Eco in World: To live along with natural disasters; Pollution is for Processing.

Natural "disasters" are here to stay. They`ve forever been here, but as the world is more connected than ever, all incidents hit us more directly and frustrates us more than ever. To learn how to live alongside them is the new challenge for all parts of the world.

I am in a little peaceful corner here writing, trying to help out with a tiny bit of communication which has all been said before, but I know that I am also responsible as citizen of one of the oil nations, for many of the disasters already been here. So I have to be active, and cannot ignore my nabour. This time around, Japan has a hard time. And before we start to use our seeds in the Svalbard Seed Vault or building a giant Noah's Ark, I am interested in communicating that to build houses or lifestyles to merge with the natural changes of today and tomorrow, is much more important. To build infrastructure and engineering that is more than just technique above nature, that can live alongside nature, is what we have to face.

It is a practical language. To keep up the sustainability, in other words, keep the natural Balance. Bears can express it or "make actions" to keep it, but it is not a "language" in the sence of words.


This frog "knows" that I am about to pinch him,
so he got himself some jumping legs to escape from it.

In the spot where the earth needs to renew. This is logic. This is not "intelligence" in the form of an organism that "thinks". Rather I find this kind of organism, called a "she" or the earth, one hardworking body connected to not only our actions, but our bodies, too.

From farming methods, we all know that urine as an example is very good vitamin to feed plants with, and some Asian coutries even use it for preventing colds and diseases as they dip children in urine bath. It comes from our natural body, and plants again are purifying it by using their "body" and leaf, and the former urine is now thin air. Using the flow of elements: Think about this as a water circulating system with a tap in your sink. A tube system to the local river where everything ends up and in the middle of this system there is some technique to purify and make this water clean. Well, the question how to purify this water from the lake to the tap, and then back again to nature , that is the activity that decides whether the water will leave traces in the tubes to make this pure or not, and whether what comes out of the tap is drinkable. Mother earth works just the same way.

Like pollution from acid rain water comes from us, but a single plant again is trying its best to purify it, and is yet another sign that pollution is for processing, and not for keeping. If humen too are "seen" as pollution, or their techniques are, nature will naturally process it - and trying to force the process into pure elements like clean air again.

I am very much aware of that the earth is neither an animal or a human, but this time we speak of nature as one living condition, and not a fossile.

This drivers' expression on his car (from Freeland ecovillage): "Unbalance" instead of "Ambulance"

Reminding of this post as we speak (Straw Bale Houses Earth Quake Resistant): http://ecoiselin.blogspot.com/2010/09/eco-in-denmark-straw-bale-houses-earth.html

Eco in Denmark: Another album

Here is another album from ecovillage "Fri og Fro" in Odsherred, uploaded by Mette Petersen (www.okoliv.dk) living in this ecovillage. Pictures of the homes. Added to the pictures are nice descriptions (in danish) of the building material:

Eco in Denmark: Not everyone is building.. houses for free! :)

As many have discovered, it takes some time to accomplish a house where you need both effective heating value and the trend is that you're able to sell and not only use energy from your household. Which is why many homes in ecovillages takes time; because you are constantly discovering new green improvements and want to implement it. Still, the house itself, with all its fundament and material, does not necessarily need to book all your everyday meetings. For people on ecovillage Friland who works fulltime and some are in media business rather than farming business and need to get their deadlines to run, there are of course options for these, too! At the moment, I know that the community on phase three is planning some pre-prepared constructions for newcomers who are not so used to building from scratch and might need a helping hand with the ecological fundament, and when the pre-made construction is up they only need to use their imagination and personal sence to fill in the extra space almost like restoring an old apartement which many are used to do in forehand. A very good idea! Maybe not so hard-core knowledge based as you won't get to understand why you're building like this and this, but on the other hand one gets more time to accomplish the rest of the house and garden, and perhaps one can also implement faster the energy-solutions out there. For an even faster solution, one can do like Peter did! :) A friend of mine from Friland who is working alot in daytime with designing and writing books for instance, and of course he would't like this quality of life to compromise with building. There are several options for that, as mentioned with the pre-installations, but he chose something rather quick and for FREE: An old house to be demolited if not carried on WEELS! It costed him no more than 40000DKK to improve, some transport as you can see underneath (but in the long run that is nothing), and the house for free:) Good as new.

House's original position.

Up we go! :)

dum-di-dum here comes your free order, not free transport :)

House's new sunny spot!

Eco in Denmark: Back in Copenhagen and leaving Friland

Look closer!.. reused spoons :)

What a big contrast! Coming from the middle-of-nowhere-still-everywhere Friland and to Copenhagen, even makes you able to tell the difference between thick and dusty air and fresh smell of sunflowers. I came to the central station yesterday, leaving my suitcase at my friend's house from previous studies, and noticed I was still wearing the dirty boots from gardening when I passed some of the high heelers at the station, and I wasn't even caring. How could I suddenly stop caring about such details? I guess I came from another world, another priority, another set of mind where things like saving Pakistan and creating sustainable solutions are alot more important than things that can easily break, like heels. But on the same time, I feel freedom walking in a crowded city. Not being anonymous, but being connected. Feeling connected, more to a thousand individuals than to a few isolated ones. And, ironically, those ladies walking in high heels just smiled easily back at me, and I smiled back at them, and we were just one mind - two different pair of shoes, one world. Still walking the same street.

Hmm.. they say that those ugly bricks creating an old street from the 30s were intended to be a woman's enemy, as they all had to dress in high heels and not moving as fast forward as those wearing boots, usually men. So that men could run the cities, and women could just decorate them. That is how city life was created. I believe in it, no feminism thrown in it. It was practical at the time. Practical for creating the industrial revolution and side by side, creating social values to fit into it. We forget, that our common habits in today's fashion is all part of industrial expansion only, but when cities expand in the green direction, one suddenly discovers a mixture of habits like boots, heels, barefoot, crocks, sandals, sneakers, and the back-friendly wellness-shoes with a round step (that everyone tired from working stress seem to wanna buy, ironically). But I love the variation. That one can be a farmer in the city, basically. One can transform this whole city, into a green city. The details only decorating this thought. ;)

"Create your world" - Friland:



Yellow field: Empty, but soon filled with new homes in Phase 3.



Caroline's square straw bale house

Einer's non-square wooden houses

Pop an isolation idea!

Eco in Denmark: Brushing some lime plaster on walls

In the first few days here at Friland, I started as mentioned with whitewashing (or not clearly), more specifically mixing and painting with lime plaster on the external walls at my host. It was both a lesson in building stairs to reach the upper levels of the wall as well as climbing them, and of course this very simple technique. The cal is calcium carbonate, which is a chemical form of calcium hydroxide and sand, where water is added 4 times 1 to make the plaster slake. The result after brushing is below:

House's wall before lime plaster



Voila! A completely white, bright house!:)

Eco in Denmark: Arriving at ecovillage Friland, Djursland



Boat ride on Sept 2nd in a 4 hour sail with other wwoofers and hosts.

About time for some updates. Arriving at "Friland" (Freeland) in Djursland on August 30th and now it is the 5th of September, and many exciting things are going on here already. Right now, I am at the fantasy house of Einer's, who cannot stand squares -so all his equipment and house is formed un-square (soon to be uploaded!), and my previous host until September 4th, was Caroline and Tahir from Pakistan as posted below in the supportlink. 

Arriving at ecovillage Friland, I first started whitewashing the outside wall of my host with calc and water mixed, to cover the brownish straw bales. The house also hosted a kitchen garden, as Friland stribes to become a hundred percent self-sustained as households. Their goals are pretty ambitious, both self-sustained, but also free from all loans. And most of them, has houses and area built for less than 300.000 DKK, which includes material. There is about 100.000 for material, and 200.000 for VVS,watersupply and common area costs. The host I first arrived to is on phase 2 of Friland, which means they are houses in building after phase 1 is almost finished. Phase 3 is in planning, and right now I am just gazing at the open yellow field there. Even though there are plenty more "fantasy buildings" here than at Fri & Fro in Odsherred where I was at first, I'd say I am still waiting for that badass hippie, and most of those who came here are simply average danish families, mostly with first-born children, often from the city and tired of the noices there, and the big wavy skirts and rasta-hairdos are still nowhere to be seen... hmm. Surprising, even here.

My current host's greenhouse, where I am working

Photos and descriptions from Eco in Denmark

Eco in Denmark: Odsherred.

Arriving in Odsherred on August 1-9, there was a little village in the middle of the yellow fields. 16 families with children live here, the ecovillage established at a parking lot where the public road ends. In Denmark it is not called "ecovillages", though rather eco society. This is because ecovillages do not only appear in the middle of yellow fields, but also nearby the towns. Because they are so integrated as local contributors, that they are not separated from the average citizen and not seen as anything "exotic". 


Welcoming me at the community, were two parents who were architects from Copenhagen and little girl. Sun was shining, and the garden smiling at my willing hands to take a big deep dig into its soil. Like a village, these houses do have quite big gardens. The biggest investment they probably had to make, was acres of space and field to build their sustainable home. The rest of the upwards - and widely constructed area, costed them the minimum of money.

To understand how cheap it is to build this home and how much they gain from its sustainability, to create yet more freedom and yet more flexible activities in everyday life, one has to know its ground philosophy and ground fundament which I'll try to explain through some of these blog posts. This is not something new in Denmark. In fact, Norway where I come from, is estimated 15 years behind - both in the infrastructure and development of societies like this. 

But the interesing part, is that all industrial countries seem to move towards ecological balance as a result of consumer needs and consumer's deadly health from functional lifestyle, so therefor Denmark and Germany are frontiers of life style whereas countries like Norway do have a lot of peace development across borders and energy research. The sad thing, is that we seem to group ourselves as "they do this" and "we do that" , instead of looking at the society as one building and developing board where we need the eco balance as the pre-fabricated lifestyle seem not so much in balance at all. I'd avoid saying commercial lifestyle, as ecological lifestyle can be super commercial when given a chance, like we have proves in Denmark. So there is no separation between earning and slow consumption here.  

In fact, slow consumption and models given thoughts to profit the society and planet just as much as yourself, seem to be the winning gain in the end. And this we must not forget; our future and now is dependant on each other both ways. So if you want a good now, look at coming aspects so that you can relax. Knowing that your future will be a good one is surprisingly healthy for stress and concentration it seems here at the ecovillage. And the only "stressful" thing you really need to worry about, is to dedicate time for creativity and social meetings to develope the common ground where your house lives. 

Yes, lives. The house lives. And by building breathing straw bale houses, external air conditioning is a no buy and no use. The more natural material, the more they figure out how the elements work with each other to get all the resources we normally just copy from nature in the other synthetic way anyway.