Exploring pathways home to the land

by James Bullen

"Many of us are feeling it now: the call back to the land, to each other, and to the wider community of life; the longing for ways of being that support both human thriving and that of natural living systems. Maybe it's time to follow that call."
"Beautiful, low-cost, low-carbon ways of living exist. They're calling to us from the margins of our destructive civilisation. We can choose to inhabit them."
"It's entirely possible to live well within our ecological and social limits. And most people, if given the choice, would happily do so. The trouble is that our world is organised in such a way as to make that almost impossible at the moment."
"The housing crisis isn’t just about unaffordable housing. It’s about a housing system that locks us all—wherever we are on the property ladder—into ways of being and patterns of consumption that undermine individual wellbeing, social cohesion, and the health of the entire living Earth."
"Land-use policy in the UK separates housing, farming, and 'nature conservation' into three distinct domains. But what if we started integrating these three in ways that meet core human needs while supporting the recovery of natural living systems?”
"What if sustainable progress has little to do with net-zero, further technological development, or 'green' economic growth? What if it has far more to do with the core alignment of human activity with deep ecological and pro-social values? What would a future organised around that goal look like?"

Hello, I’m James.

For the past 25 years I've been questing towards the land, land-based community, and ways of life that nurture deep ecological belonging.

I've recently started articulating what I've discovered on the way — small-scale approaches that are beautiful in themselves and which might contribute to a future more closely aligned with ecological and human flourishing.

My work is an attempt to develop these approaches into coherent pathways worth exploring together.

Journey

My journey has been in part an attempt to escape from what I’ve experienced as the systemic violence of industrial modernity, and in part a quest to discover and inhabit more beautiful and life-sustaining alternatives to it.

About my journey →

Practice

My practice includes ongoing experiments in low-impact living, natural building work, and continued exploration of the beautiful ecosystem of practitioners and places involved in the renaissance of land-based culture in the UK.

Explore my practice →

Thinking

My thinking is rooted in long-term enquiry combined with radical embodied land-based practice, and expressed through a range of writings that seek to understand, inspire, challenge, and open up new possibilities.

Explore my thinking →

Building

I build low-impact natural structures that are low-cost, circular (in every sense), and robust enough for comfortable 4-season earth-dwelling for individuals or families. I think of them as portals out of an extractive system and home onto the land.

Check out the structures →

Collaboration

I’m actively seeking to bring my unusual mix of practical, intellectual, and integrative skills into creative collaborations with people, projects and organisations working at the intersection of land-based practice, cultural renewal, and systems change.

Collaboration opportunities →

I don't believe large-scale solutions to our current crises exist yet — and I actually suspect that scale itself is a core part of the problem. So what I'm exploring is intentionally small: pathways for individuals, families, and communities to build closer relationships with the land, each other, and the wider community of life.

For now, these pathways will probably only appeal to the few thousand people in Britain already actively seeking a lighter, more land-based way of life — and that's fine. But I’d like to think that such paths might, in time, contribute something useful towards more mature civilisational responses as these emerge.

It’s also possible that there will be times ahead when living much lighter and closer to the land becomes more desirable or even necessary for many more people — and at that point, it could be useful to have viable models around to pick up and work with.

I’m not talking about building ‘prepper’ enclaves or even civilisational lifeboats, but seed-banks of land-based practice and experience keeping forms of life materially and culturally available for futures that may be heading our way.

Exploring pathways home to the land

by James Bullen

"Many of us are feeling it now: the call back to the land, to each other, and to the wider community of life; the longing for ways of being that support both human thriving and that of natural living systems. Maybe it's time to follow that call."

"Beautiful, low-cost, low-carbon ways of living exist. They're calling to us from the margins of our destructive civilisation. We can choose to inhabit them."

"It's entirely possible to live well within our ecological and social limits. And most people, if given the choice, would happily do so. The trouble is that our world is organised in such a way as to make that almost impossible at the moment."

"The housing crisis isn’t just about unaffordable housing. It’s about a housing system that locks us all—wherever we are on the property ladder—into ways of being and patterns of consumption that undermine individual wellbeing, social cohesion, and the health of the entire living Earth."

"Land-use policy in the UK separates housing, farming, and 'nature conservation' into three distinct domains. But what if we started integrating these three in ways that meet core human needs while supporting the recovery of natural living systems?”

"What if sustainable progress has little to do with net-zero, further technological development, or 'green' economic growth? What if it has far more to do with the core alignment of human activity with deep ecological and pro-social values? What would a future organised around that goal look like?"