We’ve had the incredible good fortune of working with Incredible Adventures for years now, and really appreciate all they do.  As an outdoor travel company, they specialize in small group tours to natural and adventurous settings near San Francisco and Las Vegas.  Since 1993, the company has been offering safe, reliable and fun-filled escapes to the great outdoors.

Owners Jolie Ginsburg and Brian Deninger have chosen to incorporate their values for sustainability and social responsibility into their work by focusing on small group tours to minimize their environmental impact, and they also support many local non-profit organizations with the contribution of silent auction support and in-kind donations of transportation.   

Another thing we love about them is that they also use biodiesel!  More than that, they go above and beyond through their co-sponsorship of the San Francisco Biofuels co-operative, which gives people local access to alternative fuel options.  SF Biofuels works on educating the community and providing alternative fuel to community members.  In fact, the co-op and Incredible Adventures helped the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) to implement a biodiesel program for their diesel buses!

To show your support for biofuels, enjoy the great outdoors while helping to keep it great and have your next incredible adventure, contact Incredible Adventures!

The book Sacred Commerce defines “getting complete” as restoring full love with one’s self or another.  In the book we're asked to “consider that wherever you are incomplete, it interferes with your ability to be here now”.

This month we are practicing Being Complete by reflecting on what that looks like to each of us, and how we can experience completion and bring our attention back to the present moment.  We are looking at our personal and professional lives and seeing where we are choosing to be “incomplete”, where full love is not restored, and then taking action to get complete.  We are taking on remembering that we don't need anything external to complete us, and that there is nothing missing from our selves.  We are observing where we are putting our attention on what is incomplete, letting go, and shifting our focus to acceptance and perfection.

Here are some quotes from our team on what Being Complete means to them, and what playing the game has been like:

Being complete means loving myself and recognizing that I am perfect.  My doubts, fears, and worries give me the opportunity to be strong, mindful, and present.  My past experiences, lessons and interactions make me who I am today, but I can choose to let go and take on every moment with integrity and intention.

Being complete, to me, means accepting all that is, without the desire to fix – and seeing our struggle with acceptance as perfect in itself.  

I have been incomplete with my partner in that I haven’t been speaking up about how I sometimes feel unsupported and how I sometimes feel like I am not supporting him.  After having this conversation with him, we now know how each other actually feels instead of being in our heads.  As a result we have made a beautiful new commitment to actively supporting each other in all aspects of our relationship!

To me, being complete means recognizing that for every perceived loss there is an equal gain, for every time I focus on what is wrong, I could equally focus on what is right.  Being Complete allows me to recognize this balance and to be present to those ideals that increase love in my life and, consequently, decrease separation.  

Playing this game has allowed me to take on listening to my body more, and believing that there lies the wisdom to heal, achieve balance and feel healthy and happy no matter what is going on in my world.

Being complete is seeing that every interaction is released without any residue of unfinished business – or even the slightest trace of emotional discomfort or disconnection – making sure that there is no love lost in the moment.

As you can tell, it has been a wonderfully healing process for us all at Dharma and we invite you to play with us for the rest of April!  How can you practice Being Complete?

We are happy to announce that our very own Yebuny Johnson is bringing Sacred Commerce to Canada!

Under her new venture Heartwood Consulting and in partnership with Erin Ross of Get That You Matter, Rob Sinclair of Conscious Brands, and Corinne Ann D Cornish of The Inner Realms, Yebuny is bringing Sacred Commerce workshops to Calgary, Edmonton, and Nelson in the province of Alberta, Canada.

We invite you to share these events with your communities and pass along the information below:

Business As a Path of Awakening

• Calgary – April 26-29 (learn more)
• Edmonton – May 3-6 (learn more)
• Nelson – May 10-13 (learn more)

We are delighted that Yebuny is helping to spread this perspective of business as a pathway to awakening to other conscious businesses. When our co-founders, Alexia and Jeff Marcous found Sacred Commerce, they discovered the perfect toolbox of practical practices to expand and nurture the intentions of social justice and sustainability. This workshop delivers the tools and practices that have been key to Dharma’s success.

For more information on bringing Sacred Commerce to your business, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Information on future workshops Sacred Commerce coming soon!

Do you know what March 1st is? It’s not Groundhog Day, not April Fools’ day, not St. Patrick’s day. It is the 5th anniversary of Dharma Merchant Services! That’s right, it’s been 5 years since we hung out our shingle as a business. The idea for the company originated from a desire to give back to the community; save merchants from egregious contracts and usury rates; and create a container for our path to awakening. The company name was inspired by the most common definition of the word dharma: one’s path. Literally, the Fourth Noble Truth says that the way out of suffering can be achieved by following the Eightfold Path of right view, intention (thought), speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. We see this path as the highest standard that we as individuals and as a company can hold to insure the integrity of service for our merchants, partners, community, and for ourselves. From maintaining the smallest footprint on our planet to holding our merchants’ and partners’ best interests in mind, we seek to do the right thing, even above our own gain. This is as it should be.

To celebrate our 5th birthday, Dharma held a rocking party at the Hub in San Francisco. The evening featured organic wine from Frey Vineyards, delicious beer from Schmaltz Brewing, amazing smoothies from Purple Plant Smoothies, delectable edibles from Baladi Gourmet Cafe and Dolce & Salato, and a home-made, gluten-free, mind-blowing cake in the shape of a lotus baked by our beloved Marie Bencivenga. Michelle Bouvier and Becca Fresco from AcroYoga provided a beautiful performance and soothing bodywork, and we were honored by Vince Siciliano of New Resource Bank and Corie McMillan of Cafe Gratitude who shared kind words on what Dharma meant to them. A highlight of the evening was presenting our beautiful and much-improved new website from Earthsite, who accomplished an amazing amount of work in an amazingly short period of time so we could unveil a soft launch at the party. We were so grateful to enjoy this lovely evening with our community and are looking forward to great things in the next 5 years!

I was honored to attend a talk on “Creating Enlightened Society” by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche with the Dharma team. My first impression as I was welcomed into the incredible Grace Cathedral was that I was coming into a sacred place full beauty and openness. I wondered what it would be like to be in the presence of one of Tibet’s highest and most respected incarnate lamas – the holder of the royal lineage to the ancient kingdom of Shambhala, a borderless community of meditation practitioners committed to realizing a higher consciousness through wisdom and compassion.

When Sakyong Rinpoche walked in with his contagious smile and stories of his newborn daughter, I was moved by a sense of shared humanity. He shared a stunningly simple message of how to create an enlightened society: with kindness, generosity, and courage. The take-away was that each person needs to respect themselves in order to be kind to others. The way you feel when you wake up in the morning impacts all future interactions. Sakyong Rinphoche recommended that we all take a moment in the morning to evaluate our emotions and recognize how we are being in the world. Every human being can reach inside to see their inherent goodness, warmth and intelligence – and then use that insight to create an enlightened society.

Our good luck with off-the-charts employees has continued with bringing Nicole Stasio on board. If you’ve had a support issue recently, Nicole is the loving, competent, funny and extremely helpful person that solved your problem. Nicole has astounded us with her ability to learn quickly, maintain grace under pressure and continually reach for inner and outer knowledge.

Nicole shares with us, "I am so honored to be part of the Dharma family and provide support for our community of mission-aligned merchants and partners who are committed to making the world a better place. From Falling Whistles fighting for peace in the Congo to Amazon Watch supporting indigenous people in the Amazon Basin, I am inspired to be a better person every day. I get to come to work in an environment full of love and compassion at a company that gives back and actually cares! I look forward to getting to know all of you better and helping to support your business!"

“Being an invitation to love” was our February Sacred Commerce game. Despite its soap opera-sounding quality, playing this game was not only super fun but was quite the opposite of the drama you might expect!

Sacred Commerce teaches that “being an invitation is… a request to participate, come forward, [and]open up to the possibility of an exchange of affirmations by offering a welcoming and encouraging gesture that signifies, “we want to deal with the real you.” Being an invitation is about simply being the essence of service, which we say is love, with whomever you are interacting. It’s not about making others wrong who may share a different view or denying them compassion or care if they reject our invitation. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer, artist, and poly math put it beautifully when he wrote: “Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”

There are many instances at Dharma where we get to practice this. For example because many of our clients have had undesirable past experiences with other providers, they sometimes come to us still holding some fear and may have trouble letting go of it at times. It is in moments like these that we are honored to get to be an invitation to love by simply hearing their experiences, not making them or their previous providers wrong for them, and offering these clients our knowledge and services (our form of love) with respect and compassion. This experience more often than not helps our clients regain trust that they will be taken care of and often leaves us feeling inspired and grateful to have been of loving service. It is amazing what transformations occur when we are an invitation to love and the long-lasting and mutually respectful relationships that are cultivated as a result.

How are you being an invitation to love in your life?

The San Francisco Green Film Festival begins next week, March 1 with a slate of films that will intrigue you, enlighten you, maybe even anger you a little, but ultimately inspire you. Join them on a week long cinematic journey which will take you into the depths of a mine in the Congo, through the kitchens of Tokyo’s top sushi chefs, cattle wrangling with rancheros in the Brazilian Amazon, marching on environmental protests in China, and urban farming in Detroit. These are just a few of the places you’ll visit during the festival.

Meet with over 50 visiting filmmakers and guest speakers for a lively week of green films and discussions at the SF Film Society Cinema in Japantown. Buy a festival pass and join them for VIP weekend brunches with the filmmakers and special guests.

Download 2012 Festival Program Guide (pdf)

Ready for tickets? Go to the online box office »

The festivals executive director, Rachel Caplan, urges everyone to “Watch Globally, but Act Locally.” We already have tickets to an interesting film titled Cafeteria Man that follows charismatic chef Tony Geraci on his passionate and tenacious journey to overhaul the school lunch program serving 83,000 students in Baltimore’s public schools. Opening the festival is the very timely The Island President, where Bay Area filmmaker Jon Shenk spends a year with President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives as he confronts a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced – the literal survival of his country and everyone in it, due to the devastating impacts of climate change. And the inspiring Urban Roots offers up hope against all odds, in the boarded-up shops, empty lots and defunct factories, where seeds of change are taking root in Detroit. With the most vacant lots in the country, citizens are reclaiming their spirits by growing food. A small group of dedicated Detroiters have started an urban environmental movement with the potential to transform a city after its collapse.

We hope you can come out and support this amazing festival and share in the excitement and entertainment. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming screenings and events!

Photo: SFGFF Executive Director Rachel Caplan and Dharma's Trace Wendell

Dharma co-founder Alexia Marcous's interview with Lorna Li is featured on Entrepeneurs for a Change.

Take your socially responsible business to the next level by practicing sacred commerce. Alexia Marcous is the co-founder of Dharma Merchant Services and she’s passionate about bringing work-life balance into focus and incorporating spiritual principles into how she does business. Dharma Merchant Services practices “Commerce with Compassion” – find out what this looks like when put into practice in the office.

Watch the full interview and read the full transcript at Entrepreneurs for a Change »

This month our Sacred Commerce practice reaches for the stars with being Awakening!

We asked our Dharma Dream Team to weigh in on what Awakening meant to them.  We’re thrilled to share their answers…

Awakening can be tricky in my experience because the more I want it the more I seem to push it away.  In fact, coming from a place of wanting/trying may actually be counter productive.  The Tao Te Ching illustrates this point beautifully:

“Fill your bowl to the brim, and it will spill.  Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt.  Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.  Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”

What I am learning about Awakening is that it is a continuous practice of choosing to be happy, fulfilled, awakened as opposed to trying to be.  This practice looks like choosing to be conscious of the present moment and how I am interacting with it: am I resisting the moment, disagreeing with it, engaging with it, or in love with it?  To the degree that I can choose to be with each moment is the extent to which I get to awaken to the beauty, mystery, love, and wonder each moment offers.

As a new member of the Dharma family, I am filled with an incredible sense of opportunity to truly begin my path of awakening. I’m inspired by a new perspective of being love and thereby calling forth love in all parts of my life. I recognize that without my previous paths and experiences I would not have reached this one and am so excited to jump into this new world of compassion, service, and gratitude. I’m taken aback by all the love that already existed in my life that I just wasn’t ready to see, especially with my family and friends. The practice of being me – being love – and seeing  the world without a lens of ego or judgment is my awakening.

To me, awakening is the state of becoming aware.  Aware of surroundings, implications, and the true meaning of what we perceive on a daily basis.  Awakening is the practice by which I am able to more fully understand what my place in this world is.  It’s the practice of seeing people not for their actions, but their intentions.  It’s also the practice of becoming cognizant of my own actions, and the implications of said actions on my friends, family, community, and world as a whole.  My awakening has been the realization that my only true gift to this world is love, and sharing it means being it.  Awakening, to me, is being the love that we all seek to share – no matter the circumstance.

Similar to the physical process of awakening from physical sleep,  spiritual awakening is my process of allowing my “dreams” of love, compassion and service to gain entrance into my daily “reality”;  the reality of my life situation, the reality of my family, the reality of my community, and at Dharma, the reality of my work.  Before Dharma, I would hit my awakening “snooze” button whenever I went into work.  Most places I worked made no space for awakening; and certainly didn’t encourage it.  Dharma has taught me that commerce with compassion not only helps me understand and meet the needs of my valued merchant community, but it also allows me to practice my commitment to service, to consciousness, and to love.  At night, I lay my head on the pillow knowing that my work has allowed me to practice what I believe;  love for my community, love for mother earth, love for my colleagues and love for myself.

For me, awakening is the process of cultivating the wisdom, compassion, loving kindness, and equanimity that comes from being present to what is arising in any given moment.  Our daily practice of Sacred Commerce has created a verbal forum to experience our own awareness as well as to bear witness to the transformation of our fellow dharma mates.

Choosing to practice “Business as a path of Awakening” has been a dream come true.  I see awakening as getting in touch with who we truly are.  This does not mean waking up to new knowledge, an improved state of mind or a better version of ourselves.  This means remembering that all of the truths and higher virtues are not only with us the entire time, but in fact are our very selves.

We wish you happiness and joy on your path to Awakening!

Dharma Merchant Services was privileged to become one of the first California companies to register as a Benefit Corporation.

“Benefit Corporation” provides a new legal structure to registered S or C Corps that allows companies to legally expand their purpose beyond exclusively maximizing shareholder value. Benefit Corporations are also certified by an independent third part that affirms the company creates a material positive impact on society and the environment, and meets higher standards of accountability and transparency.

Many thanks to our legal counsel who scrambled to get our paperwork ready in time for this special day. Pictured is Jonathan Storper from Hanson Bridgett LLP right there with Alexia to help file the documents. Now that’s amazing service!

January 3rd was the first day the law went into effect, so we joined a cadre of like-minded businesses, including Patagonia, Give Something Back and ThinkShift, in line at the state office to register and show our support for this tremendous step forward in bringing triple-bottom-line operations into the mainstream.

For more information on Benefit Corporations, please visit benefitcorp.net.

This month we’re proud to feature Voyager, owned by successful entrepreneur Robert Patterson.  We have the good fortune of working with Robert at two of his other ventures: Revolver and Ken Ken Ramen.

The Voyager Shop is a wonderful example of a growing theme in the conscious business world: collaboration.  The shop is an artistic collaboration between San Francisco based Mollusk Surf Shop,Revolver, Spartan and Michael Rosenthal Art Gallery, which offers the opportunity to cooperate rather than compete in design, purpose and structure.  Not only is the space Robert created innovative, the items unique-high-end and the staff friendly, the business model is one we admire for another reason: employees receive paid time off to utilize however they like.

How did you get the idea to start Voyager (and the idea for the submarine)?

I’ve always wanted to do a collaborative concept retail space with several points of interest. 

When the opportunity came up to partner with the Rosenthal Gallery to do an independent mixed retail space we couldn’t pass on it.  The submarine was Jay Nelson’s / Mollusk’s idea and was built in Jay’s style. We thought the whole shop should feel like a little alternate island with the submarine being our mode of travel, the store our “home” and so on.

What effect have you seen Voyager having on your community?
While we cater to a global market of customers via our online store – our retail stores are rooted as neighbor general stores. We love seeing regular customers return and helping them with their needs. Some of our favorite customers sometimes just hangout in our shops and others times we help them with their needs. We’ve been lucky enough to help customers with choosing suits to meet President Obama to suggesting the perfect dress for an anniversary date.  Being an independent retailer with interest in the community, we like becoming part of the lives of the city.

What is your favorite aspect of what you do?

Three fold. Our customers, our suppliers, and our staff.

We love customer service and really strive to help our customers find and make the best choices. It might sound corny but we really like when our customers return and we know them by their first names.

On the other end as a customer we love our suppliers and the effort they put into making unique goods and items from our the world. We know everyone we carry and strive to carry independent emerging crafts people from around the world.

Lastly we are so lucky to have a such an amazing staff. Everyone on the team is passionate and interested and gets along well. We are a very flat organization and everyone enjoys the contributions from everyone.

Any words of wisdom to share with budding entrepreneurs?

Just do it. If you have a passion and energy behind some idea or interest – everything else will become easy. Work becomes play and is very enjoyable.

Dharma Merchant Services was included in an article on Treehugger.com about how Patagonia and other California-based companies were first embracing the opportunity to change their corporate status to become Benefit Corporations.

Joining Patagonia in registering as a B Corp on the first available day were: DopeHut, Dharma Merchant Services, Give Something Back Office Supplies, Green Retirement Plans, Opticos Designs, Scientific Certification Systems, Solar Works, Sun Light & Power, Terrassure Sustainable Land & Resource Development, and Thinkshift Communications.

Read the full article at Treehugger | Patagonia Becomes A California Benefit Corporation.

We’re grateful for another incredible year for Dharma Merchant Services as we continue to create a powerful brand that is identified with “Right Livelihood”. All you have to do to validate the buzz is to Google the term “merchant services” and see where we appear!

Here are some highlights from Dharma Merchant Services for 2011:

• Alexia and Jeff continue to be interviewed in the leading trade publications such as The Green Sheet, ISO & Agent, Digital Transactions and Transaction Trends, to provide an example of how to operate a business with Awakening as a beacon.
• In September, Dharma moved into new offices in the historic Shell Building, bringing our belief in “love is good for business” deeper into the financial district of San Francisco, and giving us much needed breathing room for growth and expansion.
• Jeff convinces one of the largest receipt-paper suppliers to carry BPA-free paper.
• Two new amazing team members came on board, allowing us to better serve you as we expand.
• Dharma went completely paperless!
• In alignment with our mission to use our success to support the non-profit community, we donated our largest amount ever, in excess of $30,000.

Many thanks to VeriSign for producing this incredible report on Lessons Learned: Top Reasons for PCI Audit Failure and How To Avoid Them (pdf).

We highly recommend reviewing this easy-to-read report if you find yourself going down the non-compliant rabbit hole.

Here are the what Verisign reveals as top 5 most common failure points for PCI Compliance: 

#1 Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect data. (Requirement 1)

#2 Protect stored data. (Requirement 3)

#3 Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access. (Requirement 8)

#4 Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data. (Requirement 10)

#5 Regularly test security systems and processes.(Requirement 11)

Want to learn more? Download the full report from Verisign here: Lessons Learned: Top Reasons for PCI Audit Failure and How To Avoid Them (pdf).