Welcome to Symbiotic Culture.
I’m Richard Flyer, and I am happy to see you here - and be in support of a society where mutually beneficial relationships and collaborations amongst diverse groups of people, from family to neighborhood to community, nation, and planet, become the norm.
I’ve also launched this Symbiotic Culture Substack to share my book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age: An Ancient Blueprint for a New Creation — with an audacious plan to help YOU activate Heaven on Earth.
Essentially, humanity is moving into a new Symbiotic Age.
The book launch took place on December 7th, 2023 - it was only the start of a weekly series, really a several-month process to release the first two-thirds of the book, starting in January 2024.
It’s more about launching a public conversation and a campaign for Symbiotic Culture than a traditional book launch. Check out the article links below to get a flavor, and/or go to the BOOK TABLE of CONTENTS to see what parts of the book have been made live!
I chose December 7th because that date was the 65th anniversary of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. I wanted my book to coincide with that milestone as Symbiotic Culture is based, in part, on this world-renowned grassroots people's movement.
Please SUBSCRIBE so that you will receive the continuing release of the book, right to your email.
I am sharing the first two book sections (out of three). A learning and practicing community (both online and face-to-face) will be encouraged, where I will teach you more about Symbiotic Culture as a unifying worldview — through additional articles and videos on the pulse of Symbiotic Culture.
CHECK OUT PREVIOUS ARTICLES:
READ the BOOK SYNOPSIS HERE
Symbiotic Age Book Table of Contents
Symbiotic Culture Strategy
I will actively engage with you through your comments, regular live video streams, and community growth — so subscribe and share your thoughts.
Please invite your colleagues, friends, family, neighbors, people in your local community, even your book club, etc., so we can build a Symbiotic Culture globally AND in your local community.
History of Symbiotic Culture
Symbiotic Culture is an outgrowth of 40+ years of experience developing practical community tools to transform local, bioregional communities into ecosystems of Love and Collaboration. We’ve learned profound but practical methods of building community.
This book will share a unifying worldview that arises from what I call an “Ancient Blueprint.” I see this as a lineage that, in my view, goes back to Jesus teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, through Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of a new society, and made real today in the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement in Sri Lanka founded by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne — whose work will be featured throughout.
The Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka is a 60-year-old effort involving 15,000 villages — active as a national network of 5,000+ interdependent local community Sarvodaya Shramadana Societies.
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, as their on-the-ground success has inspired me to translate their principles to the West.
What you will learn
Symbiotic Culture helps you activate Heaven on Earth in your family, neighborhood, local organizations, and throughout your whole local region.
Learn to apply a unifying worldview with universal principles, purposes, and virtues and how to make this real in your community around 12 common community needs with a community network approach.
Learn how to transform what we call “tribalized silos” --- the fragmentation of society into competing organizations --- by using a method we call Symbiotic Networks.
Mission and Vision
Symbiotic Culture’s mission is to help you connect locally and beyond with other innovators and experimenters --- pioneers of a new culture. Our audacious vision is a global Commonwealth of Empowered Regional Economies. We help build up "micro" bioregional ecosystems, aggregating the spiritual, cultural, social, and economic capital within and between existing nonprofits, for-profits, government, and social enterprises. We share tools that work on building symbiotic culture at the level of an individual, a neighborhood, and a bioregion --- through scalable cultural recovery groups. We create alliances with local and global networks that align with Intentional Mutual Benefits in all relationships.
About Richard Flyer
It’s been a journey of 50 years, with 40 years experimenting in the community of one kind or another to figure out the most relevant form of service I can offer. I’m now launching Symbiotic Culture globally to support local people in communities who want to learn how to practice symbiotic culture and build symbiotic networks and communities. My book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age: An Ancient Blueprint for a New Creation, was released on December 7th, 2023 (the Introduction) and then as a weekly serial on Substack in early January 2024. I will continue to write stories and blogs and make videos of emerging new world.
I am also adding voice-overs to each of my book chapter posts for anyone who doesn’t have the time to sit and read the full post. These voiceovers can also be found as podcast episodes on Spotify and Apple.
You can find me at this Spotify Podcast Link or Apple Podcast Link.
Born in San Antonio, Texas; then “grew up” in Alexandria, VA, then Monterey, CA, off to Santa Cruz, CA, San Diego, CA, off to Reno, NV, then, Sri Lanka, Kauai and Oahu, HI. Currently, I am working on various regenerative projects in Sri Lanka, a syntropic food forest project in North Kohala, Big Island, Hawaii, and a Local Food System Network in Oahu. Dividing time in Southern Germany and Hawaii.
I had significant “spiritual awakenings” as a 12-year-old, and on that led me to become the person I am today. I have met some amazing teachers along the way. A Vietnam Veteran and peace activist in San Diego who taught me about Christianity and service. In the early 1980s, a Zen mediator in San Diego introduced me to meditation and dream work, to an Aztec/Christian indigenous medicine woman/shaman in Mexico who taught me what Love and Service in action are, and to a Tibetan Buddhist Rimpoche who taught me meditation.
Finally, I met Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, who founded the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement in Sri Lanka and put it together in one of the world’s most significant grassroots mass movements.
My wife, Marta, has shown me what unconditional love is and being a true life-mate and soul-mate. Went through 3 life phases: Book Section 1: Formation, from 1971-1991, building inner character and virtues, guided by teachers, and some community experiments. Book Section 2: Application, from 1991-2022, putting into action what I learned. Book Section 3: Activation, being available globally to support local bioregions in their empowerment to build a new society as local communities collectively envision them.
