Energy Band

One Room Global Model

Welcome to week three. I left home five weeks ago. I didn't expect to miss Chico so much. I actually miss my land and housemates incredibly. I strongly encourage everyone to take vacations to have some solo and quiet time for oneself, as well as to take the space from the folks you love. It really puts things into perspective.

Door bucks and framing up and braced to receive vigas on Wednesday.

Keeping this blog is an interesting experience. I think about who my audience is because I want to keep it interesting for you folks. There is of course all you community and co-op peeps (foodies & co-habitating stewards), you burners, artists and spiritual comrades, and you guys who are interested in exploring sustainability, autonomy, and alternative architecture. I seriously rack my brain on how to structure this blog without re-writing any of Mike's books, and to keep you all interested. I'll let the pictures tell the story this time around so I can just stream my consciousness to you.


All things divine.

Scaffolding. Still need to dig out dirt to create even subfloor.

I live on the very compound Mike Reynolds moved to many, many moons ago. It is the very location where his vision began to take shape. It's truly an honor to be here living with the Castle. (I'll include photos later.) What makes Earthships so effective in maintaining temperature? Thermal mass. Allow me to reiterate, it is not possible to live in an Earthship. One lives with it. These homes have character. They actually have rhythms and a nature that your biology has to become accustomed to.

Creating structure, the framework to take and distribute the roof load. This is the backbone of everything. Tire walls are the foundation.

Backtracking a smidge to thermal mass, the idea is these rammed earth thermal mass structures, can or bottle walls, act as a battery. These walls absorb the heat of the sun throughout the day, while keeping the space cool. In the evening, or early morning, as the temperature drops, the stored heat in the walls - or batteries - releases into the home warming it up during the coolest part of the morning. Depending upon some variables, the mean average temperature inside the dwelling ranges right around 70 degrees (plus or minus two degrees).

My sleeping rhythms were shocked by my new home. It has taken about two weeks or so to finally acclimate. It was rough. I'd go to bed tired and beat from doing hard work. I expected to sleep solid through the night. Did I? No. Why? I'd fall asleep then wake up because I was too hot. I'd kick off my bag, toss and turn a bit, then get out of my bunk to go to the bathroom or grab some water. I'd crawl back into bed and fall back asleep. Then I'd wake up because I was cold. I'd snuggle back into my bag and fall asleep again . . . in between worrying if I'd roll off the top bunk. I'm just on my sleeping pad on a bunk with a lip, so I have plenty of room. Psychologically I worry about rolling off my mat, thinking I'm going to roll off the bunk. (I still do that.)


I'm cozy and sleeping. Then the sun comes up and shines through my window right on my face. I've got a system where I prop up my pillow in the night so I can sleep a little longer. This off and on sleeping was wearing me out. As we learned about thermal mass, I found myself having a language to describe my sleeping changes. Before I knew it, many of my fellow Academy students and I were all experiencing the same thing. After we talked about it, I've been sleeping well. Assimilating into the Biotecture life.

1 of 3 buttresses. Smooshed concrete into lath and covered can wall, which levels the tires for the roof.

I share a room with three women, and a bathroom with 8-12 people. Speaking of housemates, Phillipe (originally from Chile, now living in Spain) just brought me a crepe with dulce de leche inside. Glucose is brain food! Delicious. Okay, so there's 4 guys staying in the pod on the property (a simple Earthship), 4 guys in the other room in the castle and us ladies. We all take turns spending the night out in the pyramid. It's aligned with the cardinal directions, solar activity, and magnetic fields.

Can wall base lined up with buttress. Will go to ceiling. We are digging the dirt floor 1" below the base of these cans to create an even subfloor.

Everyone who is involved in the Academy brings so much to the table. I'm really honored to be swinging pick axes, sledgehammers, hammers and shovels with these people. I'm surrounded and immersed amongst well-traveled, talented, brilliant, articulate, innovative and respectful people. Folks who are filled with passion and vision, willing to do the hard work and to live a life of autonomy in community. There is so much energy and excitement, along with the stressors involved with living in tight proximity, doing intense work in raw conditions and being immersed in social situations.


It is necessary for everyone to break away, to take some down time in order to have space.

The threshold in brown, Tyrex (1'6" each for 3" total), and 1" lower to the footing is our guideline. Dig down 1" below to create subfloor. 

I feel at home in the desert. I've missed her.

This job is a bitch. Pick axe, shovel, buckets. Jackhammer to break up volcanic rock. See those big rocks? I dug that shit out today.

This last weekend I got caught up in some high anxiety. Fears. Tears. Hard decisions. Communication. Really having to let so much go. It was intense for me. Here I am in the midst of the Academy, with a build or two ahead of me before heading back to California. I don't fully understand what I'm doing or how it's going to happen. Will I return to Cali in August? September? October? November? Nonetheless, my mind has this fierce desire to know how. Structure. Organization. Planning. Ah, sigh. Mike calls this letting go of the dogma and getting into the flow, intercepting natural phenomena.


My entire situation has changed due to unforeseen events and expenses. So this was the reason for my freak out. I went to the mountain to get grounded. I set up my lawn chair next to the river, along with a friend, and just listened to the river flow by. It's my way of being grounded in the flow. To honor the flow of energy and to root into the earth, into my inner knowing is something I have to do to keep my sanity. I think it is also becoming necessary to practice rituals and ceremonies for the shifts of energy within and around me. I travel with a broom for crying out loud!

Example of digging down to the subfloor. Lesson learned: Hire a back hoe to come in to level out the site before construction begins!

I work with energy. Cleaning space, moving space, creating space and moving energy is something we humans have been doing for a long, long time. It's literal, figurative, and metaphorical. I like to bring healing to places and hold space for healing for people.

Air tubes. 30'. These cool the house through convection with the greenhouse.  Concrete scratch to left and right over lath. Adobe pack out above.

I'm currently exploring three different projects.

North side of air tubes. Have Tyrex boxes as a vapor barrier and keep critters out.

1. One is to find employment with the company while I am here so I can feed myself, pay my bills, put gas in my car - while here, on builds, and on my way home.

Almost buried cisterns, tucked in with insulation to keep from freezing.

2.The second project is seeking help with logistics so I may line things up to do my second phase of my Biotecture degree, which is a start-to-finish build - while currently being in phase one. I lit that fire today.

Can wall above with the beam to take the load of the vigas and roof. Vigas are being planed or de-barked as we speak!

It's looking like I may head to New York with a couple friends to do the Ithica build in August. I'm hoping to catch a ride with some of the core team back to New Mexico to do the Albuquerque build in September. There is also the possibility to get involved with the autumn Academy for a month. I have a friend who has offered to take me with him to another job site to learn some finishing detailing work. Texture stuff. I have a feeling it will be my forte.

I never imagined I'd work with concrete. 

The third phase of my degree is to do an independent project. I am doing these two builds so I am ready to be a project manager / foreman (with an experienced team and guidance if need be) to build an Earthship on campus - to offer a class to college students, to offer experiential learning for interns, apprentices, and future Academy students. (I'll be working on this after returning to Massa Organics.)

Respect the concrete.

3. The third project is a remodel proposal on the Castle. I ran it by today. I need to type up a point-by-by-point memo for it to be run by Mike because he knows this structure better than anyone else. I would then be leading a remodel side-by-side with Mister Reynolds. Fucking awesome!

Builder. Creator. Grower.

"The human being can surrender to a greater consciousness just as a caterpillar surrenders to a butterfly. The energy band is the natural evolutionary 'current' that energizes these transformations. Surrender to what you are and become it. This will lead you to your energy band. When you find your energy band there will be no more barriers." - Mike Reynolds

Security is a Myth. It denies change. It is just not true, and that is reality.

Inner south side pyramid. 

After being here for a week and a half, I find it challenging to find a starting point. Over the last nine months I have spent my time reading Mike Reynolds’ books, studying the website, watching documentaries and video footage, as well as learning about the legal mechanisms he has pushed for to create an executive order for fast track permitting of truly carbon zero housing. From reading about basic principles of rammed earth thermal mass dwellings to the Sustainable Development Testing Site Act New Mexico: HB0269, way on down to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, I have been doing my homework thinking it would prepare me for what lied in store for me in the Greater World.

Inside pyramid looking down from loft.

I had a rude awakening. From the classic “U” structure explicitly described in the first two Earthship books, with their gravity skylights and simple design and systems, these houses, philosophically, were created to take care of people, be accessible to everyone, and address our ecological situation. What was the situation way back when? We started noticing deforestation, the increased cost of timber, and the threat to woodland species. Does anyone remember the spotted owl? Weyerhaeuser? This was later, but you get the point. Then humanity started noticing the sheer amount of waste, garbage, bottles and cans. Think images of dumps. It was all over the news. During this time Mike had recently graduated from Architecture school (or was just about to) and started putting things together: how do you build homes if there isn’t wood, and there’s a shit ton of trash we need to find something to do with? Is there a solution? Could these things fit together?

Dynasphere (wind generator) of the Grand-Daddy Earthship.

There is a philosophy - an ideology that drives the concept of a home that one lives with, versus living in. It is called Biotecture. Biotecture offers the greatest autonomy and radical self-reliance that is realistically attainable while still participating in a cash economy. It is beautiful. Over the last forty-some years, Mike has navigated through some straight-up challenging times, coming up against “no” over and over again, to some enchanted visionary times. He is like any other creative genius, he has his process, and back in the day he was out here on the Mesa when no one was out here. There weren’t young, willing bodies working next to him as he started experimenting with building and systems. He was out here by himself (more or less), strapping himself up to the dynasphere during a full moon and praying. We all have our way; I know I have mine. Mike has seen hardship; he’s been knocked down and has picked himself up after each blow.

Mike's first pyramid. Master Builder.

The exploration Reynolds has been doing is hands down, stinking radical. I can’t imagine it being more radical. His relentless perseverance has made him the leader in living off the grid for over 40 years. He and his teams over the years have made mistakes, many of them, and have tried many options, all the brands. These guys know their shit. This is a way to live a free life; autonomy, anarchy in a way. Have you noticed the symbol for the Earthship Biotecture Academy? It’s a tire with a sledgehammer, shovel and level in the shape of an anarchy symbol. It’s a way to own your day. Freedom.

With the mistakes, with the learning, and doing things outside the system, there has been some dogmatic repercussions: lawsuits. The man is running a business, growing a business, paying employees, buying land, making payments, paying the man and doing relief projects. It all takes money. I’m noticing the change from the original ideology of access to Earthships for all, to Earthships to folks who can afford $350,000 with excessive systems to back up a conventional lifestyle. 

The market wants the whimsical, curvaceous and aesthetic of an Earthship, along with the feel-good systems – perhaps as an ego boost. Oh yeah, I have some cisterns, am off the grid blah blah blah . . . But then continue to live with their TVs, hair dryers, dryers, 30 appliances and all the amenities you’d have in a conventional home, along with all the back-ups just in case you have a cloudy day or five. 

The circumference of living a Biotecture lifestyle requires you shrink your twelve inch circle down to four to five inches. Live more conservatively with less. Live with what you really truly can’t live without and take impeccable care of your systems.  This is not the reality of what’s happening in the market with Earthships, and the price is indicative of that. (Call me judgmental, but I’m sticking to it; it’s one of my personality traits.)

Freaky Friday. Ibel Cruz and I after a full day of building. (G.W.)

As of the most recent relief project in Haiti, Reynolds and Earthship staff fell in love with the Simple Survival model they built. It was constructed in 14 days for between $7-10,000 (depending on who you talk with). It was an a-ha moment for many. Mike realizes they have moved so far away from where they started and with this new S-Model, they’ve rekindled a return to their roots. The last academy built one in the Greater World so we could assess it and give Mike our feedback. It looks like the plan for the next academy will build a souped-up S-Model, incorporating our feedback. It’s enough to make me want to stay to help create something that I would like to see, build, and live in – and that would be affordable to someone like myself.

Biotecture: Week One

Here is the power supply to the job site. Oh, for those of you who don't know what I'm doing right now, I'm enrolled in Mike Reynolds' Earthship Academy, studying Biotecture. I've enrolled to become trained and eligible for a leadership position in his army, as well as learn how to build an earthship of my own.

Last Friday we wrapped up our first week. These photos demonstrate what we've accomplished thus far. Our schedule is to be on the job from 9-4:30 (sometimes later) Mondays and Fridays. Tuesdays through Thursdays we have class with Mike and other instructors as the program progresses until 12, and then we hit the construction site until about 4:30. It makes working in the raw intensity of the high and hot desert easier for us as we acclimate.

On the left you see the stem wall, the walk way will be the vapor lock. This section will become the greenhouse of the Global Model Earthship that we are building.

In one week, we've established a fair amount of work. This week we transition from Bronze to Brains.

Looking down seven courses of pounded tires. The shovel and sledgehammer are my friends.

Seven courses of tires with four courses of packing in cement to even out the structure for doing the adobe finish. Here is one of three ventilation tubes which are part of the convection cooling system. A new development in the Global Model. They run about 30 feet buried under ground. It pulls air in, cools it down and the gravity skylights draw the hot air out from the greenhouse. It's amazing!

Here you can see two lath baskets. In the original books, they used wood blocks. These concepts are constantly evolving. They fill in the gaps where a tire won't line up, depending upon its wear and tear, and how much it expands when it gets packed. Also, each tire has to be level in two directions. Sometimes you just fuck it up some how and it can't be fixed so you throw in a lath basket.

Oh yeah, so we have a few rules in the academy. One of the rules is if you don't like the language, speak up. This is a construction site after all. Another rule, maybe number 7, don't be a bitch. People are constantly referring to rule number whatever. I don't have the numerical association memorized to each rule. They're all common sense stuff . . . maybe for a carpenter's / architect's daughter. I grew up working in the trades, working side-by-side with my dad for many years. This is old hat for me.


The photo above has a white flaccid thing hanging down. It's the water pipe that will be guiding water from two soon-to-be buried cisterns behind this north wall. We have it wrapped in paper and taped up to protect it until we start to plumb it in.

Back up supplies, waiting to be pounded. 235, 225, 215, 205. I'll never forget these numbers.

Back to the stem wall. After measuring out the green and pink line, being quadruple sure that our beam footing is perfectly lined up - because EVERYTHING is built up off of this. If this is not strung up perfectly and checked from three points, it can totally fuck up your house. But, no stress. One point of reference is this beam atop the stem wall. Once we committed to these lines (you can slightly see the trench we dug to the right), we drilled this beam to the stem.

Sorry these are out of order. I want to get these out for you before things get backed up. I'd like to have a weekly check-in so you can see the progress. Above is looking south towards the buried insulated thermal wrap and vapor barrier on the north end of the north wall. The white line leading out of the soil there is the water line that will be connected to the cisterns before we burry them under the berm.

Our cement station. Nice job site eh? What a stellar view! Who needs to go to the Playa when you can build and play in the powdery dust of the Mesa?! I have to come prepared with a bandana to cover my face, wear goggles, and a big ole sunhat to protect my brains and neck at 7,000 feet. Awesome.

Everyone has to have a shitter, and I don't mean the riser!

The entire Earthship (the Company) crew has a tradition called Freaky Friday. Every Friday everyone gets dressed up crazy and lets their freak flag fly. This photo is my normal freakish self. I brought a sack full of Burning Man outfits I made last year just in case I make it to the Playa. It doesn't look like I'll be going to BRC this year . . . Besides, I'd rather stay here! All this to say, I have the best outfits to wear to work! I'll have to get a shot or two from last week to share.


I wore my gold outfit. Two pieces of slinky gold fabric tied around my waste to make a skirt with slits going up to expose my legs to my hips. Of course I made matching bootie shorts. The top was low cut, open in the back and I wore my Playa boots with gold sparkly spats. To top it off, add my mom's scarf with the best graphics ever and my Australian hat and Jackie O sunglasses. Then add accessories: rubber gloves hanging from my hip for concrete, a tape hanging from my other hip with my other work gloves on. Add the high desert breeze and you instantly have a Construction Goddess! We've recently started breaking off into teams and people have been given and or have taken on certain leadership roles. Right now I'm holding the title of Freaky Friday Leader. Upping the entire energetic vibe of doing hard work on a Friday.


The part I love the best about that is the big ass happy smiles on peoples faces, all teeth from ear to ear, and sparkles in people's eyes. Happiness. I love that I do that!

Back to work! There's two jobs here I worked on in this shot. One was laying out the insulation and then covering it with a vapor barrier. We tapped that in with nails, made sure it was level and plumb, with a four foot overlap for a cold vapor lock and then guided the backhoe in to bury it - level and plumb. The second job is if you look closely at the shadow of the cistern, you will notice a depression. We had to figure out from the section and floor plans of the house design plans to figure out what elevation we needed to set up the cisterns so it can catch the water run off, and be below the slope of the roof. Doing some calculating, we committed to 76" elevation and dug it out by hand with shovels and pick-axes for both cisterns. The western one will be laid out to drain at the northeast corner, and the eastern one will be tilted northwest.

Here's looking at the north end of the side towards the southwest.

Stem wall again. Super important wall right here. If you didn't notice, the string and rebar are pink!

Cans don't have structural integrity but in concrete they do. Make sure they are laid upside down so bugs and water can get out. Below is the beam footer we dug out, now awaiting rebar and chairs. After it gets inspected, we'll lay concrete.

Tune in next time for a recap on week two.

Un-Real

In the seventh grade I made friends with Maggie Weimer, who was a year ahead of me in school, after a middle school dance. Both she and I were standing around waiting for someone to pick us up. Maggie offered me some chocolate out of a box of sweets some young rocker or genius nerd had given her (love the brilliant nerds). Our friendship started to develop once I got into high school. Maggie is one of three of the Weimer sisters, “The Weimers.” Her middle sister is the same age as my sister. In a nutshell, my sister and I pretty much spent our entire adolescence in the Blue House (or Animal House, depending on when you lived or partied there), and Maggie and Gretchen spent theirs at our house.

Arroyo Seco, New Mexico

The reason this is important is because we were part of a pack of artists, musicians, philosophers, activists and vegetarians or vegans. We went to concerts, hung out listening to music and doing art or cleaning the house up after a group meal. This was my very first exploration of community. Imagine this pack doing the things teenagers do, such as skip school to hit all the second hand stores, go skinny dipping at Pilchuck, or talk about the fucked up destruction of our environment (with Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, The Pixies, or Dinosaur Jr. playing the background). 

Our conversations of living communally, buying land together and building our individual houses really didn’t begin until 1991. A group of us spent a lot of time up at the Big Lake Land Trust in Skagit Valley, and at the Love Israel Ranch near Darington, Washington (they first started in San Francisco). We had a couple of very different examples of community and even became involved enough to be representatives of the Israel Ranch at the Oregon Country Fair to educate the public about community living in 1995.

Under the walnut tree: G.R.U.B. Cooperative. Chico, CA

We were all exposed to various building techniques, mediums, and systems of construction; social organization, decision making and power structures, as well as farming methodologies and how and where private and communal spaces were laid out. All of us talked to various degrees and for numerous hours over the last 21 years, but Gretchen and I specifically spent a great deal of time at different swimming holes, talking about how we want to live in a way that is congruent with nature’s systems, as well as what kind of shape or form our house would be. Our minds were extremely open and I’ve always run with people who are brilliant, expanding their consciousness and living on the forefront. We started talking about not building with wood but with salvaged materials like glass and how bad-ass it would be to build a house in the shape of a mushroom with a winding staircase – private quarters in the stem and common space in the head.

Now it all comes together. Twenty years later, I arrive at the Earthship Biotecture visitor’s center for orientation. I sit down, fill out the liability forms and so on (you know how it goes), and then I noticed a large diagram on the wall. I could not believe what I was seeing! It was a moment I could not breathe, my heart stopped and time stood still. It sounds dramatic, but it was an incredible moment! What did I see on the wall?! It was a multiple schematic of a freaking MUSHROOM HOUSE!!!

Earthship Biotecture Visitor's Center: Greater World (GW), NM

It was one of those visceral engulfing moments where I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be at exactly the right time. We all put the wheel into spin long ago about how we aspired to live, and what kind of home we would want to build. From living at the Animal House in Warm Beach, WA to living in community in Jerome, AZ back to the Skagit Valley, The Department of Safety in Anacortes, WA, to three different housing co-ops in and around the Seattle area, and now in Chico, California and Taos, NM. The sign to me is so strong and so obvious it does not seem real!

“Is this real life?!” One of my old friends, from the Animal House, with whom I’ve had these conversations with over the years, stopped in Chico for business and to tell me all about Earthships and what he’s been up to. He lined me up to see that mushroom house schematic. Love you Beau.

The Dream Lives On