Cosmos hosted a live online “Ask Me Anything” session on Wednesday with Caroline “C.” Savery, the cooperative’s Chief Executive Organizer. The discussion covered leadership, cooperative governance, creative membership, and Savery’s long-developing framework known as Fractal Praxis.
The session brought together participants from across Cosmos’ community. Questions were submitted before and throughout the evening and guided the discussion.
Savery’s professional background
Savery started with an outline of her professional background, which began with video production and directing work from ages 13 to 26. While attending college in Pittsburgh around 2006, Savery became involved with anarchist collectives and consensus-based organizing. That experience led her to travel across North America interviewing collectives on how groups organize themselves.
Savery next 13 years working as an independent contractor with nonprofit and cooperative startups. She said her work spanned worker, producer, and consumer cooperatives, often supporting organizations in their early stages.
She also discussed her relationship with Cosmos, beginning with meeting Marco Morelli in 2016 at a cooperative study circle. After initially joining Cosmos as a short-term contractor, Savery became a co-founder and worked for two years developing its conceptual framework. She later stepped away and has since returned as Cosmos’ Chief Executive Organizer.
Horizontal governance rather than traditional hierarchy
Addressing her title, Savery said Cosmos operates through horizontal governance rather than a traditional hierarchy. She said the title reflects her current organizing and coordinating role, not top-down authority, and that the structure may evolve in the future.
During the session, Savery noted recent collaborative work within Cosmos, including efforts led by Colin Forbes to establish a holding company limited liability company to manage cryptocurrency activity on behalf of the cooperative.
Participants also asked about Cosmos’ business model. Savery said Cosmos functions as a cultural production and collaborative space rather than a conventional business. At its center is creative membership, which combines a monthly financial contribution with active participation in the cooperative.
Creative members have access to publishing opportunities, including self-publishing and Cosmos’ in-house imprints Untimely Books and Metapsychosis. Members also participate in discussion groups, reading circles, private forums, and future initiatives shaped by member interest, including potential offerings for musicians and other artists.
The relationship between anarchism and cooperativism
A significant portion of the discussion focused on the relationship between anarchism and cooperativism. Savery described anarchism as emphasizing autonomy, voluntary association, and shared responsibility, drawing on her experience with an anarchist bicycle collective in Pittsburgh that provided low-cost transportation through community labor and mutual aid.
She described cooperativism as a model based on people organizing together to meet shared needs through member-owned and member-controlled enterprises. While cooperatives can operate within capitalism, she said profit functions as a tool rather than an end goal.
Savery and other participants discussed similarities between the two approaches, including self-organization and rejection of domination, as well as differences in how they interact with existing economic systems.
Fractal Praxis
The conversation also explored Fractal Praxis, a framework Savery has been developing over several years. She described it as an emergent theory and practice centered on learning, meaning-making, and participation in life as an interconnected system. Drawing on concepts from biology and systems theory, Savery said learning itself can be understood as a core pattern of life.
“Fractal Praxis is just a label I’m putting on my contribution to our collective wholeness,” Savery said.
As the session neared its conclusion, Savery shared updates on upcoming Cosmos initiatives. She said the cooperative will begin onboarding legacy creative members in late January, followed by opening applications to new creative members in February or March.
She also announced new offerings she is developing as a creative member, including small, member-only integration circles focused on peer support during periods of personal or collective change. More details on these circles are forthcoming.
Plans were also shared for a discussion series on community technology and platform cooperatives targeted for a March launch, combining theoretical study with practical application.
Savery concluded by announcing that she is seeking an apprentice to study with her, assist with Cosmos’ work, and eventually take on cooperative development responsibilities.
She closed the session by thanking participants for their questions and presence and said it was an honor to be in community with them.
Watch the full event on Vimeo below: