todays.

I spent this past weekend at the inaugural Matrix Leadership Conference, which was wonderful and challenging and utterly exhausting. I came into the weekend (it began Thursday night) expecting a series of workshops and trainings on more traditional forms of leadership, and instead got tsunami-ed by a intense, processed-oriented marathon on systemic inequity and internalized oppression and the mysterious and ineffable keenings of group fields and the Gordian knots of organizational forces. Wrestling with that frustration--my initial irritation at being confronted with issues that I didn't feel I had the emotional wherewithal to hold, and the sadness of realizing this anger should not be directed at the conference, but at the fact that such problems exist in this world--was itself a lesson, though, and if nothing else, I'm relieved that it's Monday and to be back in my own happily-chosen work-culture.

Phew.

And speaking of, the big news at work today was the welcoming of the Natural Habitat crew to our Gaiam headquarters. Our entire office moved recently from a rented place in Broomfield to our very own (yay!), much larger, building just outside Boulder, and Natural Habitat took this opportunity to move from their own space in with us. So far the best part about this co-habitation has been how many four-legged creatures came with them: pattering about the boxes and shipping crates were a small army of dogs, all of whom seem to have quite comfortably made themselves at home. There's nothing like seeing a creature blissfully sprawled out on the floor to remind me to just relax--especially those days where I'm chewing my nails over spreadsheets.

In other work-related news, Jackson and Chris started today on our major end-of-summer project (beginning-of-summer was all under-the-hood-stuff; hopefully you've noticed a significant improvement in site speed and performance). We're going to have a few mock-ups of a revamped navigation (both a new user interface and a much much much better--we hope!--user experience) to show off soon, and with any luck it won't be long before Gaia is easier and more efficient for all you long-time members to make use of, and more welcoming and understandable for our brand-newbies. I'm excited about this (I'm a big believer in the necessary relationship between style and substance, and I'm looking forward to having the look and feel of the site better reflect our values of peacefulness and harmony and expansive awareness and compassion...), and can't wait to show off our first drafts.

It's also Rommel's birthday. Make sure you send some love his way. :)