My Experience At The Toas Earthship Community

On the Northern border of New Mexico, near the unique town of Taos, is a community of homes that are unlike most people have ever seen. Not long after you cross the bridge over the infamous gorge (depending on the direction you are traveling, of course) you will soon find yourself starring in wonder at the spectacle of Earthship homes buried partially into the desert landscape. Through sources like YouTube and social media, these homes have become more widely known and travelers from all over the world come to get a closer look. There is an Earthship museum you can visit if you want to get a real feel for what it’s like to live in the eco-friendly oasis.

If you’ve never heard of an Earthship, you’re probably wondering what the heck I am talking about! So I will do my best to explain… Earthship development has been an evolutionary journey over the past four decades. They are sustainable homes made out of recycled materials; they conserve and reuse collected rainwater, create an abundant food source year-around, and the homes are heated and cooled naturally. Earthships also have their own on-site sewage system. The Earthships can cost about the same as your ‘normal’ home we know today, however, with an Earthship, all of your utility, heating, food, and water needs are taken care of and the materials to build these homes are widely available. The way we build homes today requires a lot of wasted resources and the homes do not produce anything back in return, except for a roof over your head…

Earthships are mostly made out of ‘garbage’, which I know sounds lame… but when you take a tour of an Earthship you don’t feel like you’re inside anything that’d be considered waste! All the Earthships have green houses that wrap around parts of the home which creates a food source all year around, rain water is collected and recycled down into the sinks and showers – the black and grey water can be used in the gardens as well, so no water is ever wasted. Free energy is also a huge benefit to these homes, as they have solar panel and wind turbine hook-ups. A furnace can be installed into a home, but residents in Colorado and New Mexico say their homes never drop below 50, even in the dead of winter. There have been people who’ve reported having no prior experience, built their Earthship home in as little as three months. Depending on how many recycled materials you can find, building an Earthship can cost as little as 7,000!

I truly enjoyed the unique architecture of the adobe walls and the decorative-colorful glass from recycled bottles that’d been added. The homes literally feel very ‘earthy’ inside and smell so wonderful. It was a perfectly cool and refreshing temperature inside the museum I toured, which was in the beginning of June! I learned that there is an internship program people can get involved with if you want some actual ‘hands-on’ learning experience when it comes to building these homes.

The Earthship community in New Mexico has had so many visitors over the past several years, and especially from people who didn’t seem to understand personal privacy… Meaning several tourists have driven around the neighborhoods, taking pictures of people’s homes through the windows with no regard for who is living inside, so there are a lot of ‘keep out’ and ‘no trespassing’ signs on certain roads. If you visit this community yourself, please keep this in mind and be respectful. If you want more information on Earthships, check out: http://earthship.com/visit-us

***This is just a brief over-view of my experience at the Earthship Community – much more will be available in part 2 of the Diary of a Starseed Series this fall. Check out Part 1 of my book, available now, to see how this journey all began.

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