Calleigh Ferrara

Do you ever feel as if you just want to go home? Sometimes in the midst of everyday drudgery and the storms created in my mind, I find myself longing for home. "I just wanna go home," I say in a three-year-old voice. It can happen no matter where a person is, even while home. We want to feel protected, nurtured, and relaxed. Perhaps we long for the introspective and undistracted fetal position we peacefully maintained in the womb. Or maybe it's more than what we have experienced on Earth. Maybe we long for that somewhere out there in the cosmos from which we came and/or to which we are going. We want the ultimate in comfort and ease. We want to be sheltered.

Despite the far-out path we may be on, right now we are having an Earthly experience. The Earth is our source of food, clothing, delight, pain, and shelter. No matter what you eat or what you live in or what you wear, no matter where it is grown or processed, and no matter how much humans may disguise or molest its original ingredients, it came from the Earth. We once thrived from our connection to our mothers through the umbilicus. Now we completely derive our sustenance from the Earth. There is an obvious but often ignored cord from us to Mother Earth. Building with earth reinforces our life on and relationship to this planet.

More than a dozen years ago, I became enthralled with a concept called "voluntary simplicity" and I was determined to live this philosophy to the fullest. During this adventure, the term "sustainability" became popular, and I added it to the list of my ambitions. I began with philosophy and moved into practice--and I have been practicing ever since.

Early on, I met some of the leaders in the deep ecology movement. I was quite disappointed to learn they weren't living in a way that reflected their writing or speeches. They weren't the rugged forest people of my dreams. At twenty-one, fresh out of college, I was ready to act. My life had been full of words and thoughts, but little action. I had heard over and over again that actions spoke louder than words. So with my backpack of food and gear, I voluntarily dropped out of mass society.