Welcome. We are Cosmos Co-op!
We are bringing together great writers, artists, musicians, and other creatives to produce exceptional work while building a vibrant community—all as part of a member-owned cooperative.
Cosmos is a community for people who value consciousness, creativity, and collaboration. We are building a new model for literature and the arts, with cooperative ownership at its heart. This model lets us share the benefits of our work equitably with our members—empowering artists and involving supporters in our work.
We’ve been mindfully incubating Cosmos since 2016, producing a literary arts journal, publishing visionary books, and hosting an indie community forum. Now we’re ready to formally launch our cooperative model, welcome new members, and come out to the world—AND WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
YOU can catalyze our creative evolution. Your support will directly enable us to fulfill our visionary mission: to connect, educate, and inspire in service to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the world. That includes the ability to:
- Begin to pay our core staff of writers, editors, and artists a living wage while we build sustainable income streams through memberships, product sales, and events.
- Hire marketing and publicity support to introduce more people to our members’ work and educate the public about the value of the cooperative model.
- Issue official shares in the co-op, welcome philanthropic benefactors, and invite social-impact investors by completing our legal review and ratifying our Constitution.
- Create an enjoyable and effective space for connection, inspiration, dialogue, learning, and exchange by building out our websites and online infrastructure.
- Take care of the not-so-glamorous yet essential nuts & bolts of running a cooperative enterprise, such as bookkeeping and accounting.
Join the Evolution!
As a supporter, first and most importantly, you’ll get to join our community, including through local gatherings and our online forum, Infinite Conversations—where you can connect with other members, talk about topics that matter to you in a supportive and thoughtful environment, and participate in the development of our co-op.
You’ll also get invited to our monthly community meet-ups, as well as local events if you happen to be in the Colorado area—or, if you become a member, we’ll help promote meet-ups in your own locale. We are building a movement of people who are passionate about consciousness, creativity, and collaboration, which entails fostering a global network of cooperative cultural cells.
In this time of economic uncertainty, social strife, and political division, there may be no resource more important than having a healthy community that is committed to creative problem-solving, respectful dialogue, and mutual support. With our focus on spiritual values, creative expression, and cooperative action, we seek to overcome the limiting beliefs, narrow-minded thinking, and extractive structures that currently plague our world.
Of course, there are other perks for supporters too! These include:
- Cross-promotion for your event, project, or organization in our weekly newsletters and social media pages (with 1000+ subscribers and growing)
- Thank-you gifts, including books from our imprint, Untimely Books, original art from our creative members, and Cosmos-branded swag
- Discounts on future courses, workshops, retreats, concerts, and author events
- Access to community meet-ups, Cosmos Café discussions, and our literary journal, Metapsychosis
- Listing as a member, partner, benefactor, or collaborator in our member directory—an invaluable resource for connecting with other like-minded creatives
Whether you just want to show your support and stay in the loop through occasional updates, or you want to dive deeper and get involved as a community member, there is a level of support that is right for you.
With your contribution, the money we bring in through this crowdfunding campaign, no matter how little or how much, will go to support our cooperative mission: to connect, educate, and inspire in service to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the world.
This funds our ability to publish books, produce multimedia projects, host live events, develop curricula focused on creativity and cooperation, and promote our members’ groundbreaking work.
Eight+ Years Building a Solid Foundation
One reason you can feel confident about contributing to Cosmos Co-op is that we already have a solid foundation of building community and getting projects done. Since 2016, when we hosted our first reading group and launched our literary arts journal, Metapsychosis, we have had a consistent ethos and purpose: to nurture creative relationships and produce original work from the evolving edges of contemporary culture, in service of a higher good. In our journal, we’ve published over 400 pieces (including essays, stories, poetry, visual art, music, and film) by 125 contributors and counting.
Through our book publishing imprint Untimely Books, we have produced 8 full-length titles in a variety of genres. These include:
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Reality Is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things (philosophy/e-book), by J.F. Martel
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Plenum: The First Book of Deo, by Geoffreyjen Edwards (science fiction)
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Masks of Origin, by Brian George (visionary essays)
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Key to the Highway, by Richard Andrews (mythological/adventure fiction)
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Portraits, by Maia (poetry)
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Ulfhildr, by Mary Thaler (epic poetry)
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Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language, by Lisa Maroski (philosophy)
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The Pressing Stones, by Andrea van de Loo (memoir)
Peek Under the Hood of Cosmos Co-op…
Our small yet mighty team of writers, editors, and artists has invested thousands of hours developing our own and each others' creative work—and just as many refining our organizational model. There is an archive of hundreds of recorded discussions in our forum, Infinite Conversations, going back even before Cosmos was incorporated (as an L.C.A., or Limited Cooperative Enterprise, in the state of Colorado) in 2016. We have a complete financial record going back to our founding, have filed tax returns through the current year, and have already completed the bulk of our legal review with the support of Pathlight Law, a firm specializing in social enterprises, nonprofits, cooperatives, and community investment funds, based in Oakland, CA.
Our team combines many decades of life, educational, professional, and creative experience, and includes the following founding members, partners, and collaborators:
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Marco V Morelli – poet, writer, editor, and publisher; author of I AM THE SINGULARITY(forthcoming)
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Kayla Morelli – graphic, web, and book designer
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Geoffreyjen Edwards – editor and science-fiction author of Plenum: The First Book of Deo (the first book of the 15-volume Ido Chronicles Series)
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Mary Thaler – editor and author of Ulfhildr (poetry chapbook)
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Brian George – editor and author of Masks of Origin: Regression in the Service of Omnipotence(visionary essays)
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Andrea van de Loo – author of The Pressing Stones: The Healing Journey of a Nazi's Daughter
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Caroline Savery – business designer & developer, poet-songwriter, producer and director; founder of Fractal Praxis (fractalpraxis.com)
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Ben Williams – Assistant Professor of Hinduism at Naropa University; scholar of counter-cultural lineages
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M. Ellie Wilkins – author and therapist, writing about her journey through grief and child loss
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Heather Fester – poet, essayist, and author of Discarded Maps (forthcoming)
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Maía – poet and artist, author of Portraits
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Richard Andrews – author of Key to the Highway (novel)
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Lisa Maroski – author of Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language: Expressing the Unity and Complexity of Integral Consciousness
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Sheela Bringi – musician and co-founder of the Sacred Sound Lab
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Katherine Eid Wild – storyteller, filmmaker, and performance artist, Wild Storytelling
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Katie Teague – filmmaker, Money & Life
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Kabir Kadre – poet, writer, consultant, coach, and founder of Open Field Awakening
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Lamella Matsangos – gender theorist, author of The Male Lesbian Manifesto (forthcoming)
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Chase Griffin – author of How to Play a Necromancer's Theremin (Maudlin House)
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Ana Graham – artist, musician, astrologer, and technologist.
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Lesley Ewen – actor (theater, film, television, voice), teacher, photographer—"voice of the Cosmos"
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Chris Rippey – musician, composer, and teacher
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Miguel Halverson-Ramos – musician and teacher, founding member of Cabaret Diosa (infamous Colorado-based mambo orchestra)
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Katie Pendergast – Sacred Web Design
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Benjamin Pierce – poet and artist, author of Odes to the Secret Canons (forthcoming)
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Ed Mahood – cosmic curmudgeon, Cosmos Café & Infinite Conversations regular
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Michael Stumpf – cosmic surfer dude, Cosmos Café & Infinite Conversations regular
We have also been fortunate to develop a productive relationship with a local non-profit public media maker-space in Colorado, Longmont Public Media, which provides audio and video production facilities, along with a performance venue. At LPM we’ve been able to host events, as well as record music, poetry, our first audiobook, and even some of the footage you see in our promo video above. Some LPM members have become regular and invaluable volunteers for Cosmos productions, including:
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Erik Brack – videographer; host & producer of the Infinite Conversations podcast (in development)
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Roger Dinardi – musician and audio engineer
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Phil Hainline – director, video productions
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Aldo Johnson – photographer, videographer
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T.G. Lewis – producer, Captn's Lounge Studios; videographer
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Steve Pittman – videographer
With all the work we’ve done up to the present, the purpose of this crowdfunding campaign is to help us take the next big steps. These include:
- Completing our formal set-up as a cooperative organization with official membership, including completing the legal review and ratification of our Constitution
- Issuing shares in the co-op, including to founding members and new members
- Marketing our members’ work and building publicity for the co-op
- Updating our websites, technology, and internal systems to manage our growing community
- Providing support for our worker members while we build our income streams through memberships, product sales, and event offerings
All the Ways You Can Help
Your support is critical to helping us co-create this creative community and social movement:
- Contribute to our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign at whatever level you can, and claim your perk!
- Join the conversation in our community forum: Infinite Conversations.
- Become a Supporting Member of Cosmos Co-op, apply to become a Creative Member, or ask how your organization can partner with us.
- Get involved with our community organizing, play a role in our cooperative, or take up leadership in a specific domain.
- Purchase a book from untimelybooks.com, and leave a review.
- Tell your friends about Cosmos Co-op! Use the Indiegogo share tools on this page to share our vision with the world!
THANK YOU!!!