Welcome to the GeoPathfinder homepage!

For over 30 years we've worked to treat the Earth as a friend; someone to listen to, trust, and learn from. As both students and practitioners, the fruits of our attempts at sustainability are now available on the Web. We seek to educate and inspire without judgment or nonsense. Instead of trying to rationalize what we do, we work to make what we're doing more rational. But if you want to make the World a better place, you've got to do something about it! You don't believe that human culture lacks sustainability? Click Here  to check out some timely graphics showing how global climate change is affecting the continental U.S.!

From the subtleties of Geomancy, Feng Shui, and Geopathic Stress Research and Remediation, to the nuts and bolts of Electromagnetic pollution (electrosmog), Renewable Electrical Systems, Strawbale Building Techniques, Rainwater Harvesting, Masonry Woodstove Construction, Year-Round Garden Eating and and Low-Energy Food Preservation, our site offers books, lots of downloads, workshop literature, photos, and links related to all aspects of 21st Century Vegetarian Homesteading in the upper midwest of the U.S. We also promote lower-impact Transportation Alternatives and Ecological/Organic/Biological Farming and Gardening. It's all related!

You don't like rising sea levels, the loss of polar ice, and massive extinctions? Check out some alternatives to home building, home heating, electrical generation, and green transportation. You don't know where your food or water comes from, how to provide your own, what to eat and why, or how to keep it edible? Then read a bit about water supplies, soil preparation, producing your own food, doing it year-round, and preserving it with less environmental impact. Feeling too "fogged in" and sick to make any positive changes right now? The stress that's weighing you down may be caused by your location or your choice of electrical conveniences. You can find out more about natural energies, and their increasingly intense modern replacements, that can have major health implications.

Just choose your interest area from the list at the upper left. And scroll to the bottom for the latest MREF (Midwest Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Fair) workshop handouts/supplements.

For Easy Access:

The underlined words you see throughout our website are links to external sites and internal documents. If you need a copy of Adobe Reader to open the many PDF (.pdf, Portable Document Format) files that we link to, just Click Here for a free download.

Latest news: June 15, 2008: "Soon" we'll be adding a page called Textiles & Fibers (If Larisa ever finds the time to get it together) that will discuss our work with sheep, wool, combing/carding, spinning, weaving, and crochet. It will include photos and downloadable videos of "Tunisian Crochet in the Round", a newly-invented technique first revealed to the world at the CGA (Crochet Guild of America) conference held in Chicago in 1997. And a new page called Eat Local Year-Round has been added. It's a "how-to" page showing the ways we "garden" in a very wide sense, and ways that we prepare our meals using low-energy techniques. Also, when I get around to getting the typing done (I'm not much of a typist by any means), the other topics mentioned on the Living Soil Dynamics page will become available as a download.

Attention Bloggers! After reading some of the odd comments about various pages of our site, it's clear that too many people are just reading about things online and not actually doing anything. We frankly don't care what's said about our site, positive or negative. Just like us, it is what it is, and we're proud of what we do without necessarily being proud of ourselves. That's pretty much what we ask of others. We're here to inspire, not lead you by the hand. The text and photos included may not reveal every detail, but if you need more information you can contact us. This site is about living more lightly, not social networking. But the more that we hear from people who are trying and succeeding at this stuff, the more we are encouraged to try new things ourselves!

About Us:

In brief, you should know the following: We are Larisa Walk and Robert A. (Bob) Dahse . We live in the rolling hills and temperate, humid climate of southeastern Minnesota in the U.S.'s "upper midwest". We work for wages as little as possible, preferring to work for our subsistence instead of a bloated federal "budget". We have been living with off-grid, solar electricity (and sometimes with wind electricity) for over 25 years, using rainwater collection for all of our water needs. We compost all of our kitchen and bodily "wastes", along with those of our two pet sheep. We grow most of our food and use organic methods learned from childhood (along with plenty of reading along the way) and honed through over 5 years of soil consultation and testing that we provided nationally through our former business, "Underfoot Soil Consulting Service". Our home is owner-built using strawbale construction and it's heated by both direct passive solar techniques and by using a masonry woodstove of our own design (burning about a "cord", 128 cu.ft., of fallen "soft maple" per year). Although we live in frigid Minnesota, we grow lettuces and other greens in our solar-heated greenhouse year-round. We steam-can, steam-juice, root cellar, or solar-dry all of our stored produce. Much of our Spring/Summer/Fall cooking is done using a parabolic solar oven. We have been vegans/vegetarians for over 30 years (each). Our diet is whole-food, chemical-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, casein-free, and primarily home-grown, wild, or shipped-in Certified Organic (as a last resort). And our transportation, when we need it, is primarily by recycled 2001 Toyota Prius, obtained from a scrapyard in 2002, and our recumbent Catrike, "tadpole-style" tricycles, now converted to human/electric hybrid vehicles.

You'll note, as you read the various subjects we cover, that many of our efforts involve "hybrid synergy" (except our seed supply; we save open-pollinated varieties for planting). Our car and bikes are gasoline/electric and human/electric hybrids. Our woodstove is a masonry/steel hybrid that heats our hot water and includes a passive, air-to-air heat exchanger. Our house is a hybrid of strawbale infill, "stick-frame", and mechanically connected post-and-beam. Our sauna is also used as a "summer kitchen" and as a foul-weather food dehydrator. Our photovoltaic solar electric system doubles as a supplier of hot water for 3/4 of the year. You get the idea. We like things that do multiple tasks or use various inputs.

Having read all of the above I'll assume that you think we are purists, tree-huggers, and neo-Luddites. That's far from accurate. Our lifestyle could best be described as 21st Century neo-Amish, but without all the kids, the meat, or the religious overtones. We aren't creating or raising children, and we consider this choice to be the basis of an of an ecological life. There are too many humans on the planet as-is, with plenty more on the way! And since we don't like senseless suffering or death, we've been successful and healthy Vegans for many years. The few things we buy we view as tools, to be used for accomplishing specific tasks, and we don't skimp on tools. We typically don't follow directions or dogmas. We've read, and continue to read a lot, and make decisions based on sorting out as much information as we can handle, balancing the rational results with well-honed intuition. We encourage others to do the same. Our choice of lifestyle is political, in that we don't wish to support the Earth-killing decisions made by those in power in Washington D.C. and more locally. If the only legal way to do that is by living close to the land in a low-impact, low-income, atypically self-sufficient mode, then so be it.

And in case you think we're too serious, we both play the accordion! The only thing serious about it is the volume. For two former childhood organists, playing the right hand sideways, hugging it to produce sound, and using 120 buttons for chords, all without being able to see what you're doing, is a real re-learning experience!

What we do and why:

Since our primary focus is on living a healthy, sane, balanced, and productive life, we prioritize our concerns based on what we think the overall impact of each area might be.

Health Priorities: what we think folks should work on in order of importance

Our primary business focus is a combination of geopathic energy research and remediation and electropollution investigation, the final two on this list. If you read the book,"Survival of the Sickest" by Dr. Sharon Moelem, you'll get a good idea of how chronic or severe stress can turn off your body's DNA proofreading mechanisms, cause DNA mutations to skyrocket, and alter both your body's expression of many genes, and their expression in your progeny. It's scary stuff, and we focus on geopathics and electromagnetics for a number of reasons. First, because of the results we've seen from working with them, even if the client doesn't believe in this stuff. Second, because the others are well known and can be dealt with by the average label-reading human. Third, because their effects are cumulative, sneaking up on you like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot of water. And fourth, because their causes require some expertise, instrumentation, or special abilities to track down.

I (Bob) find pathways and formations of geopathic energy. Hence the website named GeoPathfinder. After over 20 years of experience in finding water, lost/buried objects, etc. I started to use my dowsing experience to help people who suspected that their houses were trying to harm them. This led to 6 years of on-going field research, and Earth Energy deflection and dissipation provided to over 115 homes and businesses. It also led to the writing of the book "Planetary Patterns", now in its second edition. And working with solar/wind electricity installations since the early 90's has provided many useful insights into the options available for reducing exposure to electromagnetic fields. So when we work at geopathic stress abatement, we also locate any stressful areas related to EMF pollution, or "electrosmog", ranging from excessive electric/magnetic field exposures, to "dirty electricity" (harmonics and transients on the AC lines), to RFR (radio frequency radiation exposure from any wireless sources).

Our Products & Services - What we sell and do.

The following three books are self-published and are available individually or, if you contact us, we offer quantity discounts and include only the actual shipping costs on both quantity and book set orders (if you want one of each).

Planetary Patterns - A Dowser's Survey of Earth Energies

Partly as a service to my energy remediation clients, and partly as a reminder to myself (my memory has never been the greatest, except for numbers), after a few years of field research using dowsing and divination, I found it necessary to publish a book specifically on Earth Energies. The reference to patterns in the title comes from the inspiration I got in reading Guy Underwood's book, "Pattern of the Past". Guy dealt mainly with the unique patterns he was finding while dowsing archaeological sites in England. Now in its second edition, Planetary Patterns covers the usual stuff found online or in other books on the subject, plus corrections on that data and loads of additional information. It also includes extensive and exclusive descriptions of many other Earth Energy patterns that are either new or, perhaps, lost and rediscovered. There is a chapter dealing with what I call the Spherical Field surrounding all physical objects. This field is used as a theoretical foundation for finding what sort of effect a particular energy pattern has on humans. All of the formations and pathways are shown in full-page, 2-D or 3-D illustrations to help you visualize this hard-to-imagine stuff. And if you need updates for anything I've found since publications, just check the Earth Energies page at the left. Whatever's not in the book is there and vice versa.

To see an Adobe .pdf file (requires Adobe Reader, available above) of the table of contents, Click Here.

From the back cover of Planetary Patterns: It's about energy, Earth Energy. It's not man-made, and there are dozens of types, covering the entire planet. They flow upward, downward, or across the Earth's surface, but you can't see them. Some are entirely favorable to living things, or geobeneficent. Others are quite stressful, or geopathic, adding to all the other environmental and emotional strains we're subjected to. Spend a lot of time in geopathic zones and you'll probably get sick. But if you can avoid these spots, or find someone who knows how to dissipate or deflect the harmful energies, you'll soon feel better and get better. Wild animals and a few peculiar people, such as myself, can do something you've probably lost the knack for: geomancy, or using specialized senses to discern between helpful and harmful Earth Energies. Proper training and persistence can help you regain your dormant abilities. But in the meantime, isn't it nice to know that somebody else went through the trouble to catalog the unique patterns, or signatures, of all these formations? That's what you're now holding. And if you don't believe in any of this, that's quite O.K. I didn't either, until I learned how to find, figure out, and fix these things. Either way, the Earth will continue to exhibit these patterned energy fields. So if you're willing to learn more, please read onward and prepare to have your beliefs challenged!             128 pages, with extensive illustration.

Purchasing Information on Planetary Patterns:

Physical Copies of the Second Edition of Planetary Patterns (above) cost $17.50 each, postpaid in the U.S. (please add $.98 for sales tax if you're in Minnesota), or $15.00 plus shipping elsewhere in the world. Please send personal check, traveler's check or postal money order to: 

Geopathfinder/Bob Dahse/Larisa Walk                                                                                                                                              30319 Wiscoy Ridge Road, Winona, Minnesota, USA  55987.

OR: To order a physical copy of the above book using PayPal, Click Here. You'll see a new page with a "Buy Now" button. Clicking this takes you (very slowly!) to PayPal's order form.

OR: To order a downloadable Adobe .pdf file of the above book for about half price ($8.75), Click Here (requires Adobe Reader). You'll see a new page with a "Buy Now" button. Clicking this takes you (very slowly!) to PayPal's order form. This download is an 8.33 MB file, so on some slower connections it may take a while.

To verify that we're PayPal verified, just click here. We are PayPal "Verified" sellers, but using this web software I can't import the "Verified" seal directly.

AND: To get the FREE download of the MOST UP-TO DATE VERSIONS of the last 3 pages in Planetary Patterns,               Click Here for "The Effects on the Human Spherical Field",                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Click Here for the "Geopathic Checklist",                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                and Click Here for the "Geobeneficial Checklist".

More Books!

Copies of the following two books are $12.00 each, postpaid in the U.S. (please add $.65 for sales tax if you're in Minnesota), or $10.00 plus postage elsewhere in the world. Just use the address listed above.

A Pantry Full of Sunshine was written by Larisa in response to all of the interest she got in her "Energy-Saving Food Preservation Methods" workshops at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. She found that an hour or so just wasn't enough time to cover everything she wanted to explain plus cover all of the questions from the often large audiences. Supplies of the current physical edition are running a bit low right now, but we're not out, and we'll soon be doing a reprint. A number of recent publications have run articles on solar food dehydration. They have mostly involved "new" designs that aren't really new, and which either don't work very well or actually degrade the food through sun-bleaching or screen contamination. Our design can be configured to work almost anywhere, using a variety of local materials, and it's physics-friendly design will always work, no electrical "crutches" required!

From the back cover of A Pantry Full of Sunshine: A practical and political approach to energy efficient food preservation methods - included are design guidelines for the Walk Solar Food Dryer (a dehydrator that ACTUALLY WORKS in the humid upper Midwest of the U.S.). Features down-home advice on using the solar-powered dryer, steam canners, and steam juicers. An alphabetical food listing provides a ready reference when dealing with your garden's bounty. Some of the author's favorite (or most unusual) recipes highlight the text.  62 pages, with photos & illustrations.   

To order a physical copy of the above book using PayPal, Click Here. You'll see a new page with a "Buy Now" button. Clicking this takes you (very slowly!) to PayPal's order form.

To order a downloadable Adobe .pdf file of the above book for about half price ($6.00), Click Here (requires Adobe Reader).  You'll see a new page with a "Buy Now" button. Clicking this takes you (very slowly!) to PayPal's order form.

If you need some stainless steel dryer screen, we've been ordering it for dryer workshops in our area, where a group of 10 folks get together to build their own solar dryer. It comes in 4-foot wide, 100-foot long rolls and we're selling it nearly at our cost (plus shipping, of course). If you're interested in a piece off the roll, just contact us at GeoPathfinder@yahoo.com and we can get back to you on the current price and shipping details.

People's Power Primer was Bob's attempt to demystify the process of understanding, intelligently buying, sizing, and maintaining an off-grid electrical power system. Even though it was published in 1999, it contains nothing about preparing for Y2K! When Bob does workshops on basic electricity, this book is used as a follow-up for those wanting to take more personal responsibility for the effects of their power generation. Feedback from educators indicates that it's a great book for introducing the subject to kids. But personal feedback from workshops indicates that even older folks who were too proud to admit it enjoy the ignition of that light bulb of understanding!

From the back cover of People's Power Primer: This is the dawn of a new age in electrical power production. Increasingly, homeowners are producing their own power using devices that capture free, clean, safe, and inexhaustible energy. While the utility companies are just catching on and gearing up, you could be getting wise and "growing you own." But shopping for this stuff, using it wisely, and keeping it running smoothly are a challenge if you can't converse in "tech-speak." Don't let those geeky buzz-words get you down! We'll have you discoursing with dealers directly, happily harvesting heaps of energy, and managing maintenance matters momentarily. With ample visual and verbal cues, and while sidestepping the superfluous, this info-packed booklet will put you in the driver's seat on the Twenty-first Century road to renewables!

To order a hard copy of the above book using PayPal, Click Here. You'll see a new page with a "Buy Now" button. Clicking this takes you (very slowly!) to PayPal's order form. Sorry, but this book isn't available as a download. The original files were such a mucked-up mess of different formats that a conversion to .pdf isn't feasible.

Geopathic and Electropathic Services:

We offer a number of services for far-flung sufferers of geopathic stress, since our hands-on involvement in an intentional lifestyle precludes much travel. The lowest cost option is available free via e-mail.

1). Contact us at GeoPathfinder@yahoo.com (or at our online voicemail number: 651-780-7902) and include your name and the exact address or location of your site (home, workplace, whatever). At our earliest convenience (I get to an internet terminal nearly every day) we'll return a list of the quantity and character of the Earth Energies passing through your structure. I do this through a process called remote dowsing, or divination, where I grab a dowsing rod and ask questions. Who or what it is that answers these questions is, and may remain, a mystery. Some have told me that I'm using the dowsing rod as a link between my conscious mind and my "higher self". Others have said that they see fairies communicating with me! Whatever. All I know is that when I check out a place later "onsite", the results are almost always identical. Using this information, I can tell if simply moving your bed is an option or if you'll need some other sort of intervention. To get beyond negative energy avoidance, you'll need the next option.

2). If you'd like a lot more detail, we offer "map dowsing". Send a scale drawing or blueprint (or whatever you can muster) of your building to our mailing address: Bob Dahse/Larisa Walk, 30319 Wiscoy Ridge Road, Winona, Minnesota USA 55987. Please include $50 in U.S. funds (money order, check, or travelers cheque) along with your name and the exact location or address of the site. We'll color-code all of the Earth Energy pathways or formations within the confines of the drawing. Keep in mind that a larger scale drawing yields more accurate results. This option really helps if you're trying to visualize the energy formations and pathways in your area. It makes anything from bed locating to full-scale energy diversion/dissipation a lot easier.

3). If remote dowsing reveals energy pathways that aren't conducive to furniture moving alone, we can still help at a distance. The purchase of "Planetary Patterns" gives you instructions on preparation and placement of energy-warping metal rods. We can set up a time via e-mail to do a live energy remediation session by phone. There's an hourly charge of $50/hour, but if you're well prepared, can follow verbal instruction, don't get too chatty, and the phone connection is good, the work itself takes about an hour or less.

4). And if nothing less than our personal on-site attention will do, contact our e-mail address at GeoPathfinder@yahoo.com, or our online voicemail number: 651-780-7902 and we'll see what we can work out. If we need to travel to your site, we charge $20/hour for time spent coming and returning home. For actual time spent doing dowsing, divination, and remedial work we charge $100/hour. While this may seem costly, I'm very efficient, experienced, and quite fast at what I do. In addition to working with geopathic energies, when we work onsite we include a multi-instrument scan of any excessive electrical, magnetic, or RF fields in sensitive areas of your home, including a check for transient/harmonic powerline frequencies. The EMF work is done at a rate of $25/hour. We can offer suggestions for placement (or replacement) of electrical appliances, shielding options, electrical filters, etc. For more information, try the Earth Energies or EMF Hazards pages on our site.

If you'd like more information about our books, the courses we teach at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association's annual Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Fair, or any of the other topics mentioned above, check the categories on the upper left (and please stay tuned for more extensive website development), or contact our e-mail address: . And if you'd like to see many websites that cover similar topics to those you see here, Click Here to link to BuildItSolar.com.

Latest updates: Fall 2007

The 2007 Energy Fair is now over and "Catch the Wave - Forces, Fields, and Frequencies" seemed to catch people's attention, especially on Saturday, with a packed house. Friday's session was extremely hot and humid, and being the first run at this workshop, I felt terribly disjointed. There was seemingly so much to cover in just 50 minutes and I didn't feel like I was focused or linear enough to reallly get to the point. Saturday was the complete reverse. It's amazing what 20 degrees less heat and a day's reflection can do. So for those who were there on Saturday but didn't get a handout, just Click Here for a 278 kB download (requires Adobe Reader). And if you were disappointed on Friday, the last three pages of this downloaded version are new, added to really summarize and put the topic in perspective.

Latest updates: June 2008

At this year's Midwest Renewable Energy Fair Larisa did 3 sustainable food workshops (Eating Year-Round from the Garden, Solar Dehydration/Steam Canning/Steam Juicing, and Root Cellaring).  I was displaying and demonstrating the "Lithium Lounger", solar self-fueling, electric/human hybrid trike at the Clean Energy "Car" Show. Larisa's workshops were packed, as usual. And my position right near the entrance gate ensured a continuous stream of interested onlookers and a barrage of questions. Of course the high-speed, hard-turning, gravel-ripping, 3-wheeled power slides I did to demonstrate the torque and acceleration of the trike's hub motor didn't hurt either! The only downside was that I never had a free moment to go to one of the many workshops or visit any exhibits. More details on the Transportation Options Page.

Our one and only off-topic ad:

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