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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:
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