RELAXATION AND contemplation AT LOST VALLEY
I began my summer with a return to my childhood home. I saw my family, took care of busywork and got through mountains of emails accumulated during the hectic college schedule, enjoyed a local Juneteenth event, and visited a dear friend's graduation party. Shortly after, I took off to Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter, Oregon, a home away from home for myself (and visited a good friend on the way!).
Lost Valley is the home of Meadowsong Ecovillage, a lively ecovillage filled with residents passionate about ecological living and heart-centered interaction, and, of course, an educational center - my first encounter with Lost Valley was in Fall 2019 where I received my Permaculture Design Certificate and strengthened my personal and collective visions at a 3-month educational program called Holistic Sustainability Semester (HSS). Despite mild cold symptoms leading to a fear of COVID19 (a situation I'm sure many others have experienced - I recovered quickly) I had a wonderful time at Lost Valley. |
Lost Valley is about a half hour drive from Eugene, Oregon, and surrounded by rural households and gorgeous forests. I arrived nervous about closeness with people (something that was rare during my last year - restrictions had just begun to be lifted), struggling with doubts about friendships I made at UW, and wound up from the stressful schedule of school. Shortly after I arrived, I wandered off into the woods and journalled. I also listened to music and cried (a healthy practice I think should be encouraged!), a sort of ritual I engage in to release heavy emotions and refresh myself. The wilderness held me in a calm I can scarcely grasp in the concrete-filled landscape of West Campus in UW, or even in the wilderness areas about campus such as UBNA, which are still fairly populated. I released the emotional burden I carried with me and entered my stay at Lost Valley renewed.
Before, I had felt too overwhelmed by my emotions to interact with people. After, I felt energized by the beautiful surroundings and dove into garden work parties with community members. Some of those work parties were further from Lost Valley's central meadow, in the garden farm of Center for Regenerative Peoples, an agriculture and education project founded by my friend and mentor Brian Byers. I also helped out in community forestry work parties and at the sawmill. I also spent some time writing to a friend and journaling, but most of the rest of the time I spent with friends at Lost Valley, simply soaking in the calm environment and the beauty of Earth's peaceful perpetual motion.
I met with old friends from my time at Lost Valley and also met some wonderful new friends - two visitors who arrived a day after I did, and two who had arrived at the 2020 HSS and were work-trading (working in exchange for food and shelter from Lost Valley). I quickly clicked with this group, especially the two visitors who serendipitously were staying at the same time I was. We enjoyed relaxed hours spent by the creek, and traveled to the Oregon coast to beat the historic 110+ ℉ heatwave. We enjoyed music and jokes in the car ride, and arrived at the coast near sunset. The ocean light was stark, and seaside mist and the tall dunes behind us made a contained world of splendor. I was reassured that however nervous I might feel at times about some of my friendships and how others think about me, there are always other people out there who will appreciate me for who I am (and the same goes for the reader).
I met with old friends from my time at Lost Valley and also met some wonderful new friends - two visitors who arrived a day after I did, and two who had arrived at the 2020 HSS and were work-trading (working in exchange for food and shelter from Lost Valley). I quickly clicked with this group, especially the two visitors who serendipitously were staying at the same time I was. We enjoyed relaxed hours spent by the creek, and traveled to the Oregon coast to beat the historic 110+ ℉ heatwave. We enjoyed music and jokes in the car ride, and arrived at the coast near sunset. The ocean light was stark, and seaside mist and the tall dunes behind us made a contained world of splendor. I was reassured that however nervous I might feel at times about some of my friendships and how others think about me, there are always other people out there who will appreciate me for who I am (and the same goes for the reader).
This time of relaxation under the sun in a forested environment was a stark difference from the concrete infrastructure and hurried pace of the University of Washington, and I reflected on this as I enjoyed my stay. Life felt in a different, and more fulfilling, category than what I had experienced at the university, where I sometimes feel under a constant barrage of deadlines, stress over relationships, and injustice that I witness day in and day out. I wrote the stream-of-consciousness poem to the right as a reflection on this experience (I don't vouch for its artistic quality - its just an artifact of my reflection process). I also reflect on the future I see ahead for my generation and many, many generations after, a reality oppressed peoples, especially Black & Indigenous people, people of color, and working class people, are experiencing right now.
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I realize that a lot of my state had to do with the rush of new relationships and relaxation after hard work that would eventually stagnate, but despite those caveats I know that the environments we inhabit and the livelihoods we live in have a massive effect on our mental health and collective wellbeing. Lost Valley is unpaved, forested, and not rushed, while Seattle is sometimes a stark opposite, although I appreciate the abundance of plant life at the university. The university is directed, at the top of the hierarchy, by the Board of Regents, powerful people selected by the Governor. Quite a few of these people are heavily involved in life-destroying systems, such as the former CEO of Alaska Airlines, and executives of corporations such as Costco and Microsoft. The university stands on stolen land and yet won't fund the second phase of the wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House Indigenous center, UWPD evicted homeless people from the light rail station in the coldest parts of winter, UWPD was recently profiled in the New York Times for a long string of racist incidents targeting Black people within their ranks - I could go on and on about the injustice the university perpetuates. On the other hand, Lost Valley is run primarily through democratic meetings involving all residents, although they also have a board, also composed primarily of residents. Although Lost Valley is far from perfect - something I learned more of from a person of color I met at LV - almost everyone there is committed to ecological living and heart-centered communication. This difference in choices, systems, and human interaction leads to a very different experience. I am glad for my time at Lost Valley, and I hope it can inspire me to push for a beautiful world for all (which won't look like Lost Valley to everyone) and help me set high standards for myself, while not fostering excess cynicism in the other spaces I find myself in.
Earthship Academy - July 2021
My parents picked me up at the close of my visit to Lost Valley and drove me and a bunch of tools and clothes all the way to the Earthship Greater World Community outside Taos, New Mexico. We passed through Boise, ID, Salt Lake City, UT, and Moab, UT, among other cities and towns, on our way south. Moab, UT was a lovely place to stop, full of ecological design and nice eateries. It's right by Arches National Park - I highly recommend it!
When I arrived, I said goodbye to my parents and moved into my new home - a simple survival model Earthship, a type of ecological housing following six principles developed by renegade architect Michael Reynolds.
When I arrived, I said goodbye to my parents and moved into my new home - a simple survival model Earthship, a type of ecological housing following six principles developed by renegade architect Michael Reynolds.
The housing was, as we were told, close to camping conditions, but I loved it. The toilet had a bit of a funky smell since it used greywater (reused water from sinks, showers, and washing machines) to flush it - not my ideal of compost toilets but much above the common practice of defecating and urinating in clean water. Attendees in other houses dealt with pests, heat, and other issues, but I was lucky and had none of those issues, except for a bathroom located in the greenhouse section of the house (more on this later) which was positively scorching in midday!
Our weekdays were divided into two parts - classroom and job site work. We spent the mornings in the classroom learning about Earthship principles, construction, overseas volunteer projects, technological and ecological systems, and more, and the evenings working on the job sites of Earthships in progress. I learned a lot of details from the job sites and hands-on skills that aren't transferrable in the classroom alone. So, what is an Earthship? What makes them unique?
Earthships, as defined by Michael Reynolds, are buildings which adhere to these six principles (known as 'the six points' - in no particular order) - 1. Passive heating and cooling, 2. Water harvesting 3. On-site water management, 4. Renewable energy production, 5. Use of natural and recycled materials, 6. Food production. Earthships often have curved forms, in part due to the heavy use of used tires rammed full of earth in their walls.
Earthships are passively heated and cooled through convection. Massive glass panes on the south side invite heat which is held in a 'double greenhouse' - since it consists of two layers of glass. The second layer of glass protects the living spaces beyond from the more extreme temperatures of the greenhouse. Earthships' tire walls store the incoming thermal energy from the sun during the day and release it at night, a concept knwon as thermal mass. These walls are fireproof as well. The heat in the greenhouse pulls cool air from outside through cooling tubes that are covered in 10'+ long mounds of earth. Operable vents and cooling tube covers allow the resident to control whether this process occurs or not. All of this allows for buildings which stay about 70 ℉ year-round. I've experienced this myself - during the heat of an 85 ℉+ day, I've stepped into a wonderfully cool and relaxing earth-sheltered room.
Earthships, as defined by Michael Reynolds, are buildings which adhere to these six principles (known as 'the six points' - in no particular order) - 1. Passive heating and cooling, 2. Water harvesting 3. On-site water management, 4. Renewable energy production, 5. Use of natural and recycled materials, 6. Food production. Earthships often have curved forms, in part due to the heavy use of used tires rammed full of earth in their walls.
Earthships are passively heated and cooled through convection. Massive glass panes on the south side invite heat which is held in a 'double greenhouse' - since it consists of two layers of glass. The second layer of glass protects the living spaces beyond from the more extreme temperatures of the greenhouse. Earthships' tire walls store the incoming thermal energy from the sun during the day and release it at night, a concept knwon as thermal mass. These walls are fireproof as well. The heat in the greenhouse pulls cool air from outside through cooling tubes that are covered in 10'+ long mounds of earth. Operable vents and cooling tube covers allow the resident to control whether this process occurs or not. All of this allows for buildings which stay about 70 ℉ year-round. I've experienced this myself - during the heat of an 85 ℉+ day, I've stepped into a wonderfully cool and relaxing earth-sheltered room.
Eartships harvest rainwater that falls on their roofs and store it in cisterns. This water is sent through a Water Organizing Module (WOM) that pushes it through filters for various uses. Solar energy heats water for showers and sinks. Once used, the water is then reused three times - first, in planters in the greenhouse which grow food (this water is filtered somewhat as it goes through the soil in the planters), second, to flush the toilet, and, finally, to water plants outside the house. Earthships harvest renewable energy through solar panels and micro wind power. This energy is stored in batteries off-grid. Earthships, as mentioned above, are built with walls from used tires. Reused metals are sometimes used for roofs, and bottles and cans are used to make unique designs on walls. Some buildings incorporate plastic waste as insulation. The greenhouse in Earthships is often used to grow food. Due to the tropical environment of the greenhouse, bananas and citrus can be grown in the cold high desert of Taos, New Mexico, as well as garden staples like tomatoes and greens. Beyond the walls of an Earthship in Taos, the natural environment is full of sagebrush, grasses, and cactus, as well as the occasional juniper. |
Some of the details I mentioned, especially about thermal heating and cooling, only apply to temperate climates - Earthships in the tropics have very different forms. To learn more about Earthships, visit https://www.earthshipglobal.com/.
Although the education I received in the classroom and the job site was quite valuable, a lot of the insight I gained from the course came from experiencing the community, considering ecological trade-offs, and comparing the experience to other projects I have visited or heard about. Here's a few thoughts I'm pondering and observations I've made:
- Permits and catering to a well-paying clientele weaken the ecological value of a project. Some of the Earthship systems that I found more complex and wasteful than they needed to be (although miles ahead of systems usually used in the USA), such as the greywater and blackwater systems, are built that way to fit permitting requirements. Earthships often have systems that clientele would be more comfortable with - again, a greywater-flush toilet instead of composting toilets - even if they may have less ecological value. The use of exorbitant amounts of solar panels in later models to cater to unnessecarily high energy usage also weakens the ecological value. Permitting requires more concrete (for structural stability, as the engineers see it) than is really needed as well.
- The remote location of Earthships - often to duck egregious permitting - also lowers the ecological value. Most (if not all) of the residents of the Earthship World Community don't grow significant amounts of food, so they have to drive to Taos (about 25 minutes away) every week or so. A resident living in a less cleverly-designed building but only biking or riding buses to stores and work may still live a more ecological life.
- The mindset of Earthships - self-sustainability - contributes to individualism that is not resilient. Earthship Greater World Community members largely live hundreds of feet apart from each other, and Michael Reynolds, the creator of the Earthship concept, often describes human conflict or even cooperation as getting in the way between someone and their means of living - so it's easier to be self-sustaining. However, self-sustainability is a myth. The complicated technology in Earthships - such as water filters, solar panels, etc. - require a lot of people to work together, from miners, designers, builders, etc. (usually forced through compulsion to work or else face starvation). Earthships were described at the academy as 'community projects' due to the high amount of labor needed to build them. If access to solar panels or water filters ends, or even the ability to buy abundant food at the market, the 'self-reliance' of an Earthship dweller takes a dive. Community is needed for resilience in times of increasing uncertainty.
- The Greater World 'Community' (described by a resident as just a subdivision) has a lot less cohesion and community spirit than intentional communities I have visited. The design of the community reflects the individualist Earthship mindset. There are no common spaces for all community members, and most of the crew does not live on site. Michael Reynold's goal/use of the community is more as a space for experimentation in ecological architecture ('biotecture') than community.
Beyond the educational components, I met lots of other inspiring people from many walks of life who came together to learn about Michael Reynold's developments in ecological architecture. I made friends with many of them, although not as many as I would have liked, and follow along with their journeys in design, ecological living, and other areas on Instagram.
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I also enjoyed beautiful hikes in the Taos area. The local ecology reminds me of the dry shrub steppe about where I grew up, and this similar ecology fuels me to try to create ecological living in the shrub steppe - but with more community.
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The great southwest tour
At the end of my experience at the Earthship Academy, my parents drove (all the way from Eastern Washington!) to pick me up, and we went on a family vacation - later joined by my brother - through the Southwest. We visited museums of Indigenous culture and art, hotels owned by Indigenous people or featuring Indigenous art or interesting in other ways, restaurants, and - my main reason for going - visited demonstration sites of various ecological design concepts as well as botanical gardens. I also got to see a dear friend of mine from middle school!
I visited Arcosanti, the 'urban laboratory' of ecologically-minded architect Paolo Soleri. He saw cities as the highest form of human living, suburbia as a destructive pattern of unsustainable outward growth (I agree), and envisioned highly-dense structures as a solution. When I say highly dense, I mean it - we're talking 400 people per acre, almost ten times the density of New York City! Arcosanti is the only physical place created from Soleri's arcology designs, and still is nowhere near his planned visions. However, it is still a beautiful work of architecture and an interesting space for a community. It is located about an hour's drive north of Phoenix in the desert, the opposite of Phoenix's archetypal sprawl. I found Soleri's ideas interesting and appreciated the dense living and multi-use structures at Arcosanti, but find his drawings to be closer to fantasies than achievable. The concrete involved in his structures - even more in those never created - doesn't make them a solution as-is to the ecological crises we face. As with other experiences with ecological design, I take what I think is valuable and add it to my growing Pinterest board of the mind. Also, it should be noted that Soleri was an egoist and abuser - something I didn't know when I visited - and this had an impact on his work; it wasn't refined by critique since he pushed aside any who disagreed with him. I highly recommend (Content Warnings: discussions of sexual abuse, incest) this piece by Soleri's daughter, Daniela Soleri, about his abuse and the relationship between a creator's work and their personal faults.
My favorite and most inspirational place I visited on this trip was the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona. The neighborhood contains an amazing proliferation of rainwater-harvesting structures, native plants, and community art. It's a joyous place to be in. The water harvesting in the neighborhood began with the work of Brad Lancaster at his own property. I visited this property, which I had previously read about in his Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond books. These books have inspired me greatly and I rely on their ideas for a lot of the design work I do. This neighborhood is a template for what community-led ecological design can look like anywhere!
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I see the Southwest as an 'older sister' region to the shrub steppe lands of Eastern Washington and surrounding states, and draw from many designs developed in the Southwest for my own visions and designs in Washington. I was blessed with the opportunity to visit a region that's so critical for my own design work!
Late Summer back home and return to uw
I spent the rest of my summer back in my childhood home. I used this time to continue working on designs for the family landscape and tending to our garden. I also hiked about the local ecology and visited dear friends of mine.
I enjoyed this restful time - I worked on what I'm passionate about and lived a slower, more peaceful life than I do at the University of Washington. Last summer, which I spent almost entirely at the same place, I was terribly lonely, but I felt like occasional contact with friends (much less than I have at UW) and the strength of my own passion in design allowed for a time that was much more fulfilling. Toward the end of the visit, I began to fear the return to UW, largely due to the frustrating and angering injustices the university perpetuates and the physical environment, as mentioned toward the beginning of this reflection.
I also felt cynical about my life in on-campus housing, which is not affordable to many UW students. Last year on campus, I met many students who didn't follow COVID19 restrictions at all and, in my view, did so more from simple apathy than any (however wrong-headed in my mind) ideological convictions. When I arrived about a week before the writing of this post, I felt overwhelmed by emotion and uninterested in meeting any of the students, who I assumed would be out of touch, uncaring, etc. However, I soon spontaneously met new friends in Dawg Daze events and began to come out of my shell. I desire to be open and loving to everyone, even if I (often unfairly) judge them to be ignorant, but it can be hard to push through my pain and fear. I intend to make the best from my time at this university, and hope to see it as a time for connection and joy, not just the next step in my career path.
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