For most people, electricity, running water, comfortable heating, smartphones, and other everyday conveniences are such a normal part of life that it is difficult to imagine living without them.
Modern society has made comfort almost invisible: we simply expect to turn on a light, open a tap, charge a phone, or order something whenever we need it.
But one Englishwoman decided that she wanted something completely different.
Emma Orbach deliberately walked away from the usual rhythm of modern life and chose to live alone in the forest, far from the noise, pressure, and constant demands of the outside world.
Instead of a comfortable house filled with appliances, she created a simple home for herself and embraced a lifestyle that requires patience, physical work, and a close relationship with nature.
About 18 years ago, Emma built her own dugout-style home in the forest. The construction was as natural as the lifestyle she wanted to create. Mud mixed with horse manure was used as finishing material, while straw was incorporated into the walls. The result was a modest shelter surrounded by trees and open land rather than roads, neighbors, and crowded buildings.
Emma has never considered her unusual home a hardship. Quite the opposite. She says that she feels more comfortable surrounded by nature than she ever did in conventional surroundings.
Her food also comes largely from the land around her. Emma grows vegetables on a small plot near her home and keeps animals, including three goats, seven chickens, and two horses. Instead of relying on modern infrastructure, she handles many of her basic needs herself.
She cuts her own firewood and collects water from a nearby stream. There is even a simple toilet located in a clearing near the hut. Her approach to hygiene is equally unconventional: she reportedly takes a bath only about once a month.
For Emma, however, these things are not signs that something is missing from her life. They are part of the freedom she deliberately chose.
She has also greatly reduced her contact with other people. Occasionally, she travels to the neighboring town, but even these trips are less about practical necessities and more about enjoying one of life’s small pleasures: buying sweets.
Her home has been given the poetic name “The Land of Spirits,” an appropriate description for a place so far removed from ordinary daily life. When evening comes, Emma does not turn on a television or scroll through her phone. Instead, she sometimes plays the harp, filling the quiet forest with music.
She also follows the rhythm of nature when it comes to sleep. Rather than staying awake late into the night, she usually goes to bed around dusk.
Emma believes that her decision to leave conventional society behind has dramatically reduced the stress in her life. There are no workplace arguments waiting for her, no daily commute, no crowded streets, and no mortgage payments hanging over her head.
In the forest, she says, there are simply fewer things capable of provoking anxiety.
Her story raises an intriguing question: how much of what we consider “necessary” is actually necessary? For Emma, a simpler life surrounded by trees, animals, fresh air, and physical work has been enough.
While most people would find it difficult to abandon modern comforts completely, Emma Orbach has spent nearly two decades proving that another way of living is possible. Her forest home may look primitive by modern standards, but to her, it represents something many people struggle to find in the modern world: peace.
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