Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

My wish for everyone about to read this book is that they might keep their expectations and preconceptions to a minimum. Some reviewers here seem to have come to this book in anticipation of a detailed instruction manual on how to live off the grid. I would argue that this book is much more valuable and accessible precisely because it does not deal with details but rather with the spirit of honest reflection that is at the true heart of personal development. I can appreciate that the book is perhaps easily mistaken for one of many recent ecological/sustainability offerings, since much of the book concerns living with a smaller carbon footprint sans electricity, heating, etc. However, that is all the price of admission into deeper contemplations. This book is a conservationist work in the sense that Gandhi's work is inherently conservationist, or why intelligent business practice is inherently conservationist--it looks to the roots of why we even need conservationists in the first place; what is it that leads people to think in such short-sighted terms as to knowingly guarantee their own extinction by plundering their resources in exchange for a way of life that doesn't lead to happiness anyway? The answer to that is fundamentally connected to the reasons why we pursue other futile solutions to problems, and is even connected to the fact that we as humans believe that there are such things as problems in the first place.

The author initially has many questions about how to go about saving the world, how to be more green, how to take a hot shower without heat. Dr. Jackie Benton, the author's mentor and owner of the 12x12, is for the most part quiet when it comes to answering him. Questions are universal, but answers are limiting and inhibiting. The intriguing thing about this book is that it won't make a lot of sense to many Americans because it is speaking precisely to that American condition of consumerist apathy. It may very well be like lucidly talking about mania to a manic individual, or about quitting drugs to someone who is already strung out. What helps is the author's own honesty. I disagree with other reviewers who say the author is preachy. He asks his own questions, and I must say he shows a high degree of integrity and clarity in doing so. He clearly wishes his readers to reflect for themselves; otherwise he might have just written simple instructions on how to live life the way he sees fit without all the probing discussion.

This is now my favorite book. I think it's a work to be celebrated and commended. Its subtlety is utterly satisfying and the writing is excellent but accessible and understated. This book moves beyond the anxiety we all have been feeling with regards to how our western lifestyles directly impact the lives of the rest of the planet's people, because anxiety and guilt are not going to help anybody. Anxiety and guilt are egocentric in the sense that you are focused on your own faults and mistakes; habitually thinking about oneself is vanity in its broadest sense; if you're thinking of yourself, you can't be thinking about helping others. Guilt is a trick the mind plays on the self in order to prolong inaction. Twelve By Twelve is a fine compass to hold in one's hand as we each attempt to cross the border into a more authenticate and fulfilled existence.

I have mixed emotions about this book. I did read it from cover to cover, and the book honestly DID make me think. But for the most part, I disagreed with most of the author's viewpoints.

I am a liberal person in general, although not to an extreme level. This book has one of the most extreme liberal viewpoints I have encountered. Should we do away with nuclear weapons completely? Sure why not, who cares about all the other countries who are developing weapons and could use them against us. Should the top 20% of the world's wealthies people give to the bottom 20%? I actually do agree with that to some degree, but this book makes it seem like if you are well-to-do and enjoy any material possessions, well, you are responsible for the lousy state of the world. Sure, everyone should live off the grid - no power and running water is apparently the key to happiness. Oh but in some parts of the book it is horrible that some cities don't have electricity and running water because of the extreme issues that it causes (health, etc). Ridiculous. Oh, and the book reminds us of how horrible it is that migrant workers (a.k.a. illegal aliens) are exploited by the country to work in horrible chicken processing plants. And by the way, the countries that some illegals come from are apparently fantastic and leave everyone smiling ... now why are they in the United States again? I missed that.

Did I not "get" this book? I understood the point of the book, but I just did not feel it was balanced whatsoever. I'm anti-war, anti-pollution, and all for equal opportunities. But perhaps I'm just too "American".

So why not one star? I'll tell you why I'm giving it two - respect for the author walking the walk. I always like the use the cliche "It's a free country - if you don't like it, leave." The author did just that, and for the right reasons. While I think he is off his rocker, who knows, he is probably happier and more content that most Americans, so who am I to say he is "wrong"! Oh, but I'm writing my review, so just like the author, I'm entitled to my opinion ... yes, I think that despite intent, his overall premise is deeply flawed.

I had expected this to be a nuts-and-bolts examination of living a "light" life, and was happily surprised to find that it's more of a philosophical rumination on the values or the lack of true value in what most people think of in the average US consumer's life.

Temporarily inhabiting a 12x12 shack, an ultra-small home, the author finds his point of view and expectations changing. The home belongs to an absent doctor, off doing peace-nurturing work. He finds constant inspiration in her chosen path of minimal living and introduces us to a series of people who are similarly trying to find a lighter, less ravenous path living in the US. I hesitate to use the words "America" or "American" since the Americas include everyone and everything from the Inuit territory down to Tierra del Fuego.

While the books bogs down a bit in the author's near-constant reflection on everything he encounters (God bless him), the story overall is quite compelling and his observations are clearly drawn. Can someone manage to find a way to slip between the cracks in US consumer culture and carve out a niche for themselves outside of the "McWorld"? Without electricity? Running water? Indoor plumbing?

The book is inspirational and gives you a lot of food for thought. There is obviously something wrong with the insanely consumer-oriented US lifestyle. It takes time and energy and repays us not so much. But how to create a new way of living that will not destroy the earth or enslave others to allow us to waste resources and consume junk?

Definitely worth reading. I haven't read a book like this one since Ernest Callenbach's "Living Poor with Style" decades ago. More and more and more is not necessarily better.

Having grown up during the 1930's on a farm that had no electricity and no running water I have experienced the life that Bill Powers lived in that 12 x 12 cabin. Our house was probably 700 sq ft and we had 10 people living in that house. We lived off the land, growing vegetables to eat, and killed hogs and calves, and chickens for meat. I milked cows every morning before I went to school and at night too. We gathered eggs to eat when the chicken would lay them. It was a simple life but a hard life. We all worked in the fields in the summers. We never had a vacation. When we moved on the farm in 1936 my father didn't have a car. We moved to the farm from another farm in a wagon with mules. I was four years old.
There are pros and cons about this kind of life. It is a simple life to live off the land, but it is a hard life that I don't to repeat. I am 78 years old and I think back to those days, and would take electricity and running water any time! But there has to be a way we can have some of both lives. I don't want the Tyson Chicken farms. I buy my eggs from a local farmer and my vegetables and berries and fruits when I can get them, from local farmers. I buy meat from a small town meat market who buys grass fed meat...local ranchers..and I see the cattle on the farms around here grazing in the fields and it makes me feel good. I buy milk from a local dairy that does not add hormones to the mild. I pay more for it, but I love the taste and I know it is pure.
There is way to live a simple life. You just have to make up your mind how to do it!
I liked the book and I liked how Bill Powers intertwines his personal life into the narrative of writing about global warming, permaculture and the environment.
Lois Zook Wauson

I bought this book on impulse just because the title and the idea it espoused intrigued me. I have been trying hard to simplify my daily life, and in the back of my mind I've always been fascinated by the idea of living off the grid in a peaceful meadow. I mean, who hasn't? I was hoping this book would be about the practical aspects of doing exactly that.

This book is short on actual off-grid living techniques (buy a solar shower - got it) and long on new-age, eco-spiritual diatribe. The worshipful observation of spider webs and asparagus is obviously something that the author enjoys indulging in, and its hard to find fault in him for enjoying such simple pleasures. He writes well enough that at times I kind of wished I could have been there with him.

Where things veer off into irrelevance are the lengthy, preachy homilies on what essentially amounts to the politics of human activity on ecology, some of which is highly subjective and contradictory.

He laments the destruction of the rainforest while flying over it in a helicopter; in fairness he loathes himself for doing so. He admirably advocates non-cooperation with the state when it suits his worldview, but then turns and rejoices in `mandatory' state edicts that force children to take classes on the evils of corporate advertising. (I guess he's ok with using the guns of government, as long as they are pointed at people who don't think like he does). He laments logging and vilifies carbon and 'greenhouse gasses' but ignores the fact that his idyllic forest homestead should - very naturally - be reduced to a smouldering heap of carbon while filling the air with millions of tons of CO2 somewhere around every 50 years due to naturally occurring forest fires.

In a pinnacle moment, he shares a belly laugh with a Gambian tribesman about the absurd American obsession with progress and development but neglects to mention that the current life expectancy of Gambians is a meager 55 years while in the US its 78 years, entirely due to innovation and development. I guess its hard to see the value of 20+ years of human life by looking through the window of a 12x12 shack.

I fully understand that any author has to take a certain perspective on things and that its impossible to be entirely objective about any given topic. But when subjectivity is ladled out so thick that it drips with myopic lopsidedness it usually detracts from my reading experience.

As the book carries on, it becomes less and less about living off the grid and increasingly more about the `awfulness' of the current human experience. There are tedious sections about the evils of North Carolina racism reinforced with anecdotes gleaned from the author's extensive observations of grocery store parking lots. Somehow, no matter what the problem is, the author always boils it down to the current corporate-driven human disconnection from the earth. Its a one-course meal served in a series of fragrant 12x12 helpings, drenched in a subtle sauce of guilt, anxiety and thinly veiled self-righteousness. For desert you get a plate of questionable optimism; it can all work out ... provided we all start to think alike and run our behavior through an author approved eco-filter.

If you blindly embrace all of the unstated assumptions that form the foundation of the philosophy of this book, you'll probably find it delightful; just assume the planet is on its last legs, primitive tribalism is better than what you experience every day, and that your primary hobby should be admiring the leaf structure of home-grown broccoli. Just don't question the assumptions this book makes about the nature of reality and perhaps you'll be able to uncover a nugget or two about living off the grid.

Fortunately, I checked Twelve by Twelve out of the library and didn't waste any money on it. Before I return it (unfinished, I got through about 100 pages before my eyes were rolling so often that I worried that they would freeze that way), I may include a warning on a post-it: "Dear future lender, please consider leaving this book on the shelf and asking the librarian for recommendations by non-egomaniacs." I am a liberal and an environmentalist who loves to read about self-sufficiency and sustainability, but Powers is unbelievable. He doesn't "think local and act global" at all. He thinks self and acts selfishly. If I had a dime for every time he bragged about his accomplishments, I could save the rain forests.

I wanted to put this book down after chapter 2. I found him a typical hypocrite that wants to save the world from all the US demons but he's going to use EVERY US resource he can to bring these other countries peoples up to US levels. Hey, did you every think... maybe they don't WANT to be up to US levels???

I agreed with other reviewers in questioning: Who was paying for all is hopping around?

But i kept reading. Powers would throw me a bone that he was actually going to change and realize as Gandhi: He need to become the change he wanted to see in the world. But he never did. He was a stereo-typical "save the world Liberal" "You should live like this, But OHHHHHHH I don't need to live like this because I'm going to Ivory tower and pontificate to the masses my self-righteousness. Or "We need to help these people, oh but move them into MY neighborhood."

And then to find out he has a child that he abandoned. That was it for me. He talks about how he did an opt-ed piece for the college newspaper after his first attack when he was in college. And how people should sign up for Big Brother programs and help these confused teenagers who look to gangs to be the family they don't have at home. And then to find out he has a daughter he left in Bolivia???? This guy is freakin' piece of work!!! I don't know how he can walk with those things.

Past that. He just rambles on and on and on in detail about the most mundane things. I mean it's REALLY boring to read throughout the book. And the whole time I got the heebie-jeebies reading it feeling like I was being talked down to. I was waiting for him to find himself and realize. "Wholly-crap. If I want to change the world what more perfect way then to go back to Bolivia and build a 12x12 for my daughter and myself and the woman I could stand long enough to have sex with but not spend the rest of my life with."
(Okay, I won't go that far. Things happen between adults and so maybe they aren't meant for each other)

But he still could go down to that town and live there to help raise his daughter and then he wants to help these people. Then show them how to farm, open a small school to help them read and write in both Spanish AND English. Teach them sustainable farming. Be the leader and person you are asking the rest of us to be. Don't depend on mommy and daddy and stand on your own two feet and take SOME SORT of responsibility for the oxygen your taking up on this planet.

But he goes off about the Klan, civil rights, the Nazis...

William, you can't save the world. But you CAN go down and be a part of your daughters life and maybe make that village a little better place to be for those people. You've read the books on permaculture and learned to grow corn in a dry area. You've got ALL this knowledge the US has afforded you and those people in Bolivia have NONE of that. Take it too them and teach them feed themselves. You do that and fewer college grads trying to "Find themselves" and "save the world" won't have to get on those gas hording airplanes to fly down on Mommy and Daddy's dime to save these people.

But what does he do instead? Moves to New York City the heart of what is wrong with America today and talks about what people should do in order to change the world. :-( Very disappointing.

Mother Teresa and Gandhi never wrote about what they were GOING to do or how the world SHOULD be, they just went and DID it. Just like Dr. Jackie chose to be and do. Notice how she doesn't want a lot of publicity about herself and the life she choose. But William Powers does. He wants EVERYONE to notice him and show off how well read he is and that he has a VERY large lexicon. There are some words he throws in there that I SWEAR he has a "Word of the day" calendar and is one of those people that just HAS to figure out a way to these words into a sentence.

I was VERY disappointed with this book :-(