Kristen Barker: Wholeness, Staying in It, Building Together

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging. For this week's episode Chris LaRue, the Director of The Hive, speaks with Kristen Barker.

In addition to being a fellow at the Hive, Kristen Barker is a social entrepreneur and the President and Co-Founder of Co-op Cincy and is a Co-Founder of 1worker1vote.  She designs and leads participatory education events with English- and Spanish-speaking co-op workers, and helps worker-owners make their businesses more successful. Kristen also helps our design team determine the feasibility of potential co-op businesses, helps retiring business owners determine whether they can sell their business to their employees, and helps viable co-ops access the capital they need to leverage their ideas. 

Chris La Rue has been the Executive Director of The Hive since 2023. As the “chief storyteller,” Chris seeks to amplify the story of transformation The Hive has to tell: one in which people integrate the wisdom of our contemplative traditions in ways that make meaningful collective change possible. He believes that The Hive is uniquely positioned to create a better world by helping individuals find their people, and find their practice.

The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?" 

Check out Co-Op Fest on June 7th.

Here's the writing shared by Howard Thurman: All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.