The Earth House

Foreword

It is a space, an earthly space, a place where we can simply be ourselves. A place where we are just as close to the Earth as we are in the forest or in a blooming meadow.

A place that connects us intrinsically to the Earth. We are all deeply connected to the Earth. When we separate ourselves from the Earth in our minds and actions, that is a choice. We are currently experiencing the consequences of this all over the world.

Designing living spaces is a process of balancing the overarching and the specific, between the idea and its realization, in harmony with the Earth.

Designing living spaces requires the use of unadulterated natural materials so that life can take shape. 

It is about what is essential. It is about the essence of our being. What we do, how we do it, and why we do it—these are the decisive factors. In all areas of life, we can begin to do things right and reshape them. One aspect of this is building houses. The following words address this very topic.

Architecture

The architecture of an earth house is about a space in a place—a shell and a content—in which we are just as close to the earth as we are in a forest or on a blooming meadow.

Architecture, like all our feelings, thoughts, words, and actions, has far-reaching consequences for human beings themselves, the place where events unfold, and the collective consciousness of humanity and the Earth. 

Architecture has the task of creating a connection—between what was, what is, daily life, and the future. Architecture is a language without words and a recognizable consciousness within the visible world. It is the shaping of our shared environment in the sense of an art form intended to nourish the soul. 

In today’s architecture, we find almost exclusively right angles and the resulting rectangular forms. Right angles fit with linear, mechanistic thinking. Straight lines, sharp corners and edges, and repetitive forms represent an enormous limitation on the possibilities for the human soul and the human spirit.

These are extremely rare in the human body, in its movement, in nature, or in the universe. The right angle hardens every form of softness and precludes any form of openness.

Life is dynamic. At a right angle, everything becomes rigid. In the forms of living nature—which form the basis of geometric principles—one will just as rarely encounter the right angle and the “straight line.” Organic forms are an expression of nature.

Perhaps the line is a temporal symbol of human consciousness. We are accustomed to thinking linearly. Our actions often follow the line. If one were to trace the line into the infinity of space, it might be only a segment of a vast circle. Therein lies hope!   

It is not the lines, the plan, the structure, or the form that are essential, but rather the living space that emerges from them. In today’s world, people’s senses of perception are often atrophied. The path “with the Earth” has natural perception as a fundamental prerequisite for human life. It is this perception that makes it possible to decide what is life-affirming and what is not.

Natural perception would never develop or permit nuclear power plants, genetic engineering, globalization, the euro, free-energy machines, and much more. For we would immediately recognize the inevitability and far-reaching consequences of such things. However, that is not the topic here.  

In the perception of space, forms and structures are merely indications of the whole. The consequences and effects of architecture extend beyond the material realm. Geometry, proportions, colors, materials, and dimensions have a universal influence on people, the place, and the Earth. 

They can radiate vitality and connect with the heart. Architecture is an impulse, and the craftsmanship that brings it to life gives that impulse a soul. 

Architecture is the art of empathy—empathy for the needs and ideas of the home’s inhabitants and for fulfilling those needs and ideas, but above all, attunement to the site of the house and the spirit of the place.

Only when this truly happens can architecture allow and provide space for the past, the present, and the future. An exchange takes place between the physical materials, the embodiment of the human idea, and the invisible essence of the place.

Architecture is a challenge to unite spirit and matter into a single whole, to make humanity and the earth one.

Earth Analogies

When we perceive our shared world—“Earth”—with open eyes and senses, the path to an earthly way of life can open up. A simple example of this is earth analogies. 

We were born on this planet Earth. This is essential, for we were not born into this Earth, nor were we born into the air with wings. Humanity has been assigned a place on Earth. Humanity’s place is on the skin of the Earth. Life on Earth takes place on the skin of the Earth.

This means that we should shape our lives in harmony with our immediate surroundings. Whatever we can take from the “skin of the Earth” with our own hands should be put to use. This is the mandate of the “place” where we were born. Naturally, this also applies to the construction of houses. The principles of earthen construction are not dictated by the human mind, but by the earth itself.

What kind of order has the Earth established over millions of years for human “life”?  

The realm of stones and minerals (the first world) beneath our feet is self-sufficient. It needs, so to speak, only itself. This first world of the Earth stores the sun’s energy and information, evolves over time scales unimaginable to us, and rejoices in “life”! 

The realm of stones and minerals would like to move and rise up, so that we enter the second world—the realm of plants. The interface is, so to speak, the Earth’s skin.

The tree, the grain, the moss, the flowers, and all other plants now carry minerals from the first world like a “skeleton.” They form the plant world, in which parts of the first world “can stand upright and move a little.” To fuel the earth’s elements’ joy of movement, even more solar energy is stored and transformed. The second world “knows” that it needs the first world in order to “be” itself!

The third world, the world of animals, needs both of the other worlds in order to develop and enjoy the dance of movement and physical freedom. Thus, the minerals and the plant world are able to move more and more. The animal kingdom can move much faster than the plant kingdom. Solar energy is concentrated differently within them and stored in more diverse ways. Animals develop their so-called instincts and follow them.

The fourth world is the world of humans, who use the first world to form a skeleton in the first place so they can walk upright; uses the second world by utilizing the stored energy of the Earth and the sun as food; and uses the third world by “absorbing” even more highly concentrated Earth and solar energy along with its knowledge of development and instinct, in order to engage in creative activity with the help of intuition and the individual mind.

This simple illustration is only a small part of a larger whole that we need to “grasp” the concept of an Earth home. On Earth, there are very specific “conscious principles of order” that we may or may not recognize.  

Everything has its place on this Earth, is causally connected to what came “before,” unfolds within its “habitat,” carries the future within itself, and contributes to the events of the Earth. When something dies or passes away, it forms the foundation for what comes “after.”

The effect of an earth material outside its “home” is different from the effect it has when it is where it belongs! When we roof our houses with stone tiles, the reason may be the architect’s vision, the structural engineer’s requirements, or our own desire for a hard and stable roof.

But the place of stones is and remains in or on the earth’s surface. Fortunately, the stone tiles eventually return home to and into the earth, even if it takes a few decades. That’s for sure!

Stones have been “at work” beneath our feet for thousands of years. What happens when we have this sphere of influence above our heads?     
The Earth lives and nourishes us with an inner wisdom that has created its own order, of which we are but a part. The earthen house has emerged from this order.

If we leave the earth’s materials as much as possible in the state in which they were formed by the earth and its rhythms, then we can find ourselves within the earth’s rhythm, recognize it, and live in harmony with the earth.

For example, we need more and more heat, which we have been depriving ourselves of for millennia through our cooked food, the way we build houses, and much more. We are constantly reducing our human bodies’ ability to absorb a certain form of light. We are constantly diminishing our capacity to activate our own inner fire within our cells. In doing so, we deprive ourselves of many opportunities for natural development. 

If we listen to the Earth again, we will build homes that are very healthy and consume less heating energy. We ourselves will feel less cold in these homes with each passing year of living in them, because we absorb a special light that can flow to us in abundance through the building’s envelope.

If we do not use fire and instead live in harmony with the Earth (through Earth analogies), then unimagined human possibilities open up to us. One of these is the construction of earthen houses in which life can take shape.  

Fire

What does fire have to do with building earthen houses? The principles of fire are a key to understanding life on Earth and thus a foundation for designing living spaces.

The ancient sages say: “If you want to understand something about life, you must understand fire. If you use fire, you must be able to master it; otherwise, it will master you. To master fire means to master it even when the flames have gone out.”

Earth, water, and air exist more or less on their own. Fire, however, consumes the air it needs for its own existence. When there is no more wood, the fire itself dies out. What actually disappears when fire produces clay pots, porcelain, or a cooked meal? What does all this mean for the design of earthen houses?

“To go through the fire” is a common saying. For a chicken in the oven, it means certain death. The same applies to our table potatoes. If we want to eat potatoes again next year, we must keep this year’s seed potatoes out of the cooking pot, for only then can new potatoes grow in the earth.

We must protect the potatoes from the fire so that we can have food again! Should we protect ourselves and our homes from the fire so that we can have a certain kind of food? What truly sustains our life on Earth? 

“Born of fire” is another frequently used expression. Our attention usually focuses on what has been created. However, our attention should also turn to what we may have lost for a very long time.

The alchemists sing:
“Born of fire, gone into fire,
what is it that remains,
the spirit of the soul is shrouded in mist,
does the hand that kindles the fire know it,
woe to the soul that does not know it—the gold at midnight.”

Everything on this earth has a essence. Every particle in the universe has a soul and a spirit. Matter is nothing more than condensed light. Matter comes into being through a specific light. When matter disintegrates, a specific light is produced again. And so on.

Every material particle contains a specific, individual light that defines it, through which it communicates and interacts. 

For example, it carries within itself etheric spaces of the water element, the fire element, the earth element, and the wind element. Put simply, every “thing” has at least four of these corresponding aspects in order to exist and interact. These are fundamental principles of life on Earth.  

Every earthly substance that has passed through fire continually strives to establish a specific state of balance among the four elements within itself.

It’s like a vacuum pump and a vacuum chamber. When the vacuum pump runs, a vacuum is created in the chamber. If you open the vacuum chamber, as much air will re-enter as was previously pumped out.

You can imagine it in a similar way: earthly substances that have passed through the energy of fire reclaim just as much balancing fire energy as they “released” when they had to pass through the fire. This is already determined by the natural law of correspondences.  

The “dead potato” may nourish us physiologically and molecularly, but death comes at a price. The essence of the potato is, like us, immortal and, in accordance with the laws of resonance, demands its toll—not in the sense of punishment, but in the sense of resonance.    

When we subject the earthen materials used to build houses to fire, we alter the functions assigned to them within their own etheric space—their natural function and communication with the environment and the Earth’s light matrix. These materials can no longer fully allow the natural light matrices we need for life to pass through them.

In doing so, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity for certain invisible light and vital functions to flow naturally into our homes. As a result, natural, inner warmth cannot develop to the extent that it otherwise would.   

When the ether of the building materials is altered by the fire element—for example, due to the effect of cement that has been exposed to fire—people in such spaces will be constantly searching for warmth and light accessible to their cells in all its forms and consequences. It is sufficient for even a small layer or the binder in a wall to have undergone the fire process. The ability to transmit certain light matrix contents is then no longer present.

However, if people are no longer surrounded by earthly materials that draw the element of fire from their own energy body, they will feel more at ease within this building envelope and will no longer feel the cold as easily.   

The visible and invisible rays of the sun and earth “charge” earthen materials—which have retained their natural structure—in a certain way far more than materials that have been exposed to fire. This charge is a specific kind of light that we need to live.

When we speak of ecological building or organic building, etc., the foundation for this should be the Earth and life itself. The definition of what the Earth and life actually are depends on human consciousness.

When we speak of life, we naturally mean life on Earth. We live on Earth. No one knows more about life than the Earth itself. The fire energy of the sun, which nourishes the Earth, never exceeds 52 degrees on a natural Earth that has not been altered by human hands.

Furthermore, everything the Earth has developed as food for us humans over millions of years is altered—from 52 degrees onward in a subtle-material sense, and from 60 degrees onward in an atomic and molecular sense—in such a way that it no longer corresponds to the nature of Earthly food for Earth’s children. What is stated here regarding food also holds true for building.  

Foundation

A foundation is very important, for it is the beginning of something. If the beginning is not right, the consequences will be arbitrary. Something is “right” in the Earth’s sense if it promotes the Earth’s collective and thus every single part of it.  

The beginning also “gives birth” to the end. When something is born, the fact that it must eventually pass away already exists. In between lies only the illusion of “time,” which we need to recognize whether a process is harmonious or disharmonious.

The foundation of an earth house must allow for unimpeded communication with the Earth. Otherwise, we cut ourselves off from the Earth in a certain way right from the foundation of the house.

The humus layer is stored on the property. To delineate the house, large boulders are placed on the ground. Water-permeable layers of gravel are laid as a foundation slab up to the top of the boulders. In between, a “self-healing,” natural clay/bentonite layer is added, which retains water from below. Bentonite is a specific clay mineral found in the earth.

The framework of the house—for example, made of black locust wood—is then erected on top of the gravel layer. Venice is built largely on black locust wood rather than oak. Black locust wood remains stable for at least 500 years.

The earth house stands on a solid, natural, and unadulterated foundation. In these houses, we can experience and enjoy the earth beneath our feet.

The transition from the realm of stones to the realm of plants and humans is thus clearly accomplished. The stones are taken from the earth and are used only on the earth (see analogy).

The trees are naturally dried and used. A many-fold number of young saplings is returned to the forest. The seeds of the trees used once again see the sunlight in the plant kingdom. They enjoy the sun and the earth as trees, but also, as seeds, the infinite darkness, knowing that the new, first ray of light is already on its way to them.    

Everything on Earth must die at some point in order to be reborn. It is simply a matter of attitude, consideration, respect, and wisdom—how things unfold and who is meant to have which experience on this Earth.

When we make a decision, we experience a consequence. When we do not make a decision, the experience resulting from that unmade decision takes effect.

Wood

The wood and the clay in the loam are like siblings who look out for one another. The wood provides the framework for the clay. The clay’s task is to protect that framework.
The clay in the loam constantly seeks to reach and maintain its moisture content of approximately 7%. The wood seeks to maintain its moisture content at approximately 15% when dry. This results in the natural preservation of the wood. Since all the wood in an earthen house is always completely surrounded by loam and/or clay, the wood is preserved in a very natural way. In Peru, pieces of wood have been extracted from thousand-year-old, dry loam that were completely intact.

Only wood that was cut during the waning moon—the trees’ biological winter (Dec.–Jan.)—should be used. This time is dictated by nature. Wood cut during the waning moon is very durable and embodies all the power of the “new” and the wisdom of the “old”!

The moon’s influence on trees is so great, for example, that they “swell and shrink” every 14 days in the forest. One could say that a tree’s heartbeat lasts 14 days.     

The trees are stored at the edge of the forest. The planks that are cut are also stored dry at the edge of the forest for at least three years to prepare for their new purpose in people’s homes.

Larch wood could be used for the interior. In the plant kingdom, larch wood is the wood of transformation, since the larch is neither a conifer nor a deciduous tree. In larch wood, we encounter a great miracle and gift from nature. The larch’s ability to withstand all storms is a powerful symbol.

In earlier times, alchemists used larch resin whenever a change was needed within the body—from the inside out—and, when the preparation and formula were altered, from the outside in.  

Its powerful ability to transform radiation stems from the larch resin. If the larch is missing from a mixed forest stand, the forest and the earth’s structure lack a radiation absorber. On the other hand, the larch serves to build up and strengthen the Earth’s own global radiation. The task of the fairies in the larch trees is to maintain a specific subtle order. On the one hand, they can hold things back, and on the other, they can allow things to happen more easily.

Spruce or pine wood is used to build the structure. Spruce is the wood of rhythm; it resonates with life and strives for harmony. Pine wood is the wood that still grows on dry and barren soil, is frugal with water, and—much like the larch—helps to transform things. Where hardly any trees grow anymore, it still finds enough nourishment.

If we treat wood and clay (the earth!) with the necessary respect and reverence, these earthly materials will make their inherent potential—which lies within their very nature—available to humanity and thereby take their rightful place in the fabric of life on Earth.

When we handle the earth and the earthly materials at our disposal with care and mindfulness, we are deeply and intimately connected to this earth.

Fairies are an expression and symbol of a deep connection to this Earth. Whether you believe in fairies or not may depend solely on whether you can see them. Do you believe what you see, see what you believe, or believe in order to see?

Shell

The openness of the Earth’s surface is just as important as the openness of our own skin! This, of course, also applies to the “skin” of our houses.

What do you think would happen to a person if an area of their skin just three square centimeters in size were glued for many years to a small piece of fired clay brick or concrete from our current houses? In this case, you certainly wouldn’t need to ask your doctor or pharmacist!

We are normally surrounded by concrete and fire-fired building components. The result is similar. The only difference is that here there is the illusion of time and the apparent impossibility of always being able to connect cause and effect.   

The wall structures of earthen houses consist solely of unadulterated earthen materials—namely, wood, clay, two plant sap extracts, and plant powders.

As a rule, a wooden stud frame is erected as a wall, joined together solely by wooden mortise-and-tenon joints. All fasteners are made of wood. The thickness of the exterior walls, roof, and floor structure is 52 cm. The subtle structure of the walls is crucial for achieving the desired effects.

The entire earth house is designed in such a way that many hands are needed and the use of machinery is kept to a minimum. Machines cannot truly nourish either people or a house. When people work in harmony with the earth, they nourish themselves and their surroundings in a different way. 

Light

Visible and invisible light occupy an equal place alongside the material world, just as spirit and matter are equal partners. Light is the life-giving element. Light touches all physical and spiritual realms. Light is the life-sustaining principle. The sun, as the source of life, has an immense effect on the human soul and health.

It’s more about quality than quantity. The human mind, soul, and body need natural and vibrant light. They need light from all four cardinal directions at various times of the day. 

Shades of color, varying degrees of brightness, and shadows create a vibrant interplay as you walk through a light-filled forest. Every room needs sunlight from at least two directions. Light entering from different angles also creates different shadows. The room is enveloped in a gentle interplay of light and shadow. A vibrant light is created.

The choice of materials for the windows is particularly important. Sunlight is altered by the gas fillings in the thermal insulation glass in such a way that it has significant subtle effects on human health. Two simple panes of crystal glass should be used in the construction of a Berlin-style casement window.

When it comes to everything related to light and shadow in a room, cultivating mindfulness is key. Health should be the top priority—not, for example, the latest thermal insulation regulations.

Clay

The history of the earthen house is closely linked to the origins of humankind. When we speak of an earthen house, the emphasis is on earth. On this planet, people have been building with a specific earthen material for thousands of years. Building with earth means building with clay. Building with clay means building with the clay minerals found in clay. Clay holds a special place. It was and remains an important agent of change and transformation.

The clay in the mud at the edges of the primordial oceans is believed to have been the origin of life over 4 billion years ago. The clay minerals served as catalysts for the formation of highly ordered biochemical structures. A NASA research group hypothesizes that these structures, with their crystalline fields, served as the template for DNA (see Keppler, 1986, p. 72). Clay symbolizes the vessel from which humanity emerged. The highly complex patterns of the clay’s crystalline fields resemble a human DNA template that stores biological blueprints.

Clay, the “prima materia,” is something very special. The few true alchemists were aware of this. In physical and chemical terms, the networks of clay crystals are not “perfectly” woven. They leave connection points open, and these points, with their negatively charged tentacles, constantly rotate in the water in search of a positive partner.

They find these partners in the ions present in every type of clay or loam—namely, calcium, iron, mercury, potassium, sodium, etc. Depending on the situation, these bonds are repeatedly broken and reformed. A constant and lively exchange takes place.

The clay crystals live in rhythm with the ebb and flow of the tides, day and night. Thus, clay-mineral-rich, cold-formed houses, so to speak, are constantly breathing in and out.

In time with the heat of the sun and water, the ion exchange is constantly stimulated. Billions of tiny niches are constantly forming and disappearing. It was and is like a primordial soup in which the principle of “multiplication” of crystals could—and still can—spread to carbon-based matter and breathe life into it. In an earthen house, the clay minerals in the loam breathe into people the full range of life’s possibilities.

This is the reason why clay or clay-mineral earth materials are used in earthen houses in accordance with the laws of nature, even though clay is not found at the altitudes where these houses are built (see Earth Analogies).

Yet clay is an exception. It is the building material of the Earth and of humankind, for of all earthly materials, clay is the closest to human beings. For approximately 10,000 years, people have been building houses out of wood and clay on every continent of this Earth.

In the past, for example, the powerful King Maussollos in Halicarnassus (today Bodrum in Anatolia) had the walls of his palace built from clay bricks. Not because they were cheaper than marble, but because they were more durable. The only question is: how?

In earthen house construction, the ancient traditional methods for producing and storing natural earth materials are followed. The principles of adobe construction apply equally to earthen house building.

The earth is alive and nourishes us with an inner wisdom that has created order. The earth house has emerged from this order. It lives and nourishes! The nourishment of life is truth. 

If the origin of all things is not wisdom and truth, then whatever follows from it will always destroy itself. It does not matter whether this takes days, a lifetime, or centuries.

Heat

All calculations of thermal insulation values must be questioned. For example, they do not take into account a structure’s heat storage capacity, the solar radiation absorbed by the mass of a building component, the fact that a “warmed, natural” house wall has entirely different thermal insulation behavior when heated by a building envelope heating system than a cold wall, and that we humans feel less cold when there is a great deal of light available to our cells.

Millions of years ago, our trees were at least twice as tall as they are today. This was because there was approximately 2% more oxygen in the atmosphere back then.  

Perhaps we can only begin to imagine what it would mean if we humans were constantly and abundantly absorbing high-quality, cell-available light through our skin once again. In any case, the mitochondria—the powerhouses of our cells—would once again be optimally supplied. This would have unimaginable effects on our health. Our perception of warmth would be of an entirely different nature.

Countless years ago, humans still had a normal body temperature of 39 degrees for a specific reason. The less cell-available light there is, the colder we become. Although this process takes quite a long time, it has incredible consequences!

With more light available to our cells, we would need much less heating energy in our homes. Heat is generated not only through radiation but also through light that our cells can absorb and convert, among other things, into internal heat.

A law of nature governing electromagnetic radiation states that
temperature radiation does not penetrate normal window glass. The window creates a greenhouse effect. When solar radiation enters a room and is absorbed by the room’s surfaces and materials, the resulting temperature radiation can no longer escape through the glass.

If radiant heaters such as wood-burning stoves, tiled stoves, or heated walls are used to heat a building, there is no need for double- or triple-pane windows filled with noble gases, etc., since the thermal radiation remains within the room even with single-pane glass.  

The natural heat source for a house is radiant heating, not heat flow (convection) or heat conduction. It also corresponds physiologically to the human body. Humans can absorb 99% of the heat radiation acting upon them through the skin. 

However, what is even more important is that the “sacred element of air” is a vital substance. Without this vital substance, life would quickly come to an end. It should not be used as a dusty and germ-laden heating medium in a convection heating system. It also makes sense not to burden the 100 square meters of lung surface area with heated air, as the body would otherwise have to constantly cool the lungs.

A physiologically favorable indoor climate is achieved when the surfaces in the room have high surface temperatures (around 17 degrees), the air itself is cool, and an optimal radiation balance is achieved with the help of additional radiant heat. Under these conditions, even a closed room can be thoroughly ventilated without causing unwanted cooling.

If the outer shell of a house consists entirely of natural, unburned earthen materials, these materials have a certain thickness, and the chosen heating method is radiant heat, then this house will have very low heating costs.

Quality

The qualities of a house do not depend solely on whether we use few or no right angles, or whether the earthen materials have not been fired and correspond to earth analogies in their “construction.”

Topics such as ionization, humidity, light, dust, moisture, radiation levels, excessively warm surfaces, pollutants, electricity, environmental medicine, building biology, radioactive radiation, magnetic fields, synthetic paints, earth rays, plastic-coated furniture, enclosure, compaction, spaciousness, sunlight, landscaping, ventilation, acoustic effects, light, vegetation, air quality, noise protection, etc., must be addressed within the scope of a construction project.

How spaces respond to sound—whether they reverberate, resonate, or absorb sound—contributes significantly to the atmosphere of a room.

In today’s homes—as well as in many so-called “eco-friendly” homes—there are at least 70,000 chemical compounds, which in turn release 1,000 chemicals into the indoor environment. We breathe in several thousand liters of air each day. Thus, even a small amount of contamination in the air can have consequences. Plastics, for example, are not entirely stable materials. They emit odor-causing vapors that originate from plasticizers, stabilizers, pigments, and unbound monomers, among other things.

The human immune system determines the outcome of this situation. A building envelope made of clay minerals and wood absorbs unimaginable amounts of pollutants. However, in an earthen house, the principle of prevention takes precedence.

When we are surrounded by various natural qualities, they will refresh our soul. Humidity must not be constant, light intensity must vary, and the shapes and spaces within the house must also alternate. Only through this variation do we become aware of how one sensory stimulus differs from another. A house should gently train and keep our senses alert, rather than constantly dulling them.

Mutual interconnection through touch—in the condensation and opening up of qualities according to the rules of the earth—is the high art of living and building. We need both stability and change in our lives.

Only when organizing principles (e.g., a straight line) and flowing principles (e.g., a curve) are largely in balance with the spirit of the place, the people, and life can everything be woven together in a way that fosters life. Quality emerges.

In the absence of art, brutality and crime are fostered. Without the presence of truth, the emotional side of human nature is nourished and seeks satisfaction in the fulfillment of superficial desires.

The quality of substance (matter) and the quality of light and spirit form the life-giving and life-sustaining principle. They touch all aspects of human existence.

The interior of spaces creates inner qualities. If we do not consciously apply our human qualities, we cannot expect to truly develop. 

Craftsmen can only produce qualities if they are, above all, artists—whether they are creating music, a painting, other works of art, or a house of earth. Every plan, every architectural design that creates a house requires the skilled hand of a craftsman who loves what he does.

However, what we give through our hands can only be beneficial to our health and that of our surroundings if our whole being is engaged in the process. For this, we need our head, heart, and hands.

It is only during the execution on-site that we can tell whether we made the right decisions in our plan. Only when all the craftsmen are involved can the fine details take shape.

The craftsman does not merely carry out the ideas in the plans; he infuses them with his own living spirit. He is part of a living process of creation. Craftsmanship gives the work its soul. For what we do can be nourishment for our human spirit, our soul, and our body.

Quality—in the sense of nourishment for the mind, soul, and body—can never be achieved if everyone involved in a home-building project acts solely with profit in mind.

In today’s world, the contractor seeks profit, the worker seeks wages, and the client seeks an affordable and inexpensive house. Spiritual values are thus reduced to the material. Everything becomes an object, everything becomes rigid, and life takes flight. The earth is a place of infinite abundance, and yet we live in spiritual and human poverty.

A consciousness translated into matter—one focused more on a sense of advantage and deprivation than on living space and a life-affirming form—will only be able to create lifeless shelters for people. We recognize and experience the consequences of this every day.

If everything remains confined to purely financial and material thinking, then this way of thinking will soon dominate everything. Responsibility for one’s own life and the world around us no longer exists today.

The destruction of all those involved is taking its course.

Afterword

A fundamental aspect of life is constant development. The only question is: where is it headed? Who knows the destination? Who or what can teach us? Since we are here on Earth, it can only be the Earth itself. We can experience the essence of the Earth within ourselves!  

Experiencing the Earth within ourselves is the most effective form of therapy in human existence. Every healing process is based on an inner transformation. The foundation for this is always perceptible listening and seeing! This perceptible listening and seeing takes place within.

We know deep within ourselves what we must do in the outer world when we hear the perceptible voice of the Earth within us. Building an Earth House means healing—healing for everyone involved!

If we—the architect, the planner, the future occupants, and the craftsmen—embrace an open process in which mindfulness is the foundation, we will nourish ourselves, the spirit of the place, and the collective Earth. 

The core process of building a house, like the development of a human life, takes place through perceptible listening, seeing, and contributing to life itself. All our actions have human, social, economic, and ecological consequences. If we do not satisfy our true spiritual needs, it will inevitably lead to dependencies on drugs, alcohol, television, and consumerism—and to psychosis.

If the houses that shelter us lack spiritual warmth, and if space, structure, proportion, and earthen materials are merely quantitative and technical values, then there can be no quality. The absence of quality means the absence of human presence and spiritual clarity.

The people of the Age of Stone and Steel are just as hard as the materials with which they build and in which they live. However, if we build something that follows the voice of the earth, we give ourselves—and what was and what will be—a chance.

Whenever we pay more attention to profit and material circumstances than to people and the Earth, we are following something other than life on Earth.

Many words could be written here. Only the experience of doing something can turn it into an art of living. When we compose the contrasts—matter, light, the functional, the aesthetic, and the useful; the curve, the straight line, and the angle—into something alive, it brings us to life.

When it comes to building an earthen house, we are available to advise and support you.

It’s all a matter of trust and honesty. Other approaches put either the developer, the client, the craftsman, life itself, or the earth through the fire. We are, after all, now aware of the consequences.

To fix an insight in place is to deny life its freedom. The words you’ve read—which may have touched you—are part of a process. Life is a process. The earth house is a process. Life on Earth means development.

The spirit shapes matter, and matter influences the spirit! We recognize our consciousness through our actions. We can always make a decision! The only question is, which one!

For a few thousand years, we’ve been more concerned with matter than with the spirit. If we had focused on the spirit during this time, miracles would happen every day.

Miracles always begin with a decision! And with “action”!

 Hubert Maria Dietrich