The world is one, a seamless whole, for those who can see it, for those who can learn to observe, to regard, to understand. – Donald Richie (1924-2013)

When our two story round house featured on you tube channel; Living big in a tiny house, interestingly one of the most common asked questions or comments was our choice to put bedrooms on the bottom floor, living on top; according to many folk an uncustomary design choice, but so was building a round house and composting our poo.

This was a considered decision; not one based on real estate/resale value or design code, rather reverence for towering mountain landscapes, framed by a generous display of mature rhododendrons planted by our neighbour’s father, 50 years ago, a resplendent show of flower from late Winter well into Summer.

We refined our design to reflect, unique natural landscape features of our house site, at the time we didn’t realise in doing so, we were in fact; borrowing scenery, a design principle from East Asia.

The practice of borrowing scenery is based on four key categories as defined in Yuanye: yuanjie (distant borrowing, such as mountains or lakes), linjie (adjacent borrowing, including neighboring buildings or features), yangjie (upward borrowing, like clouds or stars), and fujie (downward borrowing, such as rocks or ponds). This principle is not limited to natural features; man-made structures like temples, pagodas, or city skylines can also serve as borrowed scenery, provided they are stable and enduring. For example, Mount Fuji is frequently incorporated into gardens in Tokyo, while Mount Hiei is a common feature in Kyoto’s gardens. - Source Wikipedia

Our local equivalent to Mount Fuji; Mount Turner, is incorporated into our design, borrowing neighbours rhododendrons in foreground, also seen from inside our living space.

We wanted to encapsulate the wonderful mixture, magnitude and beauty of remote forest wilderness, high mountains and beautiful river valleys that we are fortunate to call home. Appreciating the aliveness of ever changing seasonal landscapes, each window offers a differing composition & connection.

What we hadn’t considered were the bonus experiences of our design; Next to our deck, just above eye level, we watch house sparrows return to last years nest, a remarkable example of architecture, diligently re building, strand by strand with whatever favourable material they find in our garden, ( often easy pickings, from weeding piles) creating a burrow with many entrances, secured on branches of Grandmother plum.

What a privilege they trust us as their close neighbour.

Native Kereru also perch in Grandmother plum, located just so, keeping one eye on shenanigans within our living space, perched, often within arms length resting and digesting goodness from fresh regenerating spring tree growth, particularly Kowhai which they strip bare, yet grow back vigorously in a symbiotic cycle.

Kererū holds significant cultural and spiritual importance in Native lore, it’s presence holds deep connection to the spiritual world. One story recounting that the demigod Māui transformed into a Kererū when he journeyed to the underworld to find his parents, with the bird’s distinctive green-blue and white feathers said to represent his mother’s apron and belt. This connection imbues the bird with a sacred presence, and its appearance near homes can be interpreted as a meaningful sign.

Their presence close to our home during Winter through to Early Summer is very special, great-full for their guardianship over our family, in return for safe sanctuary food & water. Before they move on into the forest for Summer feasting.

These connections would likely have been lost or at least, not as interactive if we hadn’t placed our living space 5 metres up. Not only has it enhanced our living experience, it has been a valuable lesson; harmonising with the land, often requires re visioning conventional design.

Winter has wrapped its icy tentacles over these Southern lands, freezing temperatures, snow layers, hordes of happy skiers; simultaneously an increase of electrical power surges, lights-flicker off, plunged into darkness, frustration, dinner half baked

Outages commonly occur early evening; increasing numbers of people moving into; fast-tracked high density 100% “smart electric” dependent “urban housing developments”; extra visitors carving lines on mountain tops, return from their day to warm toes, homes, net flix, flicking switches, turning dials, pressing buttons, charging batteries; straining infrastructure

Currently gigantic diesel generators are utilised as back up for power supply; highlighting idealist fallacies; reality that creates memorable TV story lines, about green-washing alternative energy as “clean” wind turbines, EV’s as examples;

“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this sh*t out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.

And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. - Tommy Norris character, Land man

Succinctly concluding;

And believe me, if Exxon thought them f***ing things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”

Demand assumes we the people are the problem AKA; (man made climate change) rather than a covert egregore; group-mind-autonomous-belief, acclimatised to materialist ideologies, formed by corporate/political/religious authorities;

Beliefs which stymie freedom, enduring laws, legislation, legal systems deliberately upholding materialistic values into every corner of life & living; masking divine nature & true authenticity;

Materialism mimics the Soul, but has no divine spark

The great cosmic play - nature’s pull in opposite directions a life teaching aspect; unseen- forces, eternal- truths, internal, immortal, v’s mortal, physical- reality external-outer experiences

Divinity v’s materialism needs to be a dynamic conscious relationship reflecting overall well-being, seeking, divine & material growth

Thus Materialism is problematic if not pulled into balance through eternal truths-divine law; the vessels it sustains itself through eventually become morally corrupted soul-less & sin-full; seeking sense pleasures, authority, psychosis, delusion, narcissism, disturbing ideologies, manipulation; values which also apply to entities like corporations /governments & ironically “religious” sects

When tarred with morally corrupted values, materialism is the problem; geo-corporate-political-ideologies irresolute towards overcoming non realised states of consciousness; intent on harbouring gas lighting constructs, greed, delusion, escapism; problem solving using same thought-structures creating problems in the first place; tactics like green washing trigger guilt for “our” actions, akin to stockholm syndrome, forming sympathetic feelings towards ideologies that in fact capture us and take from our life-force

The radical philosophy that by merely living and exhaling we pose a direct danger to earth, high standing premise’s whereby our rights are called selfish and those that question this narrative are slurred as immoral

Rosa Korire -Behind The Green Mask

structures that fuel & fund the materialist egregore; Penance for , material entitlement: more tax, more dependency, more servitude, more government, more laws, on it goes….

until we wake up to the reality that this is a kind of retribution; for not strengthening the balance of forces that compel us to act from a realised state of Consciousness

Kriya Yoga Master; Paramahamsa Prajnananda asks;

“Have you ever been in caught in a trap? I was trapped once, by the inter-net”

He then says “ it makes me sad to see and hear about small children, young people and grown adults trapped by internet and social media addictions, these habits kill their precious time, skill, peace and joy”

Add to this comment, smart phone dependency /socials addiction;

Cell phone towers are electrically powered; they require electricity to operate the equipment that generates radio waves at specific frequencies, allowing them to transmit and receive signals from mobile devices, power is typically supplied by local electric power utility, but many towers are equipped with backup power systems, such as batteries or diesel generators, to ensure continuous operation during power outages

Energy consumption for smart-phone-tech, data-storage facilities is considerable, reflecting disassociation from divine reality; folk would rather place importance on social media likes and dislikes, in their pursuit of happiness; a substantial story in its own right, for another time

Perhaps our greatest achievement will be to flick a switch consciously, limit dependency on smart technology, not from a sense of guilt, rather discernment for technological advancements; then applying discipline to balance dopamine hits, doom scrolls and our attention, which corporate’s turn into currency; our natural instinct for instant gratification put to better use; Sri Aurobindo refines the higher spectrum of gratification as movement towards divine self expression

In this way life becomes an interplay between spiritual and material advancement, attuned to needs v’s wants; wants reflecting developmental attributes; metaphysics, epistemology, politics, asethics, self study/reflection, all working together, to release widespread influence of negative, harmful, or distorted thoughts and beliefs that permeate cult[ure] impacting collective behaviour, values, and institutions.

We walk in the light , yet we know the sun also gifts the shadow - Barry Brailsford

Gentle, subtle, often nuanced calls no longer extolled as they should; Contempt for traditional customs, veiled by commercial constructs, influencing the passage of time; Present day, hustle culture, fictitious persons unlike people, races unlike natives, remove honour from customary lore;

Truth: we are all Native, Indigenous, no-one is separate from this truth; Another description of Native is home; home is soul;

Right relationship to land/nature/self, characteristically empowers our knowing that: race creates socially constructed category for identification based on physical characteristics, ancestry, historical affiliation or shared culture; rather than Native-Soul

Shackled in commerce; racial social constructs are deemed truth, inventions to describe something likened to truth, it is not; constructs separating (Wo)man & soul initiating conflict between indigenous peoples (race) & colonial power/commerce (persons)

Although we may look different, with thousands of unique cultures, no one is more or less belonging, no one is more or less native, no-one is more or less conscious/soul;

Western culture /Colonialism/Crown constructs have us believing differently; usually associated with values aligned with commerce; land ownership, natural resource commodification, profit, money, exploitation; government corporate-legislation/legal fictions/dead entities; conjures associations with certain countries, physical characteristics, historical affiliation;

Person; legal fiction created to magnetise commerce- material-ism, has shaped social-collective-consciousness, expectations, achievements, beliefs; None are exempt, all are captured by this Matrix, pulling us, far far away from self/soul; severed connections from customary traditions, that aid in realising the truth of who we are

We don’t need more influencers

We need more women who live in the woods, brewing potions and reading tea leaves that foretell of forgotten prophecies - Laura Matsue

Many peoples captured in recent times; Te Moana Nui a Kiwa / Nga Herere / Te Waka Aoraki / Aotearoa / Zealandia / Mu, native names before her lands and people were held ransom in commerce, reflected in name changed: New Zealand;

Others captured by commerce long before; bought to these lands, to advance “Crown’s” progress, inadvertently wrapped into historical affiliations, yet equally severed from their own lands & customary traditions; Forced, materialism driven by false-light-religious values, has weakened memories with ancient connections, stifling an awakening into love; akin with courage and power

Full circle back; gathering fireside, invoking balance with fire on Winter Solstice

it’s power gifting us the power to see, illuminating the shadows, elemental power to transmute false constructs, guiding us into the flames of creation

"I am the brilliance in fire and the life in all beings."

—Bhagavad Gita

Come on in

Welcome to stories from this land; nurturing; self sustaining, soul-culture

First words - a welcome to share Organic space

A Karakia or prayer from people native to these lands, about these lands; Te Reo, native language

"Kia hora te marino kia whakapapa pounamu te moana hei huarahi ma tatou i te rangi nei Aroha atu, aroha mai tatou i a tatou katoa Hui e! Taiki E!"

"May peace be widespread, May seas be like greenstone, A pathway for us all this day, Let us show respect for each other, for one another, bring us all together!"

Lets begin here

Building our roundhouse is more or less the creation point for creating organic space. Who knew, that self building a home, alternative to conventional “real estate”, would spark stories about; native customs, lores, living systems, commerce on these lands, filtered through the lens of the soul.

Yet, not surprising, when we consider what home is; native, internal, soil, fireside, shelter, mansion, cabin, shack, family. Home is a place of significance, identity and belonging, often a complex reflection of our lives.

Our experience revealed an important insight in an otherwise consensus culture; remember -who -you -are, proving that any/every experience is an opportunity for individuation; a developmental process coined by Karl Jung to describe our unique sense of self.

If we had listened to “expert” folk, we never would have created a hand/self built #roundhouse; If we didn’t have a strong sense of knowing who we are, we would likely have yielded to consensus thought - “build for market, not self” -

Let us not be pushed or pulled by opinions nor energy from others; Be courageous

We built for us; creating organic space; Feels great to come home, nurtures us with food, connection to living landscapes; Its not a place for modern high-tech, trendy; In fact we opted to power down; Its a place to get away from all that

Capture below shows porch/shelter addition (which was always on our list to complete) There always seems to be something to add, if you are so inclined, to make a home cosier or better.

In this case adding shelter from occasional mountain valley sou’easterly’s blasting our front door;

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