Welcome to my woodland world…
Come on in and have a look around
On this page you’ll find a couple of doorways:
First is a visual tour of the little fairytale hut I built deep in the Welsh jungle, with an introduction to my way of life there.
Below that is a bundle of experts from a book I’m working on – a lyrical account of both the outer and inner aspects of my journey in radical earth-dwelling.
Through these windows I hope to share with you some of the beauty of earth-dwelling, and the profound joy and wonder that can naturally arise when we embrace a life close to the land.
Enjoy!
This is me towards the end of my feral years
And here’s the wild home I built
It sat in a glade nestled between two streams, deep in a wild Welsh wood. It was made mostly with the stuff of the woods, using the simplest hand-tools.
“It’s like something from out of a fairy tale, my round home, appearing to have sprouted organically from the earth itself, or from some woodland nymph’s wild imagination.”
I built it as a place to live as simply as possible, in close contact with the elements
“The intention wasn’t to return to a pre-historic way of life—I knew I didn’t have the skills or physical capacity for that—but to tread a path as close to the wild edge as I could handle.”
I had a living space and an outdoor kitchen — primitive luxury!
One stream flowed along in front, around about where this photo was taken from, and another flowed parallel just behind the huts – the air was always full of their sweet music.
My door was made from layers of thick wool felt. It was strung open most of the year, to let in the season, but closed snugly when it needed to. Even with it closed, the music of the streams filled the hut all day and night.
My wild hearth
I made an earthen hearth inside, where I usually kept a wood-fire burning. In front of this was enough space to sit, write, and do yoga.
I built lots of windows into the hut. From each of them I could see only the wild shapes and colours of the woods.
My handmade furniture was pretty wild too.
Breakfast time!
As you can see, I didn’t live on nuts and berries. Here I’m sharing a breakfast of muesli and corn-flakes with a friend.
By day my bed rolled up to make a sofa...
…and rolled out when I wanted to rest or sleep
The whole space was soft and organic. It was dry and cosy inside, while remaining energetically open and connected to the woods around. It was shelter without separation from environing nature. Its roundness was part of what created this connectedness, as was the nature of the materials it was made of - raw and mainly foraged from the immediate surroundings. It was a deeply harmonious little house, almost one with its wild milieu in both form and substance.
There’s hardly a straight line in sight, only organic contours flowing along with the mood of the woods.
The roundwood for the roof-frame came from the woods around the hut, cut with axe and bow-saw and prayers of thanks. The walls were made of straw- bales covered with a clay and dung plaster-mix which also came from the land around. The windows were mostly reclaimed.
I just love earthy textures!
The hut was built on top of a wool-insulated wooden platform which sat on chunky rounds of oak – each one cut by hand from wind-blown trees. This raised platform kept the hut free of damp.
My outdoor kitchen
On my indoor fire I could boil a kettle and cook a pot of stew, but I did most of my cooking here outside, where I’d made waist-height work-surfaces and cooking fire.
Cooking on fire with twigs and sticks is surprisingly easy, provided they are properly dry. After 3 or 4 days of dry weather I’d go out and collect a few sackfuls of air-dried deadwood, which would then last for a couple of weeks.
This is the stream just in front of the hut. I shaped this little pool here and lined it with large stones.
From the small fall I gathered water for cooking and drinking. Here I also washed, washed-up, brushed teeth, and made prayers.
“Pierced by a gratitude as sharp as grief, at once humbled and ennobled by the vast beauty of earth and sky, tears fill my eyes and overspill, falling into the dancing stream, carried on towards the sea.”
This was the view from my doorstep. Just down there beyond the lying-down tree the two streams meet and become one. I’d sit out here for hours in the mornings, gazing into the woods, watching the birds and the breeze play through the leaves and branches.
I love the living woods and don’t like cutting down trees if I can help it. For firewood I tended to use only trees and large branches that had fallen naturally in the wind. There was always plenty of these around, so that was easy. Everything was cut and split by hand using axe and bowsaw.
A little way down from the huts and away from the streams was my open-air compost loo with its jungle view. (I find that squatting in the fresh air is by far the best way to poo – even in the rain.)
From almost any distance away the hut became invisible. A few dozen paces into the woods and it just disappeared.
I used no electricity at all there and didn’t have a phone or a computer. Everything in my life was as low-tech as it could be. Somehow the peace, simplicity, and elemental fullness meant that I didn’t seek distraction in media. I had a few friends nearby and wrote letters to those further away, but mostly I was happy in quiet solitude, deepening my connection to the living earth.
In winter after the sun had gone down I sometimes used candles for light, but mostly I had only gentle firelight in the evenings. Yes, the nights were long, but darkness and stillness are nothing to be feared.
Elsewhere on the 60 acre site were a few other woodland dwellers living in little huts similar to mine. The building in this photo is a communal space, where we would gather a few times a week for singing, eating, and sharing circles.
I loved my time on that land – almost 5 years in total. Looking back on those years, remembering the joy I had in that way of life, its quiet, earthy goodness, I feel enormous gratitude.
I also feel renewed grief that humanity has strayed so far from natural simplicity. I wonder, why aren’t more people choosing to live more gently on our beautiful earth?
‘Moss-Gardening in Paradise’
A few excerpts from the book I’m working on (click through to read more).