About Us

Gaia Somatics LLC is a partnership of Deborah Anne Jones RN LMT and Christopher Burr Jones PhD CYT. It reflects our shared values and commitment to education to promote healthy and mindful lifestyles. The foundation of our business is the idea that there is a connection between the health of the planet and the health and wellness of human beings. We strive toward a spiritual and post-industrial economic model that aspires to practice what it preaches. We want to inspire individuals and organizations to consider sustainable practices in their lives and industries, aspire to leave the world in a better place than we found it, and to consider the impact of our decisions on future generations.

Moreover, we want to connect and educate others about proactive and innovative practices that will enable them to take more control of their lives and not to be passive participants in the Brave New World that is unfolding around them.

We support non-violent and non-aggressive behaviors and social structures, balanced health and wellness strategies (i.e., exercise, diet, yoga, meditation), alternative and complementary health care, democratic and participatory politics, ecological sensibility, and a long-term Gaian approach to our work and lives.

Christopher holds a PhD in Political Science and has been involved in futures studies for 30 years. He was Secretary-General of the World Futures Studies Federation, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with UNESCO (2001-2005), professor, and consultant (including Ford Motor Company), and more recently author of the political thriller Fire and Ice. He is a 200-hour certified Iyengar yoga instructor (2007).

Deborah has over 35 years experience as a health care professional in a number of nursing and patient management positions, including experience in brain injury, psychiatric, and orthopedic nursing. She has owned a therapeutic massage business now for over a dozen years and holds a Level 1 Therapeutic Touch certification. She has a passion for non-Western health modalities and Eastern philosophy and spirituality.

Our story is a love story. We met in 2007 in a yoga class at the Academy of Yoga in Grand Junction and married the next year. We decided to start a business together, despite the fact that Chris had mostly worked for state and federal agencies. Deb had a successful, part-time therapeutic massage business, Hands of Comfort, and Chris had a moribund consulting firm, neoFutures, which they retired and joined forces and energies in Gaia Somatics LLC. Both continued their “day jobs” until late 2009 when Chris completed the Grand Junction Business Incubator Leading Edge entrepreneur course, a business plan, and workshop package. The Mindful Futures workshop is the product of that process, and the development of twenty-plus years of personal futures and social foresight efforts. The workshop is comprised of basic, but essential futures planning tools and insights into the future built over the years by corporate giants (i.e., Royal Dutch Shell) and academic centers such as the Universities of Hawaii and Houston futures programs, and the work coming from Swinburne, Leeds, Tamkang, Sunshine Coast, and others.

We also fell in love, Deb a few decades back, and Chris more recently, with Western Colorado. This is a lightly-populated, open territory with tens of thousands of acres of some of the USA’s wildest and remotest lands, river canyons, mesa lands, and high desert… mountains of distinction and splendor… mountain towns for the adventurous and for the curious, with history and geology unlike any other place on the planet. Thus, we make a special commitment to protect and honor this sacred terrain, to support the work of those who are working actively to protect and preserve wilderness in this region.

To digress for a moment: we decided to become a profit business rather than a non-profit, 501(c)3 corporation, for a number of reasons. We would like our partnership through Gaia Somatics to profit, but it is not our intention to profit exorbitantly.

Our goals include helping people and the planet and in that spirit, our profit will be modest, our accounting and financial records will be open and procedures transparent. Finally, we decided that a non-profit board of directors would be a hindrance to speedy planning and decision-making.

In line with our love for and commitment to preserving remaining wild lands in Western Colorado, we dedicate ten percent of all partnership profit will to go toward the work of the Colorado Environmental Coalition, specifically toward their Western Colorado projects and campaigns. We are also working with our hosts and providers to use sustainable practices in our use of energy and materials. Our selection of wine and food will be local, to the extent possible.