“Our Bright Future” Session #11
Featuring Special Guest: Paul Richardson
(Replay available below)
(NOTE: This conversation took place on February 11th, 2021, but if you want to watch the replay, please use the “Join Us” link at the bottom of the page to register after which you will be given the YouTube rewatch link. All conversations in the “Our Bright Future” series are accessible on a “pay what you want” basis, so we invite you to inquire within yourself as to what you feel this content is worth to you and then, to share that with us as an exchange. Thank you & enjoy!)
“We envision a future, where shelter is no longer just a roof and four walls, but that our homes and communities are fully self-reliant, self-regenerative, and economically viable. Abundantly producing food and clean water, and managing and re-using all their own waste, in balance with nature.”
-Haven Earth Center, Paul Richardson, Founder
Many of us feel a strong, rising call now to return to the Earth. To live closer to the land, to our food, to roaring waters, to the rhythms of nature. To live aligned with nature, and doing no harm. For some of us, this is felt as a deep longing from an ancient time, and for many, a deep knowing that this is the way we are truly meant to live.
It is clear that the ways we have been living as a society–unnatural, wasteful, depleting to the Earth and to each other–are on their way out. These ways are unsustainable, and the tipping point of their expiration is upon us.
We feel the call to return to nature, and yet many of us, disconnected for so long, are still looking for the path, or wondering how, powerfully, it will emerge.
One of the guides on this path to a new Earth–and more specifically, to living in dwellings and communities that are aligned with nature and nature’s principles–will surely be Paul Richardson.
Paul is an architect by training. Graduating in 2002 from Kingston School of Architecture in London, he has had a very busy, and at times, fantastically colorful career, working as a designer, project manager and planner in the fields of residential design and construction internationally.
Paul has lived and worked in over 30 countries, including a number of years in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and London, and project manager for many prestigious hotel projects, including the Ritz Carlton in Kazakhstan.
In 2017, following a trip to the amazon jungle in Peru, he awoke to a new reality, and since then has been on an epic adventure to discover and bring into reality his real mission here on earth. Since then, he has delved deep into what it’s going to take to get humankind back to the land, to living in harmony with the Earth, and to economically-sound and purposeful community living. In his travels since, he has rediscovered and studied natural building, nature based materials, and various ways of living in community, including touring a number of Anastasia communities in Russia.
Paul returned to the US in early 2019, to do a West Coast tour about natural building and living with an expert in permaculture, and before he knew it, he began to organize a new company, Haven Earth Center, and relocated to Mora, New Mexico, which was the start of a whole new life, where he would depart from his corporate life and launch into his new mission. It was clear that everything he had learned and done up to this point had led him exactly to this, and this specific way of serving the creation of a New Earth.
Paul describes Haven Earth Center as, “a transitional platform, sort of a guide, to allow people to begin relocating from the dense urban (sick) reality, into a nature inspired and focused community centric model of living, a creative haven.” As described further on the project website, “By developing prototype holistic living models, structures, homesteads and communities that are self-regenerative, and fully supporting and integrative into natural settings, we are taking our first steps towards the creation of our future reality. By including food, energy and water independence, and creative ways to up-cycle waste element, we see a vision of the future, worth living for.”
As part of this work, Paul has been developing the concept of the BioHouse business, as a way to build security and abundance and inspire youth to get into farming. He has garnered special attention for his hemp houses, to be featured soon on HGTV and the Discovery Channel. Paul is very conscious of working with locally natural, available, and abundant materials, and notes the great potential of hemp–a popular and abundant plant right now in the United States, which offers a bridge, he says, back to more natural earth focused building endeavors and accessible business models. He has done many other (breathtaking!) natural homes too, including dome houses.
We are so excited to talk to Paul, to share his inspired work with the Ownstream Community, and to connect him with community and home builders in our midst.
In this glorious Our Bright Future episode, we plan to cover the following with Paul:
- What did he learn in his world travels and across his architecture career that serves the creation now of natural residential homes and communities ? Why has everything he’s done prepared him perfectly to assist now in building a New Earth?
- What is the exodus currently happening on the Earth from cities back to the land, and why is it happening? Why is the way we have been building and living bound to collapse? What is coming next?
- What natural ways of building hold the greatest potential for rebuilding our homes and communities, and society more generally? How does this depend on location in the world and resources available locally?
- What are some of the most promising and inexpensive models for building that can be used to rebuild our society and address rising homelessness?
- How much does it cost to build a hemp house or dome home? How long would it take to learn to build one?
- What has he learned from visiting natural communities across the world, including the Anastasia communities? Why haven’t many of these been successful and what can we learn from them?
- Are we ready as a society for community living? What will help us to become ready?
- What visions does he have for creating ecological communities aligned with nature? What can he offer such communities now emerging worldwide?
- What are our next steps as a society? How do we get started as individuals in living this way?
As always, this “Our Bright Future” talk is a “pay what you wish” event. Half of all funds collected will go directly to Paul, to support his work, and the other half will support Ownstream, and conversations like this one. You can watch live or watch the replay at a later time. Sign up to join below!
To Join Us
Along the lines of exploring a new way of exchanging value, we are piloting a new payment process with this series – specifically, allowing you to pay whatever you want for this conversation. We are very excited for this, as it feels like a congruent method for us both to keep our platform open to all who are drawn to the information shared without the classic payment wall, and also honor our, and our guest’s, time and energy given in devotion of the truth and sharing that with as many as possible.
All of the monies received for this conversation will be split 50/50 with our guest – which is our policy for all co-creations in this new series. Once you register, you will be taken to a page containing the YouTube link where the live conversation (and replay) will be held.
Thank you, and we hope you will join us!
- Please bookmark the YouTube link where the broadcast will be held live (this will be shared with you once your registration is complete). If you have any questions or problems with this, please contact us right away.
- If you cannot attend live, you will still be able to watch after the fact via the live link (which becomes the rewatch link after).
- Please confirm your time zone beforehand – this conversation will take place at 10:00a pacific/1:00p eastern time on Thursday, February 11th (click here to convert to your local time zone).