Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

William Powers' memoir "Twelve by Twelve: A One-room Cabin Off the American Grid and Beyond the American Dream" is an intimate account of his journey to find answers to the questions: "Why would a successful physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity in rural North Carolina?"and "How can we learn to live in harmony with each other and nature?"
Dr. Jackie Benton (not her real name), a mother, peace activist and "wisdomkeeper" who mostly lives off the produce from her permaculture farm, struck Powers as someone who had achieved self-mastery in confusing times. To avoid war taxes (fifty cents out of every dollar goes to the Pentagon) she accepts only eleven thousand dollars instead of the three hundred thousand she could make as a senior physician.
Powers needing a way out of despair from a separation from his young daughter and a decade of challenging international aid work accepted Jackie's offer to stay in her cabin next to No Name Creek for a season while she traveled.
He said Jackie's 12 X 12 and her unique approach to living in todays world seemed full of clues toward living lightly and artfully. He hoped it would help him learn to think, feel and live another way.
Having worked in Africa and South America Powers asked Jackie how we can stop the northern economies pillage of the Global South's forests, mines and oceans. He later came to synthesize Jackie's vision as "see, be, do." Before acting on a problem we must "BE." Take time in solitude to reflect, meditate or pray. Only when we SEE with clarity can we act ("DO") fearlessly. Powers says this blending of inner peace with loving action is sometimes called God, intuition, the "still small voice," grace or presence. He knew Jackie was right, "The world's problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they were created."
At first it was difficult for Powers to live without a shower and toilet in the 12 X 12. He said Jackie did not leave an "Idiot's Guide." However, as the weeks passed in the 12 X 12 he found a deeper appreciation for the preciousness of water and the natural world. He said, "Instead of listening with one ear, as I sometimes do when faced with deadlines, with multitasking, I used both ears. Real listening is prayer."
Jackie's instructions were to "simply sit" and "to not do, be." Her stack of hand written cards with sayings or questions like "The Strenuous Contours of Enough, Trade Knowledge for Bewilderment" and "Simplify"
brought him into mindfulness and deepened his daily life. She said earlier, "The joy of simplifying one's material life is you don't have to work long hours to buy and maintain a bunch of stuff."
Concerning anger Jackie advised, "When you become so enmeshed with the fullness of nature, of Life, that your ego dissolves, emotions like resentment, anger, and fear have no place to lodge...you still feel these emotions but more like a dull thud against the mind...When you see worthiness, praise it. And when you see unworthiness, trace it. Don't judge. Trace anything you don't like in someone else back to their unique history; then trace it back to yourself because anything you dislike in others is somewhere in you."
Jackie's "wildcrafter" life and her eclectic neighbors of organic farmers, biofuel brewers and eco-developers helped Powers synthesize the wisdom of indigenous people. Their idea is not to live better but to live well: friends, family, healthy body, fresh air and water, enough food and peace. To ask what is enough? To see how genuine well-being is not linked to material possessions and productivity.
Powers' chapter on "Noise and War" reminds us that humans have slaughtered one hundred million of our species in twentieth-century wars. Powers fears America with its massive military industrial complex with 721 official military bases in foreign countries, and over one thousand unofficially, has chosen empire over democracy.
Powers and Jackie's story show how we can reshape ourselves in the face of globalization. We can decide what get globalized: consumption or compassion, selfishness or solidarity, war or peace.
Their penetrating insights offer clues for a smaller footprint, the joy of ordinariness and a more meaningful life.

While I liked the concept of the book (I'm a sucker for stunt journalism), I feel the author could have realized a better product by exploring more of the practicality of the *outer* experience of living "off the grid and beyond the American dream" and less of his *inner* experience and emotional dialogue.

I loved the author's vignettes of the various different families and individuals trying to live simply, and I wish he'd explored them further. I especially liked that he included discussions of race and class--there, I found his inner dialogue thoughtful and important to the discussion. A lot of us moving out to the country and downshifting are essentially self-absorbed yuppies, and forming new social bonds and adjusting to the change of pace can be a real challenge. Racism and classism are as real and difficult in the country as in the city, but in the city, it's easier to live in a safe little echo chamber of like-minded people and avoid ugly issues altogether. It's easier to forget that you, too, have ingrained biases that you need to confront.

I also really liked the initial tone of the book, and the writing style--it captured his restlessness and disillusion--and those early details like the hospital that farmed out its catering to Wendy's were exactly the sort of typical corporate BS that makes you crave this kind of book--but I found myself getting annoyed with the new-age language that progressively seeped in as he settled into the 12x12--and it actually made me feel resistant to a message that I essentially agreed with.

My main disappointment was that there wasn't more useful information. I think a lot of people are interested in living life more simply, and we do have a serious conflict with our desire to live according to our principles and our challenges with the lure of consumerism. Personally, I constantly live with this struggle between the simple life and the sexy, sexy siren song of Stuff (and most days I'm winning). Instead of admonishments about preserving the earth and noticing the dewdrops and honoring Gaia, I'd rather know more about how a water collection system works. What about sanitation? What do you do for showers in winter? What about food in the winter? What do you do with leftovers? How does one plan out those growing zones? What's maintenance like on a composting toilet? I suspect many of us who were drawn to this book already know right from wrong and want to do more right, so a glimpse into the nuts and bolts of how such a life really, practically works, would have been incredibly inspiring, and would have done a lot more to put me on the path to living lightly than the new agey stuff.

So all in all, a solid, thoughtful effort, but not quite to my own taste/needs.

William Powers allows us to accompany him on a journey winding inward as he spends time in a tiny off-the-grid cabin in rural North Carolina. Powers, who travels and works around the world, was only borrowing the cabin for a short time, and we repeatedly see the contrast between his expansive life and the different kind of expansion brought by the external contraction of the cabin. In the early pages, I worried that he was being overly romantic about this lifestyle, the cabin's owner (a local physician), and his neighbors. However, as the book progresses, a more complete, and sometimes difficult and disappointing, picture emerges. It is a thoughtful and lovely book, which deserves to be read slowly. Powers writes: "There is a point where we must let the feel of water on bare feet replace books and spiritual practices. They can be very helpful as guides, as structures, as inspiration, but can also, if we hold on to them too tightly, obstruct the most important thing: an unmediated facing of the world as it is, which is to say, as we shape it." (198-199) With lucid grace, Powers leads the reader toward putting down the book, and facing the world with renewed vision.