#EDEN2024
Earth Building Team - Julian & Daniel & Iza
Earth Building Intro
By Julian Briggs & Daniel Clark(he/him) & Iza Lakapati (they/them)
As the second ray cycle of initiatory work here at Highden becomes more deeply grounded.
So the community here is deepening its connection with this magical land. This offering is a discussion around low impact, sustainable building with local natural materials and an introduction to the natural building projects happening here at highden. We will touch on round wood timber framing, straw bale buildings, earthen plasters and designing with sacred geometry.
Sacred Mud Party
By Julian Briggs & Daniel Clark(he/him)
The land of the Manawatu that surrounds Highden was once, not so long ago, pristine old growth Kahikatea swamp forest teaming with life. Today it is a dead monoculture of beef and dairy farms.
The loss of our planets wild places is a deep tragedy, the grief of which lingers in all of our beings.
It's not only the external wilderness that we are losing - the sacred wild inside each of us has also been tamed by our sterile modern society.
This offering is a space to honour the grief of our burning planet. To imagine an uncolonized world, inhabited by uncolonized souls. To unleash our inner wilds, our untamed hearts. Do get dirty, and dance.
Julian Briggs
Julian is a utopian idealist passionate about community, sustainability, shedding the constraints of his societal conditioning and nurturing the untamed wilds inside of his heart. He has been living at Highden for the past year, growing the awareness of his own internal worlds and sharing his creative building style which combines traditional timber framing methods with sculptural art. "I’m interested in how we can live in harmony with this beautiful planet that we inhabit by creatively using locally-available, natural resources to create beautiful and functional spaces that nourish our souls."
Daniel Clark
Daniel aka Naked Dan (he/him) – He is a passionate and skilled earth builder with a background in building and carpentry. He also runs his own arborist business “Naked Dan the Treeman.” He cares deeply about community building and last summer helped facilitate an epic community LEM and cob earth build in Waipapakauri. “I am awakening myself and helping others awaken to who we are as natural living extensions of this beautiful planet. As I reclaim my wildness, I become more alive, vibrant, and energized. I see the Earth Building Revolution as an essential part of this awakening.”
Iza Lakapati (they/them)
“Earth-building satisfies many of my core values on practical and spiritual levels. It nurtures my indigenous relationship to the land through direct interaction with Mother Earth at every stage of building. It provides me with hope in an otherwise bleak construction industry, allowing us to source local, natural and closed-loop. It innately just FEELS nourishing to be surrounded by the earth, rather than toxix VOC emitting materials.