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What if there were places we could visit to get truly inspired about diverse ways we could live in joy and community on the earth creating a better world? Places full of incredible natural buildings, extensive gardens, alternative energy and better ways of relating to one another?
When I set off on my bike trip in August (read more about that here), it was my full intention to visit these types of places. I was searching for home, but I was also looking for inspiration and wanted practice living from my heart more gently on the earth. This website, the Intentional Communities Directory, was an indispensable part of my trip. Consider checking it out to find a cool place near you.
Continuing on my bike trip to find land and visit intentional communities, after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, I made a stop at my first ecovillage, Emerald Earth. It was a community that had many natural homes, though most of them weren’t lived in by the time I visited. This was a place in Oregon and I had always considered Oregon a potential place for home. The water, the alternative lifestyles, the Ocean…
I was welcomed at Emerald Earth with open arms. It was a beautiful place full of tons of natural building projects. They had a cob/straw bale community building in the works and so many practical sculptures to feast the eyes on in delight.
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The amount of natural buildings was staggering. So much creativity! Like in many intentional communities and ecovillages, only around 90% succeed in manifesting their longterm vision. Emerald Earth once had over 40 people living there, but now the population was reduced to around 10 adults. All of the homes you'll see in the next picture were actually uninhabited!
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Lucky for me I got to stay in this gorgeous building surrounded by mature forest and under a clear night sky.
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I spent my time there hanging out with the community, working on natural building, and resting.
Drying apples:
Helping make cool cob reliefs on their new chicken coop:
Lady Dancing with Egg made by yours truly:
And being continually inspired by the natural functional art present everywhere:
This was their solar area with incredible cob artwork and natural plasters.
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Garden Nook I was in love with:
Gorgeous Bathhouse:
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They were working on a community building as I mentioned earlier, so I got a first hand glimpse into slip straw, working with clay and straw to make cob, and how wonderful it can feel to be in a house with walls made largely out of clay.
How peaceful and beautiful clay plaster over straw bale can be when the light hits just so.
Some of their buildings were truly amazing and built by Michael Smith who is a very skilled natural builder.
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I definitely left there inspired....
And then I was onto the next leg of my journey... where would it take me?
As I wrote after leaving Emerald Earth while at a warmshowers.org host,
“I’ve been taking it slow cycling through Oregon as I’ve really enjoyed the spaciousness and beauty of the coastline here. Aside from a rough tourist patch in the middle which I traversed over Labor Day, Oregon has been very down to earth and I’ve met kind, encouraging people along the way and been afforded ample time for solitude. This trip has largely been a time for me to clear out and look at patterns which are no longer serving me and to experience freedom as I move forward in and dream of my journey on this earth! For this I am grateful.
Tomorrow I hope to journey through Astoria, over the 4 mile bridge into Washington, where I may head into the Olympic Peninsula, experience the HOH rainforest, and then head into British Columbia, namely into Victoria Island and then Vancouver. The trip is still very open; I’m just taking it day by day, really morning by morning, afternoon by afternoon, and evening by evening seeing how I feel about where to go, what to do. I love traveling this way, and love traveling on my bicycle so much, I can’t imagine traveling in another way for quite some time.
The past few days have felt like an end preparing for another beginning. I feel hints of entering a community of some sort, whether for a few days, a week, a month, and filling up my reserves of tribe.
The visit to Emerald Earth Ecovillage was so lovely, it really touched a place in me that loves communing and sharing life with others. Time and Space will tell as it all unfolds.
Little did I know how true those words would turn out to be…
This is a part of the series Looking for land. Read these if you want to get up to speed:
Solo Female Cyclist Bikes Up the Coast Looking for Land & Community Part 1
Following Your Dreams: Lost? Stand Still. Our Story of Finding Land.
Living With the Wise Woman Amidst the Trees
Thanks for reading <3
Stay tuned for the next leg of the journey... Meeting Ini, the Canadian Gardener... or Forest Gnome...
Post is great. Thank you for sharing.
Definitely following you for more great content.
Wow !! Really nice and beautiful picture. love those words of describing details of yours journey. Love to see more.
thank you for your kind words! I'm really glad you enjoyed <3
Cool stories. There are several Eco-village/intentional communities in BC that I've looked at online, this post makes me want to get out and go visit them this summer!
Awesome! Stick around for the next post and we’ll detail one of them :)
That looks like an awesome community, quite the adventure. I had dreams of my off-grid house being an earth building, but didn't have the time to navigate the permitting around here. Thanks for the post!
yes! was truly a wonderful experience :)
i hear ya on permitting! can be the biggest pain in the ass to natural building and takes a lot of effort to wade through. we blessedly live in the sticks and have no regulations/permitting! <3 glad you enjoyed, thanks for stopping by!
WOW! What a cool experience. Thank you for sharing it!!
thanks for stopping by!! Thanks, it was certainly wonderful :D
Well done on the show on MSP-Waves!
Thank you @globocop! that was fun :D
I've always loved this style of building technique. We have a place near me called Floyd Eco Village that I'm wanting so spend some time in this summer. I hope something this neat that I can share comes out of it.
That sounds awesome! Will look forward to some pics if you decide to visit that place .
Great to hear about this village, I would like to know more about why so much was uninhabited, I would have thought this would be a lot of people’s dream, if only for 6 months or so. How self sufficient were they able to be?
yes! i think it was so uninhabited because the people just moved on in their lives and didn't stay. oftentimes, perhaps in this case, too, finances are a big issue. how do people make a living rurally? how can we milk goats and garden and make a living? i think what you say about it being people's dream, even if for 6 months is spot on... many people spent a lot of time and energy building these houses... and then maybe that was enough for them...
i think they were able to produce a lot of their own needs, but weren't totally self sufficient. still a magnificent, inspiring place though!
Mmmm. Love stumbling upon these treasures. I found out about the directory in the late 90's because my La Leche League leader's husband was one of the researchers for the 2000 edition. I ordered it as soon as it came out and spent months just poring over it. When I decided to leave Colorado and move back east, I went first for a visit. First to my parents, then to Earthaven, and finally to the women's gathering at Twin Oaks. When I lived in Asheville I went to Earthaven a lot, but I started to get disillusioned by the interpersonal drama and the madness of consensus. And then I got involved in a little personal drama and decided I best not go back. Really beautiful place though. Incredibly inspiring, and I learned a ton there. Went to a couple bio regional gatherings and helped with the kids programs. Good stuff. Community is hard though.
Ah I love that! cool! i have some friends who lived at earthaven for a while and twin oaks...
the interpersonal drama is one of the main reasons Ini and i chose not to live in community lol! that and i wanted more control over projects and didn't want to be wading through consensus for every little thing! i have too many dreams to manifest and didn't want to be held back.
i hear ya on community is hard. it's definitely so beautiful and teaches us so much about ourselves and others and about being on earth, but it takes a lot of time and energy to navigate all of the interpersonal stuff. probably why most of them fail! that and funding.
i lived at dancing rabbit ecovillage (and the surrounding ones there) for a summer and loved it! it was the perfect level of involvement just being an intern/visitor. not too much drama, but a good taste. i met ini at an ecovillage in Canada and had major drama with the head lady there!! did not choose to stay lol! but learned a lot... seems to be a theme here ;) <3
Yes! Around the time I was growing weary with Earthaven, there was a Great War (my computer automatically capitalized that, but it's accurate) between the vegans and the raw food/bio regionalists. Nothing like watching vegans go toe to toe with people eating raw meat to totally turn you away from consensus forever. It was around that time that we were starting the school as well, and I really realized in the process of that creation the greatest limitation, for me, of consensus. It absolutely squashes dissent. If you live in a community ruled by consensus and you are not in agreement with any aspect, you have to either deny your true inclinations or sit in controversy forever. That school I helped start was direct democracy, so dissenting voices were always recorded. You might be overruled (once a kid tried to pass a law saying he was a God and needed to be worshipped at certain times of day), but your true feelings are on the record. Dissent is important. It's the basis of all radical movements, and that is my biggest beef with consensus. I have heard good things about Dancing Rabbit and have a good friend who spent some time there in their early years. Honest to God it's all I can do to maneuver a family. I have always loved the idea of community, but I can't even really find a functioning partnership with someone I have made babies with, so I don't feel super confident in making a bigger leap. I'd love to have more in-line playmates for my little ones, but otherwise I'd be happy to be the crazy, lone sea witch in the weird, earthen house.
wow, very interesting!! hope to visit such places myself one day as well :) good luck on your journeys! much love <3
yes thank you! very cool place and i hope you get to visit many such places. they're truly inspirational blesssings on our earth walks of What Can Be <3 much love
Hey, wonderful. A friend of mine stayed at Emerald Earth as a WOOFer years ago and I got to visit for a weekend. Beautiful people, bountiful land, inspiring village & houses. Makes you wonder, what if more places were like this!?
Blessings on your journey!
Oh that's cool!
100%!! a great question and one i think we can build into the future! :)
Wow I have heard of Emerald Earth over the years but have not gotten a chance to see photos. It looks incredible! I love the cob chicken! I just finished building my first cob bench with my students!
awesome! isn't cob so fun to work with?! so tactile and really literally gives people a feel for how fun and easy it is to work with. Yes Emerald Earth is definitely a special place :D
Wow, what a spot!!! your clay lady suited the place perfectly :-)
Good luck with the rest of your travels!!
thanks so much for saying so! <3