The Lama Dome

     Today was a great day.  A big group of us went up to the Lama dome and put the second to last coat of plaster on the exterior.  The next coat will be the color coat.  It was me, Johneo, Burt, Nicole, and Della on the trowls.  Gunner and Iron Cram kept the plaster coming.  We had Ricci, Dylan, Ron from Israel, and Dennis serving it up.  The trowel-ed ones scaled the dome using the foot holds that were built into the structure.  We were given buckets of plaster which we then dumped onto the dome and smoothed out.  It was a little sketch-a-fari.  I'm glad my Mom wasn't there.  In five hours we coated the whole thing.  If you haven't seen the dome or know it's history, this was a major accomplishment.  The dome is five years in the making at this point.  

   Next to the dome is Lama Christie's little adobe house.  It is, to me, by far the most attractive little house on the land.  It's real old Tucson.  If you haven't come up to work at DMU, come to see this little cabin and work there if you can.  I go to all these sites to work and forget the miracle that they are.  Some of them are really hard to get to on foot, let alone a vehicle.  But build them we did.  

    The dome is special, you know?  You have to go there and sit in the middle and look up through the sun hole/sky light.  You have to sit in the meditation room.  It is the result of the good intentions of hundreds of people.  It is a sancturary in the middle of the high desert on the top of a mountain.  It is made of the earth from that mountain.  It is partially covered with the earth from that mountain.  It is a rock made holy by the people that built it.  Once, when were were still stacking the earth bags that form it's circular walls a funny thing happened.  I was checking the earth/water/clay mix that was to go into the bag we were laying.  I unconsciously gabbed a piece and put it to my mouth, to check it.  It seemed like a normal thing to do.  It was the most pure substance in my world at that moment.  

     I think a person can make anything holy.  It takes great effort sometimes.  It takes the effort to step out of your comfort zone.  It takes the dropping of many judgements of yourself and others.  Working on the dome has sometimes hurt both my body and mind.  I have worked until I was so tired that I cried and blubbered out apologies to everyone I could think of that I had wronged in my life.  But the sweetness of working there is hard to communicate in words.  It has come out over time and through the presence of other people.  In whatever form our lives take, may we all stay together.