12 Year Life Update, All Change! ... Building A Sustainable Community In Europe!?

Twelve years ago, almost to the day, I discovered Karuna Farm in India after a 15 year global search for the place that I would build my Earthship and call home. When I arrived in 2006 I began the very start of my off-grid life, and started at the very basics. The cottage I rented had no power, no water, no kitchen, and a hole in the ground for a toilet. Step by step I improved things and within a year I had learned how to install solar power, water systems, and some basics about building with Earthship Biotecture principals. I remember my first project was making a kitchen sink counter out of old fish cans and cement. That counter still stands today, 10 years later and you would never know it's made from old tin cans and a bit of cement!

When I arrived, Karuna Farm was a guest house that had several cottages that people could rent for very little money. There were about 10 plots available for people to lease for life and build their home on. Karuna had great potential to become a community as well as a guest house, and it wasn't long after I arrived that others followed suit. By the time I started building my own Earthship in 2006 there were 4 couples and 7 young children from Europe, and a few others who also came and went. My wife @clara-andriessen used to home-school some of the children in a small group at the Geodesic Dome I had made next door. I have fond memories of visiting them in the morning and seeing all their bright faces and fully enjoying a simple story read out aloud, sometimes with a guitar. They would eat snacks together in a little circle, and were the best friends that kids could ever be! They lived together in nature, totally free, and they played all day long, learning, sharing, and caring. As I neared the end of the Earthship Karuna Build in 2012, three of the couples had left and I was completely absorbed with my build. I met @ecoknowme as he volunteered for 2 months, and helped me run workshops and meet and greet people. He ended up returning some years later to live at Karuna, and has now built his own very cozy cob cottage.

The completion of Earthship Karuna marked the end of my life's mission and dream that began in 2001 in Brighton, UK after meeting Michael Reynolds, the Earthship Guru and Father. That meeting changed my life and led me on the long journey from dependence on an unfair and rigged system, into a new world of self sufficiency and real freedom. It took me a good year to recover mentally and emotionally after finishing the Earthship, and it was an utter joy to recuperate in such a beautiful and functional home. After starting out here with just a hole for a toilet, washing my dishes on the ground with dirty water, trying to work online with a flaky 2G 20Kbs Internet connection .. I had finally graduated, and fully appreciated the lap of luxury that I had managed to create. The Earthship lived up to everything that it was meant to be, and more. Everything worked, and was seemingly unlimited. I was SO warm and comfortable that I almost never ended up even using my fireplace, even in the winter.. and I didn't seem to get ill or catch a cold either..

After about a year, I regained enough energy and enthusiasm to start my workshop projects. My main mission was to build something small for someone, so that I could hold a workshop and invite people to come and learn. Those workshops were amazing experiences, and ones that I will never forget. Even though Earthship Karuna took me 3 years to complete, I managed to build the following 3 Earthships in just two weeks during 3 workshops. They were much smaller of course, but I managed to teach hundreds of people whilst learning and experimenting myself. I learned that it is possible to build homes way cheaper than most people realise, and they not only look beautiful but also outperform any conventional home.

After the end of my last workshop that I held in 2014, things started to shift for me and my outlook and life. That shift has taken 4 years and I am now finally at the end of a very long and difficult transition. Whilst Karuna could have been an incredible community, and I love it with all my heart, it was very clear that it was not working out that way, and it wasn't working for me either. Today the families have all moved on as they needed more opportunities for their children and themselves. It is wonderful living in a remote nature spot, but it can get a bit boring unless there is a community there!

Karuna has instead picked up as a very popular retreat and long weekend option for many Indians and International people. Because of this I have met 1000's of people over the years, many of whom inspired me, an also many were just wonderful people. Nevertheless, at some point it all got a bit tiring having to meet so many people for just a few days and have the same conversations about myself to them all. After 4 years of it I couldn't do it any more! I missed having friends, and having more opportunities, and just being able to pop out for this or that. Going anywhere here means scaling a steep mountain and a long walk or drive.

Around Christmas last year it also became apparent that my job as a web developer was about to end! I have been a web developer since the year 2000, and have worked in Europe and for myself in many capacities over that time. Since 2006 when I moved to India from the USA I had been working for a company in the UK, whilst living in India. It was the perfect arrangement because I could live and work here in India, whilst earing European money. It was that job that funded my entire Earthship build, and I would literally take my monthly salary and spend it all on labour and materials each month until I finished. The company that I had been working for went bankrupt in February this year, and after 12 years I lost my only source of income. I was feeling vulnerable as I have almost no savings, and have most of what I do have is in Steem ;-). The moment I lost my job I knew it was time to finally leave and find a new direction in life.

My wife is Dutch, and three years ago we bought a small caravan in Holland as a place that we could visit and retreat to in case we had to leave India. It's in a beautiful location in nature, and is very simple and really tiny. I have spent a few months there over the last few years, and have been trying to get used to life in Europe. It has been REALLY hard for me! I have been living for 12 years without ANY interference, social pressures, rules, bills, insurances, tax..etc etc! I have been living a totally no-bullshit life! The Indian people have been like medicine for me, and for my heart. It is not possible to describe their culture in a way that anyone who hasn't met it can understand. Their priorities, values, way of life, pace of life, openness, connection, love, passion, and presence of awareness continue to blow me away. It is not unusual for an Indian to remember everything about you even years later after just seeing you once. It is not unusual for an Indian to remember your name 12 years after meeting them once. Family comes first in India, and the family unit (At least in rural India) is such a healthy and beautiful thing to see. They look after each other, and even though there is desperate poverty and inequality, they do care and they do help. Whenever I am in town I often see beggars go into every shop on the street, and it is just normal and goes without saying that the shop owner will give them little bit of cash.

So moving to Europe is an exciting change for me, because it means I can basically reinvent myself, and see if and how i can fit in to Holland.. a VERY normal country indeed. The people are SO nice, and SO not Indian at the same time. I don't really like all the formality, canned response type of culture,, and I really get pissed off that almost every time I drive back from Domino's Pizza very quickly that I get a speeding ticket for just 3Kmh over the limit. Don't they understand that you have to eat a pizza piping hot and need to get home fast. In India they would understand that, because there are no rules really in India. So I am excited to see what happens when we put '@eco-alex the anarchist' back into the real world!

The big question on my mind for the last few years has been, What I would do if i lived in Europe or Holland. After 18 years of web development I have had enough of it, and let me tell you that spending my time on Steem and posting has been the greatest gift and relief from the mundane, high pressured, never ending demands of a London web development agency. Now after so much time, and so many ideas, I have arrived at the answer! Last year I was so desperate that I was seriously planning to start a falafel and vegan cheese stall, or even market it to shops. That whole process is so complex, convoluted, and would most likely end up with me earning almost nothing and spending all my time dealing with business beaucracy.

It always struck me that despite inspiring 1000's of people to live off-grid over the years, almost none of them have managed to self build. The reason why so few people self build became more obvious to me over time, and today I totally get why this is not happening. People don't have experience or money! Most workshops cost a lot of money, and even then you are highly unlikely to be able to self build after just one workshop. Most people also don't want to go off on their own and build somewhere, they want to be with others in community. Anyone who has built in the most beautiful remote locations, will know first hand how quiet and lonely it can get .. especially after a long and intense build process. It has always been my dream to help build a new community, and present a model for others to copy and learn from. Making self building accessible to everyone hinges on money! It costs a lot to self build in most circumstances, and the type of people who want to live off-grid tend to not have much money! This problem is one that I finally got over once I came up with the idea of using blockchain to partly fund an off-grid community, the ecoVillage coin! Right now I am working toward the creation of a totally off-grid community in Europe, and I will be leaving India in 5 days to start this new journey.

Two weeks ago I launched the @ecotrain delegation and voting bot. This bot was the start of my new vision and way to continue my work and bring all that I have learned to Europe and beyond. It is my great hope that Steem and blockchain technology will become the golden pieces of the puzzle that allows me to fund this project and create a real community that can lead the way for others to replicate and spread.

How To Support ecoVillage coin and my eco-building workshops.

Delegation to the ecoTrain voting bot

If you would like to support me spreading sustainable living and eco building please consider delegating to the @ecotrain account. Every little bit helps, and I would like to give a very special thanks to everyone that has delegated so far. That includes: @jerrybanfield, @nainaztengra, @blueberrybison, @torico, @stillgideon, @mrfunkymonk, @michelios, @sashagenji, @stortebeker, @movement19, @hopehuggs, @gentlesoul, @amitgiat.

Delegators receive 65% of their portion of the bids placed on the @ecotrain bot every day.

CLICK HERE TO DELEGATE ANY AMOUNT OF STEEM POWER IN 1 MINUTE.
https://steembottracker.com/delegation.html

Donate Cryptocurrency To Support Free EcoBuilding Workshops

All donations will be used to facilitate an eco-building workshop in Holland that will be free for anyone to participate in. Any support is very welcome, as small donations in numbers really does make a huge difference.

BTC: 3Gp8YSs3GfNCfio9kZ7ek6LR2GW2WkmXkV
BCH: qz7xq552vqwasvelc3q25h5rymrqhhqn3vratlljml
ETH: 0x29b5Aa771760cb8b99e5Cf49fA4726AfDa600da3

Thank you for being a part of this exciting journey, and maybe one day I will see you at my first workshop!

See a compilation of all my eco-building and workshop posts on Steemit
https://steemit.com/earthship/@eco-alex/a-compilation-of-all-my-eco-building-and-workshop-posts-on-steemit