This “Lifehouse” flier articulates the mission of Ecology Action:  to take Action, with a capital A, by helping folks conduct their daily activities in a spirit of sustainability. The flier suggests that we must all become involved with our neighbors now in order to shape the society that we want. The lifehouse, in this scheme, will serve as that place where action may occur.

In fact, 3029 Benvenue Avenue, Ecology Action’s headquarters and home, might be considered the real-life “lifehouse” standing behind this theoretical one. The New York Times’ Steven Roberts, in his long profile of Ecology Action, writes about the functions of their home in a very similar manner. There, he discusses how the Humphreys’ home contained such things as a mimeograph and a stack of papers to be reused; here, we hear about the life-house being a place of storage, creation, and dissemination of reference materials, petitions, and announcements of other planned actions. Ecology Action, we might say, not only shared this vision of community action with the public but also lived it as well.

On the reverse side of the flyer, keeping in line with their belief systems of being in balance with the earth, there are some complimentary recipes for organic non-rising quick bread and raised honey-whole wheat bread. The instructions give sound advice: If bread is too brown at the end of twenty-five minutes then cover with a brown paper bag. This is advice from folks who are in the know.
The flier’s valediction reads “Yours for organic, nonelastic joyful eating” — a way to suggest the action needed to change the collective mind of the community.
And beneath that valediction there is something surprising: a note that the authors of this flier are not just the “Ecology Action Educational Institute” (to be contacted for more information on organic gardening, recycling, and the like) but also “The Moving Company”—a troupe that might be contacted for “plays and workshops.” Ecology Action brought together the practices of the environmental movement with a theatrical flair that was demonstrated in actions like the burial of a V-8 engine on Smog-Free Locomotion Day and the destroying of the Humphreys’ family car during an ecology fair.
This document is a double-sided representation of what Ecology Action was.