Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream [Paperback]

William Powers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2010

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled. There, he befriended her eclectic neighbors — organic farmers, biofuel brewers, eco-developers — and discovered a sustainable but imperiled way of life.

In these pages, Powers not only explores this small patch of community but draws on his international experiences with other pockets of resistance. This engrossing tale of Powers’s struggle for a meaningful life with a smaller footprint proposes a paradigm shift to an elusive “Soft World” with clues to personal happiness and global healing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Powers (Blue Clay People) refers to wildcrafters, people who shape their inner and outer worlds to the flow of nature, as heroes. Among these wildcrafters is Dr. Jackie Benton, a physician who lives in a 12'×12' dwelling in the midst of 30 acres on No Name Creek in rural North Carolina. Benton lives a sustainable life off the grid by raising honeybees, growing her own vegetables and preserving them, and harvesting what she might need from the woods around her. As Powers points out, Benton seems to have achieved self-mastery in these confusing times, and his initial meeting with her is a search for clues to this self-mastery. After the two meet, Benton's sobering and often hilarious (taking showers in rain water warmed by the sun, learning that in order to eat chicken for dinner, he himself would have to kill a chicken given to him by his neighbors) narrative of his life in the 12'×12' offers precious insights into the ways that all individuals living in a fast-paced consumer culture might incorporate different ways of thinking about the natural world into their lives. (May)
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From Booklist

Take four giant steps forward. Turn right; do it again. Turn right again; repeat. Right; repeat. Now imagine living in a space roughly the size of the area just paced off. Without electricity or running water. In the middle of nowhere. Having recently returned from years in the Bolivian rain forest, environmental activist Powers experienced a nearly debilitating form of culture shock upon his reentry into the heart of American consumerism. His salvation came from ardent permaculturist Dr. Jackie Benton, who offered Powers the use of her spartan cabin in rural North Carolina. Living among other “wildcrafters”—organic farmers, furniture artisans, and eco-developers—Powers learned firsthand what it means to be self-sufficient in the midst of a nation that profligately squanders its resources and looks askance at those who choose to live deliberately. While there are no easy answers to be found in such an extreme experiment, Powers’ eloquent memoir reveals the breadth of this conflict and the depth of one man’s commitment to himself and his community. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: New World Library (May 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1577318978
• ISBN-13: 978-1577318972
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Essays

More About the Author

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To contact me directly: [e-mail].

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 62 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and inspiring topic, but I wish it were more practical and less preachy April 15, 2010

By Cupcake

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

While I liked the concept of the book (I'm a sucker for stunt journalism), I feel the author could have realized a better product by exploring more of the practicality of the *outer* experience of living "off the grid and beyond the American dream" and less of his *inner* experience and emotional dialogue.

I loved the author's vignettes of the various different families and individuals trying to live simply, and I wish he'd explored them further. I especially liked that he included discussions of race and class--there, I found his inner dialogue thoughtful and important to the discussion. A lot of us moving out to the country and downshifting are essentially self-absorbed yuppies, and forming new social bonds and adjusting to the change of pace can be a real challenge. Racism and classism are as real and difficult in the country as in the city, but in the city, it's easier to live in a safe little echo chamber of like-minded people and avoid ugly issues altogether. It's easier to forget that you, too, have ingrained biases that you need to confront.

I also really liked the initial tone of the book, and the writing style--it captured his restlessness and disillusion--and those early details like the hospital that farmed out its catering to Wendy's were exactly the sort of typical corporate BS that makes you crave this kind of book--but I found myself getting annoyed with the new-age language that progressively seeped in as he settled into the 12x12--and it actually made me feel resistant to a message that I essentially agreed with.

My main disappointment was that there wasn't more useful information. I think a lot of people are interested in living life more simply, and we do have a serious conflict with our desire to live according to our principles and our challenges with the lure of consumerism. Personally, I constantly live with this struggle between the simple life and the sexy, sexy siren song of Stuff (and most days I'm winning). Instead of admonishments about preserving the earth and noticing the dewdrops and honoring Gaia, I'd rather know more about how a water collection system works. What about sanitation? What do you do for showers in winter? What about food in the winter? What do you do with leftovers? How does one plan out those growing zones? What's maintenance like on a composting toilet? I suspect many of us who were drawn to this book already know right from wrong and want to do more right, so a glimpse into the nuts and bolts of how such a life really, practically works, would have been incredibly inspiring, and would have done a lot more to put me on the path to living lightly than the new agey stuff.

So all in all, a solid, thoughtful effort, but not quite to my own taste/needs.

64 of 71 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clues for the joy of ordinariness and a smaller footprint March 12, 2010

By Niki Collins-queen, Author VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

William Powers' memoir "Twelve by Twelve: A One-room Cabin Off the American Grid and Beyond the American Dream" is an intimate account of his journey to find answers to the questions: "Why would a successful physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity in rural North Carolina?"and "How can we learn to live in harmony with each other and nature?"
Dr. Jackie Benton (not her real name), a mother, peace activist and "wisdomkeeper" who mostly lives off the produce from her permaculture farm, struck Powers as someone who had achieved self-mastery in confusing times. To avoid war taxes (fifty cents out of every dollar goes to the Pentagon) she accepts only eleven thousand dollars instead of the three hundred thousand she could make as a senior physician.
Powers needing a way out of despair from a separation from his young daughter and a decade of challenging international aid work accepted Jackie's offer to stay in her cabin next to No Name Creek for a season while she traveled.
He said Jackie's 12 X 12 and her unique approach to living in todays world seemed full of clues toward living lightly and artfully. He hoped it would help him learn to think, feel and live another way.
Having worked in Africa and South America Powers asked Jackie how we can stop the northern economies pillage of the Global South's forests, mines and oceans. He later came to synthesize Jackie's vision as "see, be, do." Before acting on a problem we must "BE." Take time in solitude to reflect, meditate or pray. Only when we SEE with clarity can we act ("DO") fearlessly. Powers says this blending of inner peace with loving action is sometimes called God, intuition, the "still small voice," grace or presence. He knew Jackie was right, "The world's problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they were created."
At first it was difficult for Powers to live without a shower and toilet in the 12 X 12. He said Jackie did not leave an "Idiot's Guide." However, as the weeks passed in the 12 X 12 he found a deeper appreciation for the preciousness of water and the natural world. He said, "Instead of listening with one ear, as I sometimes do when faced with deadlines, with multitasking, I used both ears. Real listening is prayer."
Jackie's instructions were to "simply sit" and "to not do, be." Her stack of hand written cards with sayings or questions like "The Strenuous Contours of Enough, Trade Knowledge for Bewilderment" and "Simplify"
brought him into mindfulness and deepened his daily life. She said earlier, "The joy of simplifying one's material life is you don't have to work long hours to buy and maintain a bunch of stuff."
Concerning anger Jackie advised, "When you become so enmeshed with the fullness of nature, of Life, that your ego dissolves, emotions like resentment, anger, and fear have no place to lodge...you still feel these emotions but more like a dull thud against the mind...When you see worthiness, praise it. And when you see unworthiness, trace it. Don't judge. Trace anything you don't like in someone else back to their unique history; then trace it back to yourself because anything you dislike in others is somewhere in you."
Jackie's "wildcrafter" life and her eclectic neighbors of organic farmers, biofuel brewers and eco-developers helped Powers synthesize the wisdom of indigenous people. Their idea is not to live better but to live well: friends, family, healthy body, fresh air and water, enough food and peace. To ask what is enough? To see how genuine well-being is not linked to material possessions and productivity.
Powers' chapter on "Noise and War" reminds us that humans have slaughtered one hundred million of our species in twentieth-century wars. Powers fears America with its massive military industrial complex with 721 official military bases in foreign countries, and over one thousand unofficially, has chosen empire over democracy.
Powers and Jackie's story show how we can reshape ourselves in the face of globalization. We can decide what get globalized: consumption or compassion, selfishness or solidarity, war or peace.
Their penetrating insights offer clues for a smaller footprint, the joy of ordinariness and a more meaningful life.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A complex journey into simplicity May 5, 2010

By John P. Plummer VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

William Powers allows us to accompany him on a journey winding inward as he spends time in a tiny off-the-grid cabin in rural North Carolina. Powers, who travels and works around the world, was only borrowing the cabin for a short time, and we repeatedly see the contrast between his expansive life and the different kind of expansion brought by the external contraction of the cabin. In the early pages, I worried that he was being overly romantic about this lifestyle, the cabin's owner (a local physician), and his neighbors. However, as the book progresses, a more complete, and sometimes difficult and disappointing, picture emerges. It is a thoughtful and lovely book, which deserves to be read slowly. Powers writes: "There is a point where we must let the feel of water on bare feet replace books and spiritual practices. They can be very helpful as guides, as structures, as inspiration, but can also, if we hold on to them too tightly, obstruct the most important thing: an unmediated facing of the world as it is, which is to say, as we shape it." (198-199) With lucid grace, Powers leads the reader toward putting down the book, and facing the world with renewed vision.