cultivating stillness

"to meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer the universe. i call it stillness, but it is a jewel of many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love." -eckhart tolle

the power of now is amazing.

i'm overcoming some of the painful stories i've come to tell myself. and remembering some of the beautiful stories i've had as a young'n and at various other points along the way. down with down, up with up.

on the more physical plane, there's now a little community blossoming in our little home in culpeper, virginia. there are seven adults and one asher baby living on the third floor of the medical arts building, a few blocks from downtown. (just about 3 blocks from the amtrak station if you're thinking about visiting...)

there's also 90 acres in nearby etlan that we're planning to build and garden on this summer. hopefully we'll have lots of work parties and events in the warm months for y'all to come out to. nudge. (:

and we're going to some hot springs on a visioning retreat next week to figure out how to fit all of our dreams into the span of our lifetimes. or something like that.

learning to build with earth

i recently completed an intensive ten day workshop on cob building- a method for building earthen structures.



bj, asher and i headed up to coquille, oregon between august 2 - 12. it was a big adventure on lots of levels: our first big outing with asher, our first big drive with asher, camping with asher, my first hands-on experince with natural building, and such beautiful country to explore on the oregon coast.

the workshop was really amazing. it was put on by the cob cottage company or run the north american school of natural building. these are the people who started the cob building renaissance in the us. we covered everything from siting to foundation, walls, natural plasters, floors and roofs.

one of the things i liked the most was the underlying philosophy what they're all about:
- use locally resourced natural materials whenever possible
- use human power rather than power tools
- anyone can learn and undertake cob building
- build inexpensively and focus more on living joyfully and in connection

i'm sold. and now i'm excited to learn more about other natural building techniques such as straw bale and timber framing. and i can't wait to get a chance to put what i learned to work building with cob.