Retreat One at Magical Farm: Natural Building in Everyday Life

Written by Dr Demeter

Photography by Ness Vanderburgh Photography

A Natural Building workshop took place at Magical Farm 11th – 16th January, 2022. A beautiful group of people convened to co-create an office for Magical Farm, in partnership with Clare Aston’s Elemental Earth Building. The retreat was a ‘village’ coming together to learn new skills, share food and stories. We explored Cob building (building with clay and stay and sand) and clay-straw slip technique.

I would like to share three ways Natural Building nourishes everyday life & reflect on our Natural Building retreat at Magical Farm: Introducing a concept called C.O.B!  

1. C: Convivial communities 

Convivial communities refers to people creating something autonomously outside the dominant system in a joyous and interdependent way. Put simply acting differently to the ‘industrial model’ of being and doing. 

Natural Building is an empowering approach for everyday life practice. Our dominant culture ‘sells’ building to us as a commodity which requires tradies to make it all happen for us.

However Natural Building is a creative and nourishing activity which is accessible to all - thanks to this retreat my two eldest children know how to build a shelter for themselves – they have learnt new skills that will be practical for their life. The youngest one was soaking it all up and watching everyone immerse themselves. They made beautiful friendships and had a glorious time.

Natural building is one significant way to claim back power in our everyday life. If people can build their own shelters and not have to rely on commodity building, we can begin to shift away from unmanageable mortgages. We can also put an end to drip feeding from large corporations who sell us back commodified versions of shelter.

Another important learning natural building can be done by anyone if they set their heart to it. Women are known to be avid Natural Builders. Clare Aston our teacher said that many villages and homes around the world are naturally built by women - it is their job and they are highly respected for this task. Personally, it is such a relief for me to have learnt this skill. I can contribute to building my own shelter, in a healthy, sustainable and convivial way! Woodstock comes to Magical Farm - watch this space!

Natural Building offers a model that allows for people-to-help-people. Sharing a village experience in a powerful Temporal Autonomous Zone (TAZ) for a short period of time and supporting each other to learn, create shelter and in a joyous and caring way. The community of people expressed how they will help each other on their respective future builds.

The village created during our retreat felt good – yoga in the mornings, childcare love and support, campfires in the evenings, sharing kitchen duties and making of meals, sharing stories whilst we stomped on cob and built walls together and teaching each other new skills.

We had a special visit from Herbalist Without Borders - Monica Francia to teach us about the power of herbal medicine - having autonomy over the way we look after our wellbeing - is another important aspect that we need to claim back in our everyday life!

Our convivial cobbing meant we were creating more than just walls – we were creating friendships and shared experiences and at the same time becoming a community of practice with an essential skill for sustaining life.  

Nested idea 1: Our Community / Village

2. O: Oikos 

Reimagining the concept of the home is a big task, but Oikos is a great start! The ‘eco’ of economy & ecology derives from oikos – meaning home – that which sustains life. The family property  / the house are also original meanings of oikos. The meaning of economy therefore derives from basic elements of our everyday life and how we organise ourselves in this way (‘nomy ’ means management of). As we participate more in institutional life we become further distanced from our home and Oikos. Tangible ways to reconnect back to the original version of ‘economy’ is to understand what in our lives that we purchase as essential services and products. This pretty much covers a lot of aspects of life. Natural Building is a foot in the door to reconnect, as is growing ones own food, taking autonomy over ones health & body through plants, community support and village (the list can go on here!).

Gibson-Graham feminist economic theorists describe ‘community economies’ as new ways to engage in living and working - in diverse forms of exchange. To them ‘community’ refers to the active ongoing negotiation of interdependence with all life forms, human and non-human. 

Economies are therefore not simply about monetary exchange – and never were! In a community economy there are diverse ways to create forms of exchange such as: coops, natural building in festival (like our retreat!), bartering, volunteering, gifts and many more. Economies need to be placed-based and self sustaining where we can see the flow of energy and connection to what is being traded, exchanged and created.

Natural building as a process plants the seed for us to reconceive the original meaning of the concept of Oikos – and in turn reimagine the way we are living now in place. 

Nested idea 2: Our home.

3. B: Boogie & our Bodies

To conclude Natural Building is tactile, connected to nature (literally you dig a hole in your back garden, and use this clay - this is called vernacular building) and fun!  It is an embodied experience involving our head, heart and hands & our body! Natural Building is an embodied practice, which is great for us humans as a whole. It’s a relaxing process to participate in Natural Building because of the process in which it unfolds.

There were a few moments throughout the retreat in the late afternoon usually – where we cracked open a cold drink – turned up the radio and boogied as we built. Cob making requires you to stomp on a mix of clay and sand to make it into the right composition (similar process to old ways of making wine!). 

Nested idea 3: Our body.

Summary

In summary I am a big fan of C.O.B & natural building – it is a holistic way to claim back a seriously commodified aspect of our everyday life. 

Thank you to everyone who took part in the retreat: Yehuda, Dee, Sarah, Kristine, Sean, Luke, Ness, Felix,Zach, Abe Raphie, Nico, Liz, Mon, Bridgette & Stu as participants and volunteers. A big thank you to Clare Aston for her superb and passionate teachings. 

End.

Any questions or queries into our natural building workshops please email  info@magicalfarm.org 

Photography by Ness Vanderburgh Photography

C.O.B: Natural Building Retreat @ Magical Farm Tasmania

C.O.B: Natural Building Workshop Summary 

Magical Farm Tasmania, January 2022.

By Dr Demeter

A Natural Building workshop took place at Magical Farm 11th – 16thJanuary, 2022. A lovely group of people convened to co-create an office for Magical Farm, in partnership with Clare Aston’s Elemental Earth Building. The workshop was more like a ‘retreat’ - a beautiful coming together of people to learn new skills, share food and stories. A convening of people to share dialogue and create new ways of being. We explored Cob building (building with clay and stay and sand) and clay-straw slip technique (see photos below).

Hakim Bey, American Poet & Anarchist describes Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZs) as short-lived spaces which subvert formal structures of control. Our Natural Building retreat was a place for people to reflect on ways in which they want to build differently. This process also stimulated further dialogue and discussions about ways to transform everyday life that has become so commodified.

Why Natural Building?

As Naomi Klein puts in her book “The Shock Doctrine” – the free market has come to dominate the world. In relation to building…large monopoly renovation stores and developing companies with cookie cut designs is the dominant way that we build. As a consequence we are becoming further distanced from using our hands and skills to create our shelters and this in itself has significant ripple on…

Guy Debord describes in his book Society of Spectacle a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism, dealing with issues such as class alienation, cultural homogenisation, and mass media. In relation to building…a building is not just a building – it is nested in a home, community, village, however this is becoming further from the case as suburbs and towns are planned to further disconnect people with place. One issue is the fact that most of our homes these days are designed via the individual title system. Eco-villages that can embrace connection and diversity are a niche form of building development.

 Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality states that “Societies in which most people depend for most of their goods and services on the personal whim, kindness, or skill of another are called underdeveloped, while those in which living has been transformed into a process of ordering from an all-encompassing store catalogue are called advanced”. In relation to building here – our values as a society are upside down and we need to bring ‘heart’, ‘head’, ‘hands’ and body into our way of building and living. This is also going to be about localising our economies and building with what materials are around us - vernacular building.

These authors and thousands more have scripted the same critique and message for decades with regards to their concerns for industrialisation and commodification of everyday life. We are now in a position for a multitude of reasons (Climate, Covid, Crisis of global economy, Matters of Equity, Decolonisation , living in virtual realities etc) where we need to shift gears and redesign in the realm of our everyday – for the better. Natural Building is a great way to start this process! 

In this brief article I would like to share three simple nested ideas to reflect on our Natural Building workshop/retreat at Magical Farm: Introducing C.O.B. 

1. C: Convivial communities 

Convivial communities refers to people creating something autonomously outside the dominant system in a joyous and interdependent way. Put simply acting differently to the ‘industrial model’ of being and doing. 

Natural Building was an empowering experience. Prior to the workshop I would have told people that I do not know how to build – now I can. My two eldest children also know how to build a shelter for themselves – a great school holiday learning.

I can see that Natural building is one significant way to claim back power over our everyday life. If people can build their own shelters and not have to rely on commodity building, we can begin to shift gears away from unmanageable mortgages. We can also put an end to drip feeding large corporations to sell us back commodified versions of shelter. 

Natural Building offers a model that allows for people-to-help-people. Sharing a village experience in a powerful TAZ for a short period of time and supporting each other to learn, create shelter and in a joyous and caring way. 

The community created during our retreat felt good – yoga in the mornings, campfires in the evenings, sharing making of meals, sharing stories whilst we stomped on cob and built walls together and teaching each other new skills. We were creating more than just walls – we were creating friendships and shared experiences and at the same time becoming a community of practice with an essential skill for sustaining life.  

Nested idea 1: Our Community / Village.

2. O: Oikos 

Reimagining the concept of the home is a big task, but Oikos is a great start! The ‘eco’ of economy & ecology derives from oikos – meaning home – that which sustains life. The family property  / the house are also original meanings of oikos. The meaning of economy therefore derives from basic elements of our everyday life and how we organise ourselves in this way (‘nomy ’ means management of). 

Gibson-Graham feminist economic theorists describe ‘community economies’ as new ways to engage in living and working - in diverse forms of exchange. To them ‘community’ refers to the active ongoing negotiation of interdependence with all life forms, human and non-human. 

Economies are therefore not simply about monetary exchange – and never were! In a community economy there are diverse ways to create forms of exchange such as: coops, natural building in festival (like our retreat!), bartering, volunteering, gifts and many more. 

Natural building as a process plants the seed for us to reconceive the original meaning of the concept of Oikos – and in turn reimagine the way we are living now in place. 

Nested idea 2: Our home.

3. B: Boogie & our Bodies

To conclude Natural Building is tactile, connected to nature (literally you dig a hole in your back garden, and use this clay - this is called vernacular building) and fun!  It is an embodied experience involving our head, heart and hands – but most importantly our body! There were a few moments throughout the retreat in the late afternoon usually – where we cracked open a cold drink – turned up the radio and boogied as we built. Cob making requires you to stomp on clay and sand to make it into the right composition (similar process to old ways of making wine!). 

Nested idea 3: Our body.

Summary

In summary I am a big fan of C.O.B & natural building – it is a holistic way to claim back a seriously commodified aspect of our everyday life. 

Thank you to everyone who took part in the retreat, as participants and volunteers. A big thank you to Clare Aston for her superb and passionate teachings. 

End.

Any questions or queries into our natural building workshops please email  info@magicalfarm.org 

Photography by Emily Samuels-Ballantyne

Why Local Organic Food?

Food is part of our everyday life, so it crosses our paths many times in our days weeks and years. That is why the choices we make around food are so significant. Our choices cause ripple effects in wider systems. If we look at the industrial food system today we have been “designed” into this system. So it makes it hard to avoid the monopoly supermarkets and the mechanised food system that they reinforce.

So how do we ‘design’ our way out?

It’s a question I have been reflecting on and actioning for over a decade. At its essence, it is POWERFUL to buy local. Support local farmers. Eat food that is not laced with pesticides. Your local dollar does make a difference and can reinforce a regenerative food system. You also enter into the exciting and reassuring world of ‘living systems’ what I describe as “Con Viv” (with life)! Engaging with healthy and alive soil, meeting dynamic, zesty and caring community members and discovering opportunities to vision and share regenerative stories for healing the past and embracing the present and future in a new light.

Helena Norbert-Hodge from Local Futures states that

“If you want to create a more sustainable society, a good place to start is by helping to rebuild your local food economy: food is something everyone, everywhere, needs every day, which means that even relatively small changes in the way it is produced and marketed can have immense effects. And since eating is a natural part of daily life, we all have frequent opportunities to make a difference.”

So the Magical Farm food box is a special project for us to create. We hope we can inspire more regenerative conversations, local dollars spent, more support for our local organic farmers and growers, convivial celebrations and gastronomical events and further spread the much needed regenerative changes in our world. You can order our food box on this website www.magicalfarm.org

Local and organic veggie boxes are available fresh from the farm to your table. Magical Farm will provide you with delicious produce every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. We will post 7 days prior to the next box so you can order before the end of the week prior to the ‘box day’. You can pick up from our farm gate in Allens Rivulet or our distribution points in Hobart. We are more than happy to hear from you! info@magicalfarm.org

Basil leaves - so yummy but also representing opening our hearts, minds and hands to a new way of living on our planet.

Magical Musing by E Samuels-Ballantyne

Magical Farm Opens an Organic Pantry for Hobart

We are very excited to announce the opening of our organic pantry. We will be delivering our fresh, local and organic veggie and fruit boxes to Hobart and surrounds. We are passionate about sourcing the best quality produce from our farm and local farms. The boxes will be available for pick up from our farm gate, pick up points or via delivery on every 1st or 3rd Friday of the month.

We will also be providing beautiful organic dry goods soon, so stay tuned!

Welcome to Magical Farm

Magical Farm welcomes you to our website and community. We have a vision to make holistic lifestyles a reality. Everyday life is our ‘canvas’ and the seven elements of food, art and crafts, conviviality, the land, hand skills, wellbeing and rest are our ‘paint brushes’. Everyday life makes up the seven days of the week so we have many opportunities to create moments, practices and actions that can change our life and systems (social, political, economic and ecological).

We are a critically focussed, convivial minded and heart centred business :) that offers:

• educational workshops and courses that enable holistic lifestyles such as living systems thinking philosophy, conviviality philosophy, food systems design, wood working, local food project making and much more.

• services such as local food production and delivery, wellbeing classes such as fencing, meditation, yoga and massage.

• products such as aromatherapy oils, flower essences, herbs, local food, local art and crafts.

Thank you very much to the talented Louise Thrush Graphic Designer and Illustrator from Tasmania for working with us on the brand for Magical Farm. http://www.louisethrush.com/

Thank you also to the beautiful rainbow which also has seven sacred colours that can enliven our everyday life canvas. The rainbow has been a wonderful symbol that has inspired me for over a decade, and as it happens now live in a valley surrounded by mountains, so I see rainbows on average once per week. Just recently for the first time in my life I saw a night rainbow!