I’ve recently returned from a 9-day workshop on natural building. Or more specifically, an intensive course on building with cob at the Cob Cottage Company’s School of Natural Building in southwestern Oregon. For over nine days I lived in the woods in a two-man tent, used composting toilets, ate vegan communal meals, and had sparse access to electricity which came from the surplus solar power of the nearby intentional community.
Although I’ve travelled rather extensively in the United States, I’ve only been out of the U.S. once – and that was to England & Wales. For this sissy urban dweller, the natural building experience felt more like a visit to a third world country while remaining in the U.S. … but with cooked vegan meals included. My stomach thought it was a terrible shock and responded accordingly (not good with the woods/composting toilet arrangement).
After a couple of days to adjust, my stomach and I settled in. The idea of a hand-built house made from unprocessed earthen materials has a broad appeal to those who seek out such workshops: it represents the possibility of being free from an expensive mortgage and the consumer/industrial society it finances, as well as being free from ever growing levels of personal consumption (a hand-built house tends to be highly customized but extremely small by usual standards). Free from gray cubicle walls, flashing screens, and carpel-tunnel-mousing syndrome, we can once again interact with the earth as provider … as respite … as wonder.
Freed from the burden of a mortgage and high levels of consumption, life can be determined by one’s passions and morals rather than dictated by economics. How many times have you heard someone say: “If it was up to me I’d [fill in the blank], but I’m paid to [fill in the blank]”? This excuse is all too often used to justify going against our personal moral judgment and yield to someone else’s (usually a corporation or government entity). True freedom means regaining the right to exercise the personal judgment that we abdicate to the economic machine that feeds on conspicuous consumption and material rather than moral comfort.
Over the nine days of mixing clay, sand, and straw with my bare feet, sculpting a house with my bare hands, and listening to the stories and music of others to fill the time in between, I was just starting to fully grasp how one can live fully by living simply.
Although I’ve travelled rather extensively in the United States, I’ve only been out of the U.S. once – and that was to England & Wales. For this sissy urban dweller, the natural building experience felt more like a visit to a third world country while remaining in the U.S. … but with cooked vegan meals included. My stomach thought it was a terrible shock and responded accordingly (not good with the woods/composting toilet arrangement).
After a couple of days to adjust, my stomach and I settled in. The idea of a hand-built house made from unprocessed earthen materials has a broad appeal to those who seek out such workshops: it represents the possibility of being free from an expensive mortgage and the consumer/industrial society it finances, as well as being free from ever growing levels of personal consumption (a hand-built house tends to be highly customized but extremely small by usual standards). Free from gray cubicle walls, flashing screens, and carpel-tunnel-mousing syndrome, we can once again interact with the earth as provider … as respite … as wonder.
Freed from the burden of a mortgage and high levels of consumption, life can be determined by one’s passions and morals rather than dictated by economics. How many times have you heard someone say: “If it was up to me I’d [fill in the blank], but I’m paid to [fill in the blank]”? This excuse is all too often used to justify going against our personal moral judgment and yield to someone else’s (usually a corporation or government entity). True freedom means regaining the right to exercise the personal judgment that we abdicate to the economic machine that feeds on conspicuous consumption and material rather than moral comfort.
Over the nine days of mixing clay, sand, and straw with my bare feet, sculpting a house with my bare hands, and listening to the stories and music of others to fill the time in between, I was just starting to fully grasp how one can live fully by living simply.
More on natural building to come!
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