William Powers, Author of Dispatches from the Sweet Life

Author, Speaker, Professor, Activist

What’s it like to live in a 12’ by 12’, off-the-grid house?

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Three years ago, I returned to America after a decade of aid and conservation work in Africa and Latin America. Abroad, I’d seen, starkly, the grave impact the global economic system was having on our environment—Amazon rainforests clear-cut for fast-food cattle, African rivers poisoned by multinational mining—and began asking myself a daunting question: How could humanity transition to gentler, more responsible ways of living by replacing attachment to things with deeper relationships with people, nature, and self?

Fortunately, I stumbled upon someone with some clues: Dr. Jackie Benton (a psudonym, per her request). I met this slight, sixty-year-old physician, she was stroking a honey bee’s wings in front of her twelve-foot by twelve-foot, off-the-grid home in North Carolina.

While she was traveling, she invited me to housesit. Unexpectedly, I changed plans and moved into the 12×12 for a season. Perhaps, there’s a “cure” in the practice of curiosity. With no electricity, piped water, or any of the conveniences we are so accustomed to, I was forced to see everything anew. The first puzzle: How to bathe?

Jackie didn’t leave an instruction manual, an “Idiot’s Guide” to living in a 12 x 12. There was no shower, of course, and the creek was still too darn cold. But so was the rainwater Jackie harvested from the two gutters running off the 12 x 12’s roof. I took one bucket shower, cursing as I cupped freezing rainwater over my head, before I discovered a five-gallon rubber diaphragm on her back porch labeled “Sun Shower.” Midday or evening, I strung it up in a tree beside the 12 x 12 and felt the positively hot water stream over my body, which became a sensuous daily pleasure. And its energy came directly from that day’s sun, producing no dangerous greenhouse gasses.

Water, instead of being invisibly piped into my home from some deep aquifer or distant reservoir, fell from the sky into the pair of fifty-five-gallon tanks beside the house. When I arrived they were full; when I left, ditto. All of my dishwashing, laundry (I followed Jackie’s lead and used only biodegradable soaps), bathing, and cooking water simply came out of the sky, passed through my hands, and then went directly back into the earth to water the food I ate.

Less appealing was the dilemma of the toilet. Instead of a flush toilet, I discovered that Jackie used a five-gallon composting toilet under the porch out back. It featured a regular toilet seat, but there was no chemical-filled cesspool below ground — just a standard white bucket. Throw some fresh-smelling cedar chips in after every use, and there was absolutely no foul odor. The conundrum occurred when the bucket started to fill. And fill. How to dispose of it?

I fingered along the spines of Jackie’s scientific books, until I came to one with a rather nonthreatening title: The Humanure Handbook. For twenty-first-century homesteaders like Jackie, it’s the bible of composting toilets. Jackie had chosen the simplest model, the concealed five-gallon bucket, the contents of which, The Humanure Handbook informed me, I was to simply compost. Yes, in fourteen weeks human feces are soil just like any other soil and can be ploughed back into your garden. So I carried the bucket over to the compost pile, intending to follow the Handbook and dump it right over my egg shells and carrot peels. But at the last minute I couldn’t go through with it. The science notwithstanding, I felt queasy over the aesthetics; I grabbed a shovel and buried the contents deep in the woods.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed life without electricity. No humming refrigerator, no ringing phones, and none of the ubiquitous “stand-by” lights on appliances — those false promises of life inside the machines. Instead: the whippoorwill’s nocturnal call, branches scraping quiet rhythms in the breeze, and groggy No Name Creek. Looking east from the 12 x 12 toward the creek into the ink black night, without the slightest glimmer of industrial society, I thought, Could I really be inside the borders of a high-tech superpower?

Fire replaced electric light. Sparks from outdoor fires would briefly escape gravity and reflect off the creek, before disappearing into the massive dark sky and the flaming white points of the stars above. Most luxurious of all, each night was blessed with the glow of candles. One night, I lit the candles without even thinking about it. I simply came in after a hike, struck a match, lit them, and began cooking, candle-lighting having become as automatic as switch-flipping. Sometimes I’d step outside and look in through the windows, a dozen or so candles inside, as cheery as a birthday cake — the 12 x 12 point lit with primordial fire amid dark woods.

But you don’t have to live in a 12×12 house to discover more inner joy and contribute to global healing. Each of us, no matter where we live, can ask ourselves, “What’s my 12 x 12?” Even in large cities—I now live in New York— it is possible to scale back from overdevelopment to enough. By planting a windowsill or community garden; doing yoga or meditation; walking and biking; and carrying out at least one positive action for others every day. We decide what gets globalized — consumption or compassion; selfishness or solidarity — by how we cultivate the most valuable space of all: our inner acre.

Comments

  1. Thanks William. Very moving. Reminded me of some time I spent in a high desert hermitage years ago. The moon and starlight, the quiet. Trying to figure out what to do before I could discover just being.

    You’re right, our inner acre is the place we need to cutivate most. From there all else follows.

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  4. What great inspiration!!! About 5 years ago, I switched over to biking as transportation as well as recreation. My partner and I have started our own garden in our postage stamp sized urban front yard, and are downsizing our collection of “stuff.” Dumped the TV now seven years ago. Reading books instead. I am grateful and amazed at how much more filling my life is!!

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  6. My beautiful bride of 22 years and myself are currently on this same track. While not 12×12 we reduced our living and her office space to just over 400 Sq Ft. My chiropractic practice has been reduced to about 350 sq.ft. We’ve started a 1 acre micro-farm and are moving towards a more self-sufficient model of living. This book has been a confirmation that we are on the right track.
    Tim

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  9. Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little homework on that. And he in fact bought me lunch because I found it for him

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  10. I would appreciate more visual materials, to make your blog more attractive, but your writing style really compensates it. But there is always place for improvement

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  11. hey,I find out that your web log is quite educational and helpful and we wonder if there can be a possibility of obtaining More stories like this on your web log. If you willing to help us out, we would be willing to compensate you… Yours, Wyatt Paglio

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  12. Love the book. Couldn’t put it down until it was all read. Thanks for telling us your story about 12 x 12. Now that would be a dream of mine!

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  13. Whilst this topic can be incredibly touchy for most persons, my opinion is the fact that there has to become a middle or widespread ground that we all can find. I do appreciate that youve added relevant and intelligent commentary below although. Thank you!

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  15. It’s past time to stop using foreign oil! Maybe we will always need some oil, but we just have to stop depending on Middle East oil. There are 3 fairly easy things that all of us can do now to make a difference. 1- Stop pumping gas into your car! If you have a gas guzzler now, convert it into an electric car (see this blueprint for example). No more gas! 2- Stop using electricity off the electric grid! Either build solar panels (like this one), or build a cheap magnetic generator (like this one). Not very hard! 3- Learn to bike or walk! If you are only going a mile to the shop, walk or bike there. My 2 cents.

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  16. Bill…yesterday, in my NYC apt, I picked up your book to begin it and from out of nowhere my cat jumped on a mouse that darted thru the house (that has happened many 2 times in 9 years) then the cat just stared at me and I watched my mind as it wanted to interpret what the cat might be thinking, what the mouse was experiencing, what I was doing on the couch, what should I do. This went on for like a half hour, watching all the false mind ideas flowing thru while the cat did nothing but stare and moan and the mouse just dangled. Then the cat hit the floor with its mouth and the mouse wriggled and then the cat went in the next room. Prayers, releasing the finally expired mouse into the toilet…it was bizarre. I felt somehow this primitive wild life and death in an air-conditioned Manhattan apt. scenario was related to your book. Where how do we enter, help, serve best with our thoughts and actions when Nature meets our Manufactured world? I will finish the book before the weekend, provided as my NYC permaculture inner oasis allows. Thank you. I love the first 3 pages;-)

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  17. One question I had while reading the book: Heat? I guess it doesn’t get too terribly cold in South Carolina; but what does Jackie do for heat? Awesome book!

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