To be quite blunt, I had always thought of the great state of New Mexico as a haven for the bizarre and crazy outcast and heretic. Well, as it turns out I was right, and I have proof. We had the pleasure of meeting some of the most out-there and grooviest of them all at The Earthship Biotecture site, Michael Reynold’s community outside of Taos, New Mexico.

An Earthship is a house… sort of. I think it’s actually what every house dreams of being when it grows up. Earthship.com calls their earthship design, ” a radically sustainable home made of recycled materials.” I think the key phrase is “radically sustainable”. That means that these homes, apart from their artistically refreshing and appealing designs, are 100% off-the-grid (not hooked up to city utilities), because shockingly, they:

• heat and cool themselves naturally
• collect their own power from the sun and the wind
• harvest their own water from rain and snow melt
• are built entirely of natural and recycled materials
• contain and treat their own sewage on site
• produce a significant amount of food
• are constructed using the byproducts of modern society like cans, bottles and tires

I have to make it clear that these are real houses, built out of what we have in abundance around us, trash. And they are some of the most beautiful homes I have ever walked through. Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning, a frigid 10 degrees outside and snowing. You crawl out of bed in a toasty 70 degree environment, and you’ve never turned on the heat… because you don’t have a heating system; you have tapped into the power of the sun to sustain you. But what stands out the most to me, the thing that really gets me going, is their mission:

To evolve the way humans live on this planet by evolving existing methods of living, home by home.

To make small, believable steps toward slowing down and ultimately reversing the negative impact of human development as it relates to the Earth’s ability to continue to support life.

To present these steps in a way that affords easy understanding and inspires people to act.

To empower people to make positive changes in their own lives to reduce their personal effect on global warming.

These people are truly radical, really making an impact. They are thinking differently about things, making the world better for us and for every generation to come. So for me it begs the question: Why aren’t we as “Christians” leading in the fight to better our world, to take care of what was entrusted to us, to show others a better way? Well, it’s not too late.

We have been intrigued with this organization ever since we watched the Garbage Warrior. Our little boxes were blown to pieces. After watching this documentary, I laid awake for hours dreaming of all the possibilities that lie ahead for Amigos as an organization, imagining what possibilities await us if we just dare to go beyond our redundant thinking, and to think again. We hope to partner with The Earthship Biotecture organization to empower and better the way Mexico imagines their future.

My 50mm lens could not capture the scope of these remarkable homes but visit our Gallery Site to see more of the photos from our recent visit.

Watch this inspiring video of Earthship’s recent work in Haiti.

Our thanks to Kirsten Jacobsen for sharing life with, offering us an outstanding tour and blessing us with invaluable information!