I didn't set out to build a village.
I simply found myself asking questions that wouldn't go away. Why do we treat awe and mystery as things to be outgrown, rather than the very fuel of a life worth living? Why do we build houses for privacy but rarely for belonging? Why is it normal to face birth, death, fasting, grief and celebration almost entirely alone? HOME is where those questions became a plan.
Thirty years of the same inquiry.
For more than thirty years these questions have shaped my work — as an artist, a celebrant, a writer, and a builder of communities. HOME is the latest expression of that lifelong inquiry.
It is not a finished blueprint or a utopia already built. It is an invitation to rethink what daily life could become if we placed presence before productivity, ceremony before convenience, and belonging before independence.
The same exploration, many forms.
My path here has never been conventional. I've worked as a painter, author, musician, funeral celebrant, minister and community organiser. I've led ceremonies, created artworks, run festivals, sat with families at the edges of life, and spent years bringing people together to grieve, celebrate and wake up to what's real.
At first glance these threads may look unrelated. To me, they've always been the same exploration. Whether standing at a graveside, painting a canvas, or sitting in fasting circle at dawn, I've been asking the same question: how do we help people live like they mean it?
"People need to come into this life and exit it to the sound of children playing."
— Tim Ruth, vision holderA good life needs more than shelter and routine.
It needs a place that helps us become —
Comfort matters. Security matters. But perhaps the greatest gift a community can offer is a genuine, shared sense of aliveness. In a culture built on normality, staying awake to wonder may be our greatest act of resistance.
One body of work, many expressions.
HOME is one part of a much wider body of work exploring art, ceremony, sovereignty and human flourishing — through my paintings, my book Into the Wow, the [key] project, and the Unified Kindom.
Across all of it, I keep returning to the same belief: people come alive when they feel safe enough to be honest, awake enough to wonder, and connected enough to build something together. HOME doesn't begin or end at the boundary of the land. It's woven through every ceremony, every meal, every relationship along the way.
HOME is not something I want to build alone. The philosophy that binds the team together — the alignment I'm looking for in the people who share this work — is set out in full in Building the Tribe, along with the Team page itself.
This is not something I want to build alone.
The best communities rarely belong to one person. They emerge through dialogue, trust, and a shared willingness to imagine together. To support that, I'm building a growing community on ReTribalize — a platform where anyone drawn to a more awake, more connected way of living can share ideas, ask questions, and help shape the direction of this project.
If this resonates with you, I warmly invite you to become part of the conversation. Together, we can explore what a genuinely awake way of living might look like — not only for those who join HOME, but for all of us.