Arden-Marie and I share our household with our cat Tess (or Princess Tess, as she prefers to be called!) and she rules the house. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lived there until age 29. Since then, I have lived in the Bay Area (twice) for short stints and lived a longer time in the Seattle area.

During my late teens I became involved with Zen practice, and I lived at the Zen Center of Los Angeles for almost eight years. This was my first (and generally positive) experience of community. In the years since then, I have been involved in a variety of Buddhist groups. More recently, I have been interested in integral theory (a la Ken Wilber), and I see it as a useful guide for community diagnosis and development. As I have entered mid-life, my "Jewish roots" have called to me, and I am now a member of Pardes Levavot (a Jewish Renewal congregation in Boulder).

Professionally, I have had a varied career (or careers!). My first "career" was as a Zen monk; I was also Treasurer and Director of Training at the Zen Center during this time. Following this, I was briefly the general manager of a small business, and then a corporate accountant. More recently, I was a university professor in the Seattle area for a decade, teaching organizational behavior and management. Since then, I have had a small life coaching practice. Although I have had several careers already, I would like personal/spiritual/community development to be the focus of my remaining "worklife". Thus, I am currently in career transition, and I am “visioning” my next career to be more in alignment with my interests.

My personal interests include reading (mainly fantasy and spiritually-oriented nonfiction), watching movies, and hanging out at home. I am a contemplative by nature, and have done some tai chi and yoga over the years. While exercise is not my favorite activity, I plan to be more active and disciplined in the coming years!

In 2002, Arden-Marie and I moved to California, where we lived for a couple of years. However, we found the culture (and the year-round heat!) not to our liking. We visited Boulder in the summer of 2004, and fell in love with the place. By November 2004 we were living at Wild Sage Cohousing (across the street from Silver Sage). Although there have been some twists and turns since then, we’re happily anticipating being back in Boulder and living at Silver Sage!

Susan Booker

Greetings. My name is Susan Booker and I currently live at Nyland Cohousing in Lafayette with my partner Susan Brooks. You can call me Booker as I've found it a good way to lessen the confusion of two Susans living in the same house. I'm also a librarian so that helps some people remember which of us is which Susan. I also work with several Susans, and at Nyland there are 4 of us with that name. If you call for "Susan", don't worry about which one - we're used to figuring it out.

I've been a librarian for 25 years. I trained to become an art therapist, but decided that I was already on the right path. I love libraries as safe harbors for divergent ideas, the way they make resources (computers, books, CDs, videos and more) available to people who otherwise couldn't afford them, and the community centers they have evolved into.

Art making is one of my passions, along with developing my friendships and cleaning out the old, useless stuff inside (harder than cleaning house). Doing art, meditation, yoga, and plain old breathing make up my spiritual practice.

I'm drawn to Silver Sage because I like the idea of experiencing an urban environment. Living in community has given my lots of opportunity for spiritual/emotional/psychological growth. Silver Sage promises me more of the same.

Susan Brooks

Hello. My name is Susan Brooks. I currently live at Nyland Cohousing in Lafayette with my partner, Susan Booker. My architectural thesis was on aging process, community, and housing so I've been thinking about environments in which to age for a long time. I'm getting older myself now, so Silver Sage seems like a way to put into practice some of those ideas.

I've changed careers a number of times but all with my major interest in mind - architecture. I've been a real estate agent and a building contractor (residential remodels and small additions). I am now working as a project manager in an architectural firm in Boulder.

Animals are a major passion in my life. I enjoy important relationships with our chocolate lab, Shira and our tabby cat, Chester. I think we can learn a lot from animals, on all kinds of levels, including what some would call a spiritual level. Hiking and enjoying nature are also a part of my spiritual life, too.

I try to contribute to the world by generally taking an interest in and caring for my surroundings, both aesthetically and environmentally. Coming from a newspaper family background I like to keep up with the news of the day and debate the many sides to various issues.

Brownie Leach

Hello. My name is Brownie Leach and I live in Boulder CO. I was a language major in college and I have been teaching English as a 2nd Language for 15 years. I am interested in walking, hiking, biking, cooking, travel, listening to live music, recycling, conservation of our resources, public transportation and finding good bargains.

I want to be in Silver Sage because I believe that community will make a big difference to me as I grow older. I really like the idea of ìspiritual elderingî, rather than just going downhill (in more ways than one), now that I am over 60. I look forward to making the most of my later years; and being a guardian of the planet. I am interested in sharing ideas and ups and downs with my Silver Sage friends.

I set a good example with recycling and conservation of water and electricity. I encourage friends (and strangers) to use public transportation, and hope to car share in community. I will make a good team member, and would be glad to help with various projects. I donít carry a tune as well as I used to, but Iím an enthusiastic and animated singer. I plan to find some very tasty and healthy common main dishes, and share them with everyone.

Jim Leach

Hello, I’m Jim Leach. I was born and raised to high school age in Michigan, but have lived and worked in Boulder since 1957. . I enjoy the ambiance of Boulder and the Colorado mountains and like to hike, bike, and ski. Boulder has been a great creative environment in which to both live and work. .

I have spent my working life as a designer, homebuilder, and developer of environmentally progressive housing and neighborhoods. I discovered community as the secret ingredient in sustainability relatively late in life and for the last 15 or so years I have been trying to figure out how to make cohousing development a successful business venture. During that time I have discovered that community is indeed a messy process, but one that can yield many valuable rewards.

I am currently president of Wonderland Hill Development Company, although hoping to retire from that position soon, and have a partnership with Katie McCammant and Rick Mockler in Cohousing Partners LLC in California. I get to go to California, my second favorite state, often.

I am excited about working with other neighbors to create an incredible living environment over the next few years at Silver Sage. I enjoy gardening and the prospect of using our workshop and other facilities to enhance our sense of place. I am looking forward to cooking outdoors in our shared outdoor kitchen and socializing with neighbors. I also hope to further explore with a diverse group of neighbors and friends the spiritual aspect of aging and aging in place, and to harvesting our collective wisdom for future generations.

Having grown up in Montana loving both the out of doors and intellectual and cultural pursuits, I admit to having a checkered past. I came to Boulder to the University of Colorado, studying dance, English Literature, and Philosophy. I was a child bride, quickly having two children while young and flexible and able to recover in three days instead of three years. After ten years of 60s and 70s wild- and crazi-ness I retreated to the Idaho backwoods to recuperate and have two more kids, homebirthing, gardening, midwifing, running a dance studio and Modern dance company, eventually owning and managing a full service restaurant. After some years of bailing cooks out of jail, baking huckleberry muffins and pies in the wee hours, teaching teenagers how to wait tables and make change, I retreated again, this time back to Boulder where I've been ever since, except for occasional trips to the big cities or the backwoods.

Currently I have a practice of movement education, employing Gyrotonic, Trager Mentastics and hands on tablework, and Continuum Wellsprings movement and hands on work. I am deeply passionate in sharing decades of movement exploration with all kinds of people, aiming always toward the fullest expression of life. I love time in the out of doors, singing with Resonance Women's Choir, and spending time with grown children (two of whom also teach Gyrotonic) and four grandchildren, currently ages 3,7,15 and 18.

Some years ago I fell on black ice and sustained a fairly serious brain injury. For awhile I could not walk well, had no balance, could barely speak, and often did not know my own name. The most efficacious tool in my recovery has been Gyrotonic. It brings my mind, body, heart, and spirit into harmony, and requires consistent practice. I usually manage words all right, unless I get too fatigued or overstimulated, and then I will stutter or not be able to find words. My ability to grasp knowledge from the printed page continues to be a challenge, and working with numbers is difficult and taxing. Since I've always been a kinesthetic and tactile learner, these cognitive deficiencies have actually enhanced my ability to learn and teach from movement and touch.

Becoming part of the Silver Sage Community has been rewarding, challenging, stimulating, and more often than not a great deal of fun. To me, living in and actively building community has always made the greatest sense practically, emotionally, ecologically, and philosophically.

(My father named me Clyde Rae, and died before I was two years old, so I could never ask him,"What were You thinking!!?" I've been told he knew an Annie Oakley type woman named Clyde Rae whom he admired. I've also been told that he instinctively knew he wasn't going to be around to help raise me, so gave me a name that insured I'd learn to take care of myself early on (a la "A Boy Named Sue"). It worked pretty well.)

As a founding member of Wild Sage Cohousing in Boulder, CO where I lived for three years, I loved Wild Sage and all the people there. But as I look forward to aging I want to be in a community of people my own age with whom I can share this next stage of my life. Moving from a two story condo to an accessible place with everything on one floor is a high priority for me as I think of what I may need in the future to “age in community”.

Also I’ve been involved with many of the Silver Sager’s for the last three years and we’ve gotten to be very close, spending time at pot lucks and social events. I’m looking forward to enhancing that experience with a fabulous common house and two outdoor patios.

I work for Wonderland, the developer of this project, as a community builder and have been helping five communities come together and plan for their future lives together. It’s a very satisfying job that I feel quite blessed to have. But I’m also looking forward to cutting back to half time next year to allow more time to spend with my neighbors and on my craft projects. Prior to joining Wonderland I worked as an organization development consultant for many of the Fortune 500 companies and many non-profits all over the US and a few abroad.

A few years ago I started painting, doing collage, and making jewelry and try to carve out time for them whenever I can. I just returned from France where I took a collage workshop and then eat and drank my way through the rural parts of the country - a fabulous trip. I love to travel but always look forward to coming home to my cozy home and to my great neighbors.

My two sons and I are close and I enjoy my time with them very much. My oldest, Chris, lives just across the street in Wild Sage Cohousing, and Jeffrey, my youngest just moved to DC.