“I live in a small quaint little two-room cabin with a loft. Most of the buildings here look like your typical old summer camp wooden buildings, and they are all clustered together so everything is a short walk away.”

My name is Wes Ozier. I am 37-years-old, a LEED accredited professional, and I want to see our society evolve into a sustainable future. Why? I grew up in Detroit, a major urban area where I always felt that there was something wrong with the way we lived. The effect that the city had on people and the lack of nature around us always bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

When I was in college at Michigan State University, I happened upon the book “Arcology: City in the Image of Man” by Dr. Paolo Soleri. Honestly, it took me over a year of reading that book to understand what Soleri was talking about.  Finally, when I understood it I was more than excited!

In this book Dr. Soleri explained his hypothesis that many of the social ills of the modern city were consequences of architectural design and planning, and that to solve those ills we had to re-conceptualize how we built our cities.The book then went on to show dozens of drawings of a new type of city called “Arcology” that would, by design, better connect people with each other and with nature, at least in theory. Finally, someone had articulated, not just the problems of modern society but a possible solution and they were building it and living in it!

So, with my family thinking I had gone nuts and joined a cult, I packed up and moved from Michigan to the middle of the desert to live and work at the Arcosanti Project in Cordes Junction, Ariz.

Since then, I have devoted my personal and professional life to trying to help us move from the “modern” way of doing things, with its alienation, hyper-consumption, and mental/physical degradation, to an ecological way of doing things.

I lived at Arcosanti for four years, where I administrated the educational programs. After leaving Arcosanti I was fortunate enough to work for the Ecosa Institute, located in Prescott, which teaches a semester-long course in sustainable design. I now work and live at the Lost Valley Educational Center, an aspiring ecovillage and educational center in Oregon, where I administrate the educational programs.

You may have read my previous articles about sustainability and ecological design and learned a lot from them. With this article, I want to give you a glimpse “behind the curtain” so to speak, as to what life at an ecovillage is like for me.

Many people who know I lived at Arcosanti and now live at Lost Valley often ask what it is like moving from one place to another. First, I must admit it was nice to see forests and natural grasslands again! Though I do kind of miss the expanse of the desert.

I also miss the professional challenges of teaching how to live comfortably in the desert. I always felt that doing ecological design in the desert is like making it in New York, if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.

I’ve been at Lost Valley for nearly eight months now, and so far it has been really good, though I do miss living at Arcosanti some times. Lost Valley is 20 years old.  We live on a site that was once a Christian Youth Camp back in the ’60s and ’70s. Shiloh, as the youth camp was called, went under 20 years ago and a small group of people looking to start an ecovillage bought the property and moved in, “re-purposing” the existing structures from a youth camp into an intentional community.

Thanks to Shiloh, we have two large dormitories, a lodge, a small office complex, classrooms, several cabins and a six-unit apartment complex. With these facilities, we are able to house about 25 community members and dozens of students.  Our main “industry” is education, and we teach excellent courses in Permaculture design, with an emphasis on creating “community.”

I live in a small, quaint little two-room cabin with a loft. Most of the buildings here look like your typical old summer camp wooden buildings, and they are all clustered together so everything is a short walk away, much like it was at Arcosanti.  Living in a pedestrian environment like this allows one to constantly enjoy the weather and nature and constantly smile and wave at people as you all go about your day.

When I was at Arcosanti, about 60 people lived there—almost three times the population of Lost Valley—so there has been some “culture shock” moving from a larger community population to a smaller one. There was much more activity overall at Arcosanti, with the residents, the tourists, the classes and monthly festivals in the amphitheater.

There were always people around and it felt like living in a hustle and bustle, but it was a positive, invigorating hustle and bustle, not a rat race.

Arcosanti has been around for 40 years and constructing the whole time, so it makes sense that Arcosanti has so much more population and facilities than Lost Valley. While living at Arcosanti felt like being in the hustle and bustle of a downtown on Saturday night, Lost Valley is more like living in a quaint, small neighborhood, with trees and gardens surrounding you.

In modern city living, we are surrounded by thousands, if not millions of people, but how many of them do you actually interact with? At Lost Valley I know and interact in a great way with all 25 people here, as well as the students. So, to me, it is socially like life in a big city just without the thousands of “background” people that I never interacted with anyway.

At Arcosanti I definitely had a richer, more active social life with those 60 people and that site then I did when I lived in Phoenix with MILLIONS! It is the same here at Lost Valley. Everyone I see is a member of my community, like friends and neighbors. One of the biggest differences between Arcosanti and Lost Valley is the intent of community development. Arcosanti is focused on being a construction project, attempting to build a prototype of a new sustainable vision of urban development. Basically Paolo Soleri modeled it after the Taliesin School of Archi tecture, where he studied, which Taliesin was never intended to be a “community” and neither was Arcosanti.

Because of this, many people in the ecovillage movement don’t consider Arcosanti a “community,” but I can assure you that when you live and work with 60 people everyday, you form a community there.

Lost Valley, however, from its beginning, has had the intent of consciously developing what you call “intentional community.” People don’t just come here to live and work, they come to be connected. To be connected with each other and with Nature. This may sound like hippy-commune stuff to many people, and maybe it is, but I ask what is wrong with the notion of purposefully trying to live in a connected way?

Modern city living, in my opinion, engenders disconnection, isolation and alienation among people. It disconnects you from the joys of the natural world and people, it makes happiness something you have to buy at the mall, watch on TV, or only get to experience at a “Happy Hour” with half-off drinks.

You lock your doors because you don’t trust your neighbors, you don’t talk to strangers, you pass homeless people on the street without a second glance, and somehow this is viewed as “normal” and the intent to live in a connected way is viewed as “weird.”

Not only have I had to make some social adjustments, but I have also had to make some ecological ones as well. The climate of the Northwest is quite different from the climate of Arizona. For example, the small grey water system I installed has stopped working because I didn’t account for the ground becoming saturated due to rain. So I am learning to adjust both socially and ecologically to Lost Valley, the climate, the people and the whole “scene.”

Living in a place that teaches and incorporates that teaching into the community provides a great social environment if you are interested in living a sustainable life yourself. Through the presence of the students, we, the community, also learn and teach each other every day. Awareness of sustainability, ecology and community infuses everything we do.

OK, maybe not everything, but ecological and community awareness, even when you’re not being perfect at it, is still a palpable presence in the way you think and act. Living on this site gives you an opportunity to sometimes become connected with the environment and people in a way that you wouldn’t anywhere else. There are plenty of opportunities to get your hands “dirty” and work on some project or in a garden; there are always people around talking about their views and the latest they’ve heard about the ecology and about the world. You get to engage people who are also dedicated to positive interactions all the time.

My professional goal is to teach people how to empower themselves to live in a sustainable way. That was why I moved to Arcosanti, why I worked at Ecosa and why I moved to Lost Valley. How do the educational experiences of these three places compare? Arcosanti offers month-long workshops, where one lives on the site and participates in either the construction of the project or in one of the support positions, such as kitchen, maintenance or something like that. The experience of living at Arcosanti is completely unique and something I think EVERYONE should experience. To be in an environment so out of the norm, and so beautiful and unique opens your mind to a whole new range of possibilities for our future, and even for yourself. It is truly one of the best, eye-opening experiences in my life.

I always did, however, find the educational experience a little disappointing. In my opinion, the lessons you learn at Arcosanti’s workshop only apply to Arcosanti.  There was no intent to teach people how to design for themselves, how to create their own unique sustainable solutions, or how to translate the lessons of Arcosanti to the rest of the world.

Sure, sometimes a department head would take it on themselves to teach their student crews a true skill, but as the administrator of the programs there was no room for development of a true “sustainability” curriculum. This was a big impetus for my working at the Ecosa Institute, which in my learned opinion, teaches the best course on sustainable design in the country.

Ecosa, however, is not a community. So while you get the best education, you don’t get the community experience. This is why I am so excited about being at Lost Valley. While Arcosanti has a better site and richer social experience, Lost Valley has better education.

While Ecosa has superlative education. Lost Valley has better community. To me, Lost Valley is the perfect blend of what I have been looking for both personally and professionally.

I have to admit that I also love being at Lost Valley because as the head of the educational department here I am empowered and held responsible for further development of the educational programs. When I arrived, Lost Valley was teaching a curriculum developed by my predecessor Marc Tobin, which combined the permaculture curriculum as developed by Bill Mollison, the “founder” of permaculture, with the Ecovillage Design Education curriculum endorsed by the United Nations “Decade of Sustainable Education.” This program teaches a great blend of how to interact with both the environment and the people within it.

Next year, we are developing each curriculum into its own full class. In addition, we are adding a “Do-It-Yourself ” scale Ecobuilding course. The idea with this curriculum is that a person could come to Lost Valley and learn how to design their permaculture systems, how to build their own appropriate technology and ecoshelters, and how to create their own community, learning all of that while actually living in an ecovillage dedicated to being an intentional community.

If you are interested in learning and living sustainably, here is my professional recommendation: Take an Arcosanti workshop and live there for a month. The experience will change your life. Then, come to Lost Valley and take either one of our Full Courses, or the three-month, full-immersion seasonal program.

With these two experiences under your belt, you will have a new vision of how to live sustainably and the skills to do so. If you wish to go further in learning design, then go to the Ecosa Institute. I don’t just make these recommendations because it is my job to do so, I make these recommendations because it is what I have done in my life, and I consider my life all the better for it. If everyone followed a similar path, then we could enact a grass roots transformation of our society and then everywhere could be an intentional community and ecovillage, and Phoenix would no longer be a city of millions of strangers, but of millions of friends and neighbors.

The Camassia 2010 programs are now enrolling

The Camassia Institute at Lost Valley empowers you to live and learn more sustainably through courses in permaculture, sustainable design and community organization.

These courses are designed for those with an academic, professional or personal interest in sustainable living and design. Students stay at the Lost Valley ecovillage located in Dexter, Ore. Week-long, month-long and seasonal programs are offered for scheduling and financial flexibility.

• Sustainability Seminar: This one-week “crash course” in sustainability gives an overview of green building, permaculture and ecovillage design through a combination of lectures and activities.

• Ecobuild Modules: A week-long module where you participate in the construction of a single ecobuilding demonstration project.

• Five-Week, Full Programs: EcoBuilding, a hands-on intro to creating “eco” structures; Permaculture Design, learn how to create and present holistic permaculture design; and Ecovillage Design Education, for those interested in organizing their local community or starting their own intentional community.

• Seasonal Program: A three-month program for those interested in a fully immersive experience. This program integrates the ecobuilding, permaculture and ecovillage design programs into one comprehensive immersive learning experience. Students receive both a permaculture and an ecovillage design certification.

Are you ready to live in greater harmony with the planet and each other?

Visit our Web site at www.lostvalley.org/ to learn more about the Camassia Programs and life at Lost Valley. For more info, call 541-937-3351 or send e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .