Luke Larson - Listening and learning from the stories in our walls

Nestled in a multi hundred year old barn in Vermont, USA, is Luke Larson, his wife & children. Creating art with 600 year old timber is no mean feat, especially when it’s the wood which leads the way with a language that takes a lifetime to learn. As an analogy to the way we could all interact with the natural world, Luke's love affair with this way of life is absolute and pretty darned compelling when you hear him explain how he discovered it, why he continues it and what his community looks like within it.  Show Notes

Walking a mile through the woods to his grandfather's woodshop

Gratitude for his team who are as committed to ancient skills and community as he is.

Marvelling at the walls of the barns which housed people, animals and creatures of all kinds

Discovering 1870’s account ledgers - a window into a past way of existence

One of 8 children with thoughtful, open, practical parents who sowed the seeds

The onsite processing facility his parents built on their family owned, community scale dairy farm

Hand tools offer an opportunity to learn the nature of individual trees and working WITH nature

Right from the get go timber framing is about understanding how the timber will evolve over the coming 200 hundred years

Woodworking teaches him to understand his place in the ecosystem - listening

Accepting you are forever a student of the wood not the other way around

Riving - the Scandinavian process of reading the timber to build boats by listening to the song that its singing

What made him say yes to being on a television series

Keeping Vermont's built culture alive and shared

The plus’s and minus’s of having a modern day datasystem available to us. Ensuring this doesn’t replace face to face and generation to generation interactions

His intentional approach to how he lives his life as students who are intentionally pursuing a lifestyle that he is in love with.

His community encyclopedia of knowledge which becomes more available as trust is built and relationships are forged 

Raising his own barn with his community around him

Translating the lessons he learns from trees to other spheres of the natural world.

Rituals of barn raising  

Timber frames cannot be made alone - they require a team and this is part of its magic

Ritualising the teams safety - taking the mundane and bringing reverence to it.

Using the dark, quiet moments to maintain his hand tools and honour them

Marvelling at the aesthetic touches of days gone by  - why did they value these small touches when life was easily as busy as our modern day.

Gratitude for his grandfather who allowed him to lean on his workbench 

Staying intentionally small 

Balancing business with the need to give back to community

Why teaching 60 school kids in using hand tools and listening to the nature of wood has been the highlight of his career

How centring it can be to hold and listen to wood. Learn from the tree. Reference: Green Mountain timberframes - blog  Podcast partners ROCK!

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