A Profile: Barbara Harmony By Sarah Edwards Pine Mountain Institute Newsletter  Water activist and astrologer, Barbara Harmony was working for the city of Hoboken, N.J. in 1974 when she grew tired of the urban lifestyle. "I didn't want to leave the house because I didn't want to give up my parking space," she recalls with a laugh. So she decided to pack what belongings could fit into her Volkswagen convertible and drove southwest, searching for a simpler way of life. En route to nowhere specific, she was invited to the wedding of a friend in Northwest Arkansas and decided to stay. She and her former husband remodeled a small home north of Eureka Springs in 1978 where they raised their son. A gentle, soft-spoken woman with a generous laugh, Barbara still lives with her cat Alice and her rooster Koko-da in that same little house in the woods where she has lived for the past 26 years.  She refers to her lifestyle as Purposeful Simplicity. “I heat the house with a woodstove and have a compost toilet,” she explains. “I collect water from my roof into a cistern, that I am currently decorating with broken pieces of pottery and tile. I enjoy my garden and eat locally grown food.” As a result of her simple lifestyle Barbara is able to do the work she loves without financial concerns. She does astrological readings and teaches Reevaluation Counseling, a method of peer counseling.  She teaches an online class about healing springs for Eureka Spring Online Learning, www.eurekaol.com, and is a cofounder and coordinator for the National Water Center that has published two books, the environmental classic, We All Live Downstream, and Aquaterra: Metaecology and Culture. She also actively spearheads water preservation efforts such as One Clean Spring to reconstitute one of the Eureka Springs 66 freshwater springs.           Barbara describes her life's purpose as encouraging people to live in an aware manner in the midst of a non-thinking, consumer society. "Some people say they see a different possibility for life when they come to visit," she says. You can read more about her work and her life at www.ipa.net/~peace.   While not all choices to live more naturally are as dramatic or as simple as Barbara’s, her life illustrates the breadth of what’s possible when we decide we want to follow our inner nature. If she can live her dream, think how feasible our own dreams can be.