This is my second attempt to reply and post - I typed up a …

This is my second attempt to reply and post - I typed up a big long response and lost it before hitting send. Then  I typed it up as notes elsewhere to copy and paste over to treechat, and did that, but now cannot see my response anywhere so here’s a second (re-edited) attempt to copy and paste this to you. 

 I feel good to be talking to you, as someone who knows more about treechat than me because even though I’m not part of crypto (except for learning about it, if that counts) I hold great promise for it and that’s partly why I’m here. This feels like the right place to learn more and take part, so thanks.  I relate to the idea of valuing information and communication which ties into being heard and understood. Having this conversation with you in this space shows great possibilities for all that.  Thanks for sharing those pics and links to your pub, community and heritage. I am itching to meander off topic (treechat and earthen shelter) and say something on my mind that relates to those underground tunnels and those old poetic riddles but first I want to say that I see you already know so much about the topic of traditional earthen shelter. You know how durable these structures are and you know they are beautiful. You can feel the artisanship and craftsmanship in them and appreciate them.  You know about the ingredients of the recipes and I’m assuming you might have ancestral ties to those who participated in their creation.  So you already know lots. In order to help bring you closer to your dream of building and sculpting a cosy little place to recharge in, I would like to guide you through the process of building a small scale model to rekindle your instincts, and re-familiarise  yourself with the ingredients, recipes, methods and considerations for building in life size.  It starts with playing with a bucket of subsoil either dug up yourself or intercepted from someone else’s excavation. 

I say rekindle and re-familiarise because the knowledge is in our DNA awaiting to be awoken. When I first went to teach this at a preschool, during the intro, a little boy said he already knew this and I asked him who he learned it from and he said he taught himself and then I realised the same was true for me. My brother and I and others used to go down to the creek and make “mud pies” to dry on the rock without adult guidance and it was decades later that I found out what mud play really means and perhaps part of why children are instinctively drawn to it - to activate superior shelter creation knowledge!  It starts with playing with some subsoil and water to make mud.   You may know that the walls of the old homes in the Devon UK area are all earth with the white limestone render and they are all worth a lot because they hold heritage value. Wood is only used for windows, doors, roof and furniture.  To answer your question about practicality i would say if you think small - as in, “less is more,” you will address this issue and achieve the delight of the “cosiness factor” which depends on a smaller space.   In terms of legitimacy - the word “heritage” says it all, and I have concluded that industry (especially in its modern form) is the wrong (relatively new) vehicle for satisfying our shelter needs. Start with heritage and then go deeper down to instincts.  Heritage by itself is not sufficient as it now intersects with industry which hinders it. 

For example, your appreciation of coziness is honouring your gut instincts which is the higher authority. In order to create a cosy superior shelter space that nurtures you and protects your inner child and  use a process that pleases your soul, you are best to follow the basic set of human values that you were born with, and which modern industry is at odds with. People naturally like to give to one another because it makes us feel good because at some level we see each other as a part of ourself, a part of our humanity.  And invoking the innate spirit of generosity is the key to creating shelter that provides protection, security and freedom as it was originally intended to do. Not just protection from the natural elements but also the unnatural element of debt. 

But industry is very different. It sees us as consumers -something outside of itself to be preyed upon. 

If you were to say, “Planned obsolescence eat your heart out!” while flashing a sarcastic toothy grin, right at the moment when your new (expensive) house shows signs of falling apart already, while you are simultaneously realising that your rent or mortgage payments are too high, taking away too much of your time and energy, and that your shelter payments are indirectly being used (via the legacy banking system) to fund wars and activities that are not aligned to your values, then such an existential-angst-fuelled statement would sum up your relationship to the voracious appetite of Industry.  In other words it would be a wake up call to say that when looking for the right vehicle to provide somethi…