Our friend and colleague Simran Sethi is embarking on a project to green an 84-year-old house in Kanasas. We’ve seen the advance snapshots and it is, as she describes on her first post over at Oprah.com, a gem of a home. What’s wonderful– and yes, we’re completely biased — what’s wonderful is the way Simran kicks off the series by touching on human experience: of the two prior owners the first was born in the house; a friend whispers into Simran’s her ear telling her she must live here too, Simran herself flat out lies to her audience in suggesting that she allows herself any leisure time whatsoever. But seriously, we humans are complex.  The need to green stems from the very existence of human beings and from who we are.  Were we homo sapiens not so skilled at crowding to extinction on the Rock of Gibraltar our cousin Neanderthals, were we not so clever in bending to our will the resources found in our environment, had we not entirely conquered with our attachment to the material the global environment  as a whole, then the notion of green would remain free to be but a color experienced perhaps without language at all. However, human history is a mixed bag of collapsed civilizations and closers who refuse to quit. And it is those latter, true winners by means of gentle strength, who turn inside. Simran begins by letting us inside of who she is just before we will enter her home. She is frank and honest in understanding what it is that she has yet to learn and has yet to experience. And it is in the seeds of that courage to share publicly one’s truth with a small “t” that the integration of our external and internal worlds can begin to occur. Say she:

I am not going to hold back. You are going to bear witness to my messy, humbling process of making my home more energy-efficient, less polluting and more beautiful.