Redenbaugh: Y. Yep. Great. My WhatsApp number is in the bottom of my email signature. Feel free to message me there. I tend to respond there faster than email. Okay, bye. Email spawning too. And yeah, I'll follow up soon about. About next steps.
Lauren Tenney: Amazing. Thank you, James. Travel safe.
James Redenbaugh: Thank you. Take care.