I’ve walked just about every square foot of the one hundred acres bouldering down from the top of CastleRock Mountain into Lake Marble Falls . Two things impress me.

The raw beauty of the land, the solid granite outcroppings bigger than a school bus, the twisting strength of ancient oaks, the usually subtle and sometimes boisterous rain carving of the land, the seeps where water wets the roots of Horsetail and Wild Onion, the ponds where tadpoles wiggle, the falls with quiet echoes mingling to the staccato music of Cicadas, the ever present gravity pulling everything eventually to the Colorado, AND, the absolute insanity of some of human-kind’s power to maim, deface, pillage, rape and shit upon such natural wonder.

I am ashamed and I am angry. I am blown away by the stupidity, the greedy short-sightedness and ravenous self-centeredness of some (read “sub”) humans. I hope, frankly, that at least one of the assholes who dumped their crap onto and into this land, who cut down the oaks so they could sit by the side of the road, beer in hand, holding a poorly written sign on dirty cardboard barfing, “Wood 4 Sale”. Cheap,” reads this.

But I doubt it. Reading takes an effort.

Lack of effort is why there are hundreds of rotting tires dumped in creek beds, behind cedars, rolled down hills and into gullies. Laziness is why there are asphalt roof shingles, broken television sets (Bet they miss those!) shot-up beer bottles, smashed refrigerators, more mattresses than Madam Bovary (Don’t worry, they won’t get it!) could ever visit, black plastic, used-to-be-bags, now just part of stinking, slinking, skid-mark piles of People Magazine and Pampers.

Am I pissing anybody off yet?

And yet, there is another side of human-kind; Greg’s kind of kind-human.

I introduced you all to Greg last week. He’s the guy that just showed up one day and said, “I’m supposed to be here,” and we said, “We can’t pay you right now,” and he said, “I just need a place to sleep, some food and enough money to buy gas once in a while to drive to church.”

Greg’s the kind of human-kind that reads emails, knows who Madam Bovary is and would never, in a million years, dump anything unnatural into nature.

In fact, Greg is picking up every one of those hundreds of rotting tires and he’s going to stack them up, fill them with dirt, cover them with metal lath and stucco and he’s going to build himself a super efficient, incredibly affordable, quietly spiritual, home. An Earth-Ship, if you will.

Greg and I sat down on Friday and together designed his home. It took all of ten minutes.

Somehow, when you’re doing the right thing, it just happens.

The home is going to be a beautiful, a Yin/Yang, curving wall, made out of somebody else’s crap. It’s morphing into a rain-water harvesting, solar hot water and photovoltaic generating home of little, if any, energy consumption. It’ll have a solar chimney tripling as a computer work space and meditation loft. It’ll have a sleeping loft for Ariana, Greg’s daughter, a kitchen with recycled cabinets and concrete counter tops. It’ll have the sexiest little bathing area and walls that aren’t walls all the time. It’ll be open and flowing, uplifting and humble and it’ll cost less than most people make in a year.

And we’re going to help him afford it.

Remember, Greg showed up and said he was supposed to be here. He didn’t ask for any money, so we’re financing his home site for him.

As for the tires, well hell, they’re his and they are free!

Human-kind: We can make it or we can break it.

Wake up and “Spell the Moses” in every one of us. Part the waters of “I don’t give a shit,” and enter the promised land of “I give a Shinola!”

Greg is a Consciously Committed and Creative Community maker.

You should really come out and meet the guy.

You’ll like him.

 
 
Marley