Monday, December 3, 2012

(1) Dakota Dream


Chapter 5.  Dakota Dream

As it stood, the monks sent up to South Dakota were still in the
process of securing the land for the new monastery.  The land 
was somewhere near the Ellsworth Air Force Base, where some 
of the old missile sites of the Cold War had been deactivated.  
People had been buying into that available real estate for quite
awhile, which was located east of Rapid City.  The Millennial
Monastery organization was in the process of completing the
sale.

In the meanwhile I had started work with my architectural firm
in downtown San Diego.  This meant staying at the monastery's
house located near the center of the city.  When deemed too far
to commute, those monks who worked in the city usually stayed
at the house where they had rooms.  Need I say that we lived
in a fairly large house, since those teaching at the universities
were in the same situation as I.  

But like when I spent a year up at Stanford, we kept in continuous
communication with the monastery back in the San Ysidro
Mountains.  And most weekends I spent back at the monastery,
still giving occasional retreats as well.

However, since I had not yet begun work on the future monastery
up in South Dakota, the firm assigned me to a small solar energy
project underway.  Actually the project was more specific, in that
it involved ingenious ways to install photovoltaic roofs on some 
of the new office buildings being built on the outskirts of the city.

Photovoltaics is a means, long used actually, for generating
electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current 
electricity.  There are specificl materials involved, such as special 
forms of silicon as well as telluride and copper.  Using solar panels, 
using solar cells, photovoltaics uses these cells to convert energy 
from the sun into a flow of electrons that, in turn, results in a higher 
state of energy.  

At least photovoltaics would be a move into the even larger
field of Solar Energy.  I was thinking of the massive Solar Farms
situated in California's more remote regions, such as in our local
deserts and nearby Mexico.  Alas, I didn't get beyond some of the 
background I needed in regard to photovoltaics before I was 
suddenly swept into the new monastery project.  The land deal 
near Rapid City had been completed, and some of the "squatting" 
monks were already up there in their trailers.  So I had to head to 
the airport and wing my way to Rapid City.

It was early Spring and still somewhat cool.  So I shivered my way
out to the new monastery site, which was less than ten miles from
Rapid City itself.  The land was totally different from that of both
Arizona and California.  I wasn't too surprised, since I had reviewed
maps of the new site.  It was more like meadow lands, near a small
river--or actually a tributary.  As for the Badlands to the east, and
the Black Hills to the west, they seemed like a totally different
environ.  So, upon conversing with the squatting monks I had to
bounce off some ideas about architectural styles when it came
to this new monastery.

Interestingly, a couple of the monks were actually from South
Dakota--and they were adamant that we somehow build a
monastery that reflected the indigenous Indian culture in the
region.  That approach had been something I had considered
as well.  But I would have to confer with the Rectors of both
of our monasteries in California and Arizona.

Via our communication devices this was done in short order.
I was given the "okay" to proceed with some preliminary plans.
This meant learning more about the early Indian housing and
buildings in this Plains region, as well as examining their 
Sacred Architecture.

After some inquiry amongst not only the squatting monks, but 
also with some scholars at the local Indian college in Rapid City,
the Millennial Monastery organization approved of my suggested
layout for the Dakota monastery.  It would follow the outline of the
Four Directions as found in the Medicine Wheel.  

Originally I was concerned that this effort would *not* encroach
upon the sense of the Sacred when it came to the local Indians in
the area.  But after my inquiry, as well as my own research, I 
realized that a good number of different groups and individuals
had built homes and other projects around the concept of the
Medicine Wheel.  Still I was careful not to offend as we began
the work in South Dakota.

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