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It seems our “Earthship” needs better pilots

Francisco Miraval

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity of visiting a community near Taos, New Mexico, called EarthShip, where natural and recycled materials are used to build homes, and those homes do not depend on public services to provide water or electricity for the use of the family who live there.

This is not a new concept. In fact, it began more than four decades ago. I saw documentaries about this place several times, but I never had until now the opportunity to visit one of those houses. It was a positive and eye-opening experience.

Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not planning to move to an EarthShip house anytime soon, be it in New Mexico or in many other places all over the world. But, if I do, I am sure I will not miss any of the modern elements, because many of them are incorporated into these homes.

It was not the solar panels, the unusual architecture, or the walls made with recycled tires and dirt that caught my attention. It was the fact that I was at a prosperous, multi-generational community (one of many, by the way) where people do help people to build homes and lives to avoid wasting resources and energy.

I do not believe these communities in New Mexico or anywhere in the world are the solution to all our problems and I am not saying they are a new paradise on earth. I am just saying it is intriguing to see people who recognize earth as a ship, taking us all to a cosmic journey. In doing so, they also recognize earth’s cycles.

Those cycles may not adjust themselves to the hyper-consumerist attitude of our society, where everything and everybody is just a resource that could be used, exploited, and discarded.

Somebody said (I do not remember who said it) that we use to love people and use things, and that we have inverted now that equation. In fact, the equation is so much inverted that, as Erich Fromm pointed out, we are no longer a society based on “to be”, but on “to have.”

And “to have” is inexorably connected with controlling, because he/she who has wants to keep what he/she has and wants to have even more, frequently preventing those who do not have from having anything.

With idealism and even Utopian thinking, the EarthShip and similar communities want to change that situation. They want to reconnect people with earth and people with people.

It is difficult to believe that such a worthy goal could be achieved only through building more home with natural and recycled materials. But the real important thing is not the materials or the blueprints for the homes, but the thinking behind them.

That thinking seems to indicate that for a long time we mistakenly assumed earth is ours and we can used anyway we want. Perhaps, then, it is time to realize our mistake and to find new and better pilots for our earth ship.

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