Welcome to the Commune podcast. This is Jeff Krasno. Have you ever fantasized about living off the grid?

Growing your own food and cooking all your meals. Consuming fewer resources and generating minimal waste.

Or just living simply so there's more time for

what makes life worthwhile. Maybe this daydream drifts into your consciousness while you crawl

down the highway with your oat milk cappuccino in the cup holder, only to vanish in a haze of

self-imposed busyness. Of course, I am asking myself these

questions as much as I'm asking you. My business partner and co-founder Jake also had this whimsy,

but unlike most of us, Jake took the off-ramp. He operates a sizable chunk of commune from a yurt on our property

in the Santa Monica Mountains. And in today's episode, Jake reads his recent commusing article

that delves into the reality of his minimalism. It's simultaneously inspiring and daunting.

Feel free to drop me a line any old time at Jeff Kay at Onecommon.com or follow my general rantings on Instagram at Jeff Krasno.

Without further delay, here's Jake with From Mother Earth to Lover Earth.

Music with From Mother Earth to Lover Earth.

Jeff and I were finishing our first property visit to what is now commune to Panga when the real estate agent

said, you know, there's one more area I should show you, but it's kind of overgrown. We had

blown by the offshoot when we drove in. A decade of sagebrush narrowed the dirt road to a thin

trail, but we scratched our way uphill in spite of the July heat, and at the top, the path abruptly flattened into a lovely nook shaded by an old oak tree.

Surveying the thigh-high, dried grass, Jeff joked,

Jake, this is where you can build your yurt.

We all laughed and moved on, but like a peach pit thrown casually into the bushes, the seed was planted.

By the time the lease on my Hollywood apartment ended six months later, that seed had turned into a sapling.

A yurt spot awaited me. Evidently, it was time to build myself a yurt.

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