Forest Gardening meets Deep and Personal Ecology

Forest Gardening is to become really deep and personal for us. We are about to move out of town to dwell permanently in the forest. Our house in town has just been sold and ceases to be my second home away from home on June 20th.

The comforts of city life are about to be replaced by very carefully considered solar power. My minimum needs have become the starting point for maintaining connection to the world and having simple conveniences at Harmony.

Just before the house sold our purple Vanny moved with Lorraine to the northern east cape of this one land and I've really enjoyed taking to the peddles. My muscles have rediscovered their memories of my biking as a youth. I was about 27 when I got my first petrol powered vehicle, and I'm "younger" than 27 again.

I've been building a wash-house which you can read about in the Harmony Farm Newsletter. The exciting pertinent point here is that in order to get more time building it, my inner nudges, said don't wait for the bus, ride your bike at least some of the way. So I hopped on and peddled, telling myself, I could also stop at the north end of town and hitch; or that if I rode past there, I could stop and walk up the steep parts. Well those inner nudges kept saying I had more energy, and I only walked about a hundred metres of the whole trip. I passed other cyclists and got to Harmony only about 20 minutes slower than coming the other way. Then I put up more framing for the roof, and biked back. You too can be liberated fr a time from fossil fuels ... and fit.

Biking has given me a different sense of my strength, and of my ability to consume energy - in order to feed it to the peddles. I'm learning lots about bikes so that I can get them rolling along more easily.

The uppermost corner of the wash-house roof stands 4m high and is just half a meter from several Tree Fuchsia branches, so in building it, I've had the good fortune to be up with the birds. I said to one little fellow "Here I am up high like you, but you've got wings, and I cannot fly". I wondered how I looked to that little bird perched up there - being careful of my footing least I fall rapidly to the ground - without my wings.

That same uppermost northeast corner is also the first part of any building at Harmony to catch the rays of the morning Sun. As they filter through the tree tops, and before the earth turns and lets Sunlight dance along the far west side of Connection Clearing it arrives up here on the East, tickling the leaves of the trees, and sliding on by to light up the sleeping loft on top of the Wash-House. I'm wondering whether to put in a special little window right up there under the eave to bring in those first rays of hope early in every day.

I have windows planned to let the visitors to the loft also connect with Vision Quest Hill on the right and Rustler's Ridge on the left. I like high views out over the tree tops and was going to build the wash-house roof even higher to see even more until Alan and I thought it might blow over. Its foundation had not been built with such heights in mind and we did not want to see the building staggering on its feet in the stronger winds that race across the clearing. Now instead we ahve the spiral, the twist, the morphing roof, as described in the link to Harmony Farm News above.

The Wash-House has been dynamically designed "on the fly" as it builds itself. This approach links the design to the site, to the environment, and to the builder. I decided to place a stud to support a roof, then see what window I might have that fits the space defined by that stud. I find one that has been waiting for years in the pile because it just fits. I watch the sun, and see how high to place it. Discussing it with Spirit, All Beings, I ask how does it fit with the bigger picture, and the height of the framing for all windows on that side of the building is adjusted so that they Harmonise.

I don't know how well they will Harmonise, because they're not in place yet, but in the rise and fall of the sills and window tops I sense the aspiring shape of the roof will be reflected. The shapes and patterns will create space that stretches beyond that which they immediately occupy. All will reflect the whole.


For the opportunity to volunteer and study forest gardening, earth building, and permaculture at Harmony, and to experience your own special insights into living and working with All Beings volunteer!


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Love,

David


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