For seven years, Diana Lorence and her husband lived in an unelectrified, twelve-by-twelve-foot house they built themselves, hidden away in the woods without power of any kind, in a world lit only by fire. Most of us assume that electricity is an unmixed good, expanding our humanity in every direction. But what can we learn for our everyday lives from an example of living with no electricity at all? Are there ways we may all know a little of the joy of powerlessness?