Hello, the walls are drying, last night a creature was nesting in the thatch… yesterday I disturbed a large moth crawling into sanctuary under the eaves whilst combing them… the nearby Ice House is to be reconstructed here… said to be roost to some of the bat population of Compton Verney…

Photo by Ania Bas 

Ice Houses are massive underground chambers, sometimes beehive shaped… ice is collected in the Winter from a nearby water source and the thermic mass keeps it frozen throughout the Summer… I feel drawn to research the contemporary use of ice houses as an ecological alternative to cold storage… if we get enough ice in these mild winters… and who knows if we are due for a warming period or an ice age.. or both?

Photo by Jo Hallington

The archaeological record sometimes shows us pits within British round houses… interpreted as cold storage pits… it being roughly and constantly 10 degrees down there.

Today many, many people have been ralleying past to the Fiat event… launching a new vehicle I believe. ‘The Yin and Yang of life’ remarked Trevelyan some weeks ago about the phenomena of the Natural House Project and the Fiat Brava event happening simultaneously on either side of the House and river. I drove out today hoping that my van’s air of recycled bio-diesel would have some subtle olfactory effect on some of the car enthusiasts. I imagine the most appropriate vehicle for a natural house…. horse drawn, water bourne…?

Photo by Ania Bas 

I have been smoothing the floor and the walls with fingertips and palms, rubbing in and refining. A brighter day, but the rain still falls. The inhabitant would have an on-going relationship with a dwelling of this nature… as animals do with their architecture… refining, maintaining, changing, seasonally adjusting.

I am starting to miss being settled at home and the longing for simple sustainability of lifestyle returns… the adage of self-sufficiency has transformed into village-sufficiency.

A dream clarifies itself… a dream of creating a village of natural housing, sustainable, free of electricity, sourcing fresh spring water, growing food, yet sustainably networking with the wider community.

Soon, I feel it coming, but for now it is time to continue to sow these seeds of nature, art and architecture, stories and folklore, spirituality, community, music, direct human experience, naked eye astronomy, the wisdom of our senses, the inspiration of the past to ease the future… changes. This is my truth anyway… and if we can do one thing, then we can find our truth and the act upon it… and if it inspires or moves others… then we are reading from the same book of nature… a perpetual practice.

Enjoy these luscious days of high Summer, the low and growing June moon and time away from these screens.

Chris