Habib's Garden

I met Habib through PeoplesWeb back in 1997. He turned me on to all kinds of happenings around the area. It was through him I met so many incredible people and organizations. I feel very fortunate to have experienced his warm glow of energy. May he shine on through all of us forever...

I met Habib in Seattle as I walked in the door for the Wiser Earth gig Dec 1, 2006. I came by myself and didn't know anyone there. He was so helpful at getting me settled in. He drove me, after the event, to my next location. We bonded during traffic. I came back a week later and introduced him to Arthur Brock. He said that is when he came to Omidyar Network. I think he was there earlier. He has been a great friend, a dear collaborator, a wonder brainstormer on network weaving, a champion, and a very thorough analyzer of networks. We still have an open project together. And I can't bear to remove his phone number on my phone, so I see it everyday. And I think of connecting to people as a way to continue to honor such a phenomenal person and an inspiration to us all. Connect.

I feel fortunate to have had many meaningful conversations with Habib. Countless times he helped me even when I didn't know I was asking for help. The first time I remember meeting Habib was at one of the many Interra meetings at the Ramer's house in Ravenna. Our paths just kept crossing at all the community events. He was always there. I always looked forward to his "double hug!" Amazing.

I am so very sad that he is not in my life anymore, but I know his networking legacy will live on in the thousands of connections he helped bring to life.

Dear Friends, Habib participated in Sustainable Ballard's early "tink thank" days of wooly "unmeetings" ... our seat of the pant's advisory committee! (before we became a non-profit). As raw as our beginnings may have been, Habib's thoughtfulness and encouragement helped validate and focus our efforts. I most enjoyed that Habib was not daunted by the enormous vision the co-founders painted! Thank you for believing in us Habib! Love, Vic

Habib and I met in person at a NICA gathering many years ago... I have no idea which gathering or how many years ago. NICA is the Northwest Intentional Community Association (google it), which has regular meetings at different Intentional Communities around the PNW. Habib was not so much interested in ICs, as in learning from groups that had made that level of commitment - to actually live with each other, all the time - to inform his own community networking efforts. This was, I believe, before his NeighborNet ideas came together.

I was immediately attracted to his warm, gentle energy and great curiosity. He was eager to connect, to provide resources, to be of service - and this he put this first, before his own interests of learning how Intentional Communities might relate to his own interests.

He attended period IC events over the years. The last three events where we met may be of interest... the Seattle Premier of "Commune, The Movie" - The Art of Community NW, an event presented by the FIC (Fellowship for Intentional Community), and a Sustainable Seattle workshop.

For me, Habib was a key connector to another form of community-building... building community where you are. This has significant differences from building a residential, intentional community, as it gets to skip the land development portion, involves less risk, less concern about money, and is much more accessible to everybody.

I've been inspired by the Habib's ideas, by his energy, and by his gentle spirit. He lives on in my heart and will influence my actions for many years to come.

For example, the New Earth Song Cohousing vision statement, which I recently helped craft, is:

"We're forming sustainable community with Songaia Cohousing, creating a new kind of welcoming neighborhood committed to lifelong care for the Earth and each other."

This broader neighborhood perspective, that looks beyond our little "enclave of goodness" (the two sister cohousing communities on 15 acres), is a direct influence of Habib. Our intention is to develop authentic relationships with our neighbors, to network with them, inviting them to participate our community as they desire - and to individually connect with them, where they live - without trying to convert them into the more radical communitarians that people who choose to live 'in community.'

Thank you Habib!

I met Habib online -- through one of the several listservs we both subscribed to. I was the lead organizer for an issue-based event - and doing my best to network with potentially interested people in all the ways I could figure out to do, both online and in-person. it was all a bit overwhelming for me.

Habib noticed. He noticed that I could use some advice, connection, and friendliness. In a way it seemed he stepped through the static I was experiencing -- to provide information and connections, orienting me to groups and listservs that had connection to my topic and introducing me, online, to several people. Then he went a step further and came to visit me in Kent -- a town about 20 miles from where he lived. He'd invited another activist with him and we sat at a local restaurant and talked for a couple of hours.

Interestingly, it was Habib's request that we meet at a locally-owned restaurant that afternoon that finally got me to start moving toward the habit of choosing the local rather than the chain restaurant. I'd known for a long time that I wanted to do that -- but habits can be difficult to establish!

All during our conversation that day, I saw that Habib was skillfully helping to keep our conversation flowing in a way that brought out connections and interests we shared. And I learned a lot -- just in that conversation but more as I came to talk with Habib further -- about the dynamics between online and in-person relationships. This has significance for the activist community and Habib was actively exploring and mapping out this territory, thinking and doing and connecting the whole time -- helping to open up the potential.

It is through Habib that I noticed the fortuitous irony that the most global and least in-person resource possible -- the Internet -- was creating all this possibility for people to connect, face-to-face, in their own communities. Here's Habib's Neighbor Networking blog: http://group10.sustainapedianw.org/

What I am thinking of now as I think of Habib -- is that he had this drive to build on possibility, to spark awareness, to help connections form. I feel a sense of personal disappointment that he is gone so soon.

"The history of the living world can be summarized as the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes in a cosmos in which there is always something more to be seen" -- Tielhard de Chardin

I met him on omidyar!
I recently joined the "network weavers" at "about us", and I was looking forward to what it could lead to. He started it.

I have never met him, I live in France, so I don't know anyone for real!

Yet, I see that even virtual conversations weave links and we can appreciate someone without actually meeitng him!

I'm sad, but I feel part of a tightly-knit community, and that is a good feeling in this world

We have lost a friend

I met Habib in the Omidyar community and over a period of months we began to grow closer together around Network Weaving concepts. Just last week he posted an article on his blog that connected his network to my network: http://group10.sustainapedianw.org/

He started a Network Weaver's discussion on Ned after Omidyar closed. It's at http://www.ned.com/group/networkweavers/news/9/

He was a person with one of the most generous spirits that I've met on the Internet. I think we might have talked once recently, but through many online exchanges we came to know and trust each other. I'm sure that in whatever spiritual world he has gone to he's introducing people to each other, and pointing to us who are still doing this work on earth.

I met Habib online through the Emerging Futures Network - we had several phone calls but never had the opportunity to meet in person. We had just recently discussed a project on social network analysis - his passion. There is so much more he wanted to do - that he now entrusts to the rest of us.

I got to meet Habib 6 or 7 years ago at a conference that he cocreated and cofacilitated with Bill Aal and others, called "Co-creating Structures for Change." After that I ran into him at interfaith events and community gatherings and lectures (such as one that Vandana Shiva gave at UW -- and of course Habib already knew the friends I was with, from other connections than the ones I shared with him). And as a subscriber to some of the listservs he moderated, I saw his name in my email often. In the past year or two we have been in more frequent face to face, knee to knee, contact and also I have loved reading the sweet weblog he started last winter (http://group10.sustainapedianw.org/).

An incomparably generous and kind, tender and thoughtful friend to hundreds of people, such a dear and deep and funny and luminous soul. I feel so lucky to know him, and I miss him already too.