Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
- John Muir
And how could one predict this? A life beyond the scripted. The dream-like visions of my hands shaping horses with mud, perhaps blurred and married with the stories of Native America from my youth. The feeling of clay, a primordial mix of distant-past-half-life memories arising on the summer solstice as if from a dream - leading me to take leave from my design contract to live in a tent for six weeks on a farm outside of Reno, Nevada (with twelve strangers from across the country - magnetized, as if by magic, to the same blue Donate Now button on a natural building website).
The dirt journey. To say it all changed my life would be the truth. Waking every day with nature, raising an earthen house from its subterranean trench - the rocky high desert soil turning and surfacing the most unexpected gift : the return of my own wild spirit. The feeling of me - coaxed out of the underbrush, sifted and separated, brought to light through shimmering, ancient layers of clay. I'd been asleep to myself - and in my third decade of life, I opened newborn eyes through the brilliance of micaceous earth. What a life this was. What a life this would be.
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Within these pages, you'll find galleries of the builds, workshops, and community I've called home the past few years - a new life very much in progress, as I welcome all opportunities to learn, love, and integrate the blessings of this sacred work. Many hugs and infinite gratitude to and for my ever-expanding earthen family: you turn the world into a brighter, more beautiful, more heart-filled place. I am grateful to know you. ¡Viva la tierra!
