Thunder, Lightning, and a Stupa
October 18, 2005  -from the book A Life in Progress--Part One

The recent thunder and lightning in Twentynine Palms have been impressive. We were in the house watching a movie last night and the lightning kept flashing. Kai said it was like God taking pictures with a flash bulb. But it didn't rain a lot until yesterday. I went outside to divert some of the water away from the back yard. I dug some small canals and was able to divert quite a lot of the water. When I first stepped out into the rain just wearing my shorts it was like stepping into a cold shower. But I soon got used to it and it was quite enjoyable, as a shower can be.

I got a lot of the water flowing towards the windmill area where my stupa is. The stupa is essentially a pile of mud. But if you wanted to you could say that it is made out of adobe, or more correctly, cob. But it is mud, and that is what adobe is -- dried mud. I think that is what the Israelites were making when they were slaves in Egypt -- sun-dried brick, known in this part of the world as adobe. It has been a major building material as long as humans have been around For what is more basic than to pile up or dig in the dirt to arrange some shelter. Caves are nice, of course, where they exist. But they only occur in certain places. So people have made their own caves, of various types, in all countries. Mud, sticks, and rocks -- these are the basic building materials of man. We can also add sod, straw, and of course, concrete, metals, and plastics.

The sticks can be in the form of logs or lumber. Rocks can be merely stacked or mortared into place. Concrete can be poured in place or formed first into blocks. Metal is first smelted, then melted and extruded into sheets and other structural members. Sod was used by homesteaders on the plains. Once baling machines became common, straw bales were stacked up and used for homes. This was done in Nebraska around 1900, and is coming back into popular use today.

I was talking about the stupa. I started making it a couple of months ago. I was thinking about the adobe chapel and how I would like to make the walls thicker so that the rain won't erode them so much, and so that they would be stronger to support a roof. I was wondering if I could make a roof of adobe too. But then the walls would have to be really thick so there would be no outward force trying to push them out.

And how would I support the arched roof while I was building it? I thought of various ways. But why not just use mounded dirt as the support, and hollow it out afterwards. I decided to experiment with this idea -- basically building a pile of adobe, then when it hardens, hollowing it out.

I began the project near the windmills, at the farthest reach of the garden hose. The hose does not reach to the adobe chapel and when I built it I had to haul buckets of water there by hand. But with the stupa I did not have to do that.

To begin the stupa I started wetting the ground, then raking a layer of dirt on top, and then wetting that layer. I kept doing that, layer after layer. After a while I started shoveling dirt from a little distance away. Then I had to rake it around a bit, mixing it in with water from the hose. This is a similar process to how I made the adobe floor for the cottage. The cottage floor however, has a thin layer of concrete on top.

What is a Stupa?
Don't you know, stupid? Oh, sorry, just kidding. A stupa is usually a temple of some kind, usually kind of tall. I think they are usually made out of mud and hollowed out inside. They are commonly found in India and other far eastern countries. In my mind a stupa is just what I am making -- a pile of mud, hollowed out on the inside. Pretty easy to understand, and pretty easy to figure out how to make. All you do is pile up mud. Of course a lot of work is involved.

After I made a  pile about a foot or so high I started doing some calculations. I won't go into the details here but, though you can make a small mudpile fairly quickly, to make a pile large enough to hollow out and have useful space inside, it would take a long time -- weeks or months of mud shoveling. I think I got a bit discouraged by my calculations. Also I didn't feel I could afford the water at that time, since we pay to have our water hauled in except when I laboriously haul it in myself.

So I stopped work on the stupa, after making a small burrow inside of the mudpile I had already made. The few people who have seen it are intrigued by the pile. Probably they wonder if it is the home of a small animal. The stupa was maybe two feet high. Until today!.      

Free Mud
Now I had been thinking about that stupa for the last few days. I got the idea that maybe I should throw a little mud on it once in awhile, and it would gradually grow. As long as you do something every day, progress is assured.

So as I began to divert water streams in the direction of the stupa, rather accidentally, I realized that I would have a ready source of mud. And within a few minutes I was throwing mud onto the stupa, from the small mudhole formed by my previous excavation. The hole was filling up with water faster than I could shovel out the mud. Then the rain stopped and I spend maybe an hour shoveling out the remaining mud, enlarging the hole as I did so. The water was up to my calves and I felt as though I were having a mud bath. It was really a lot of fun and I was wishing that somehow I could share the experience with all my friends.

The stupa grew taller. I formed it into a peak just for fun. I had been thinking of doing this. I had been thinking of making large mud sculptures, similar to making sandcastles on the beach. Mud is much better than sand because there is clay and sand mixed together, and when it dries it becomes quite hard, hard enough that it has been used for structures in many lands for thousands of years.

I was piling up so much mud that, being still wet and runny, it would no longer support its own weight. So I couldn't go much higher. But then I ran out of mud anyway, so came back to the cottage.

The Stupa Grows
After a while the rain started pouring down again. I went outside and did a little trenching, then got right back to work on the stupa. The mudhole was a lot bigger now, since I had been excavating it, and it held a lot more water. So I had more mud than I could use. The mudhole grew and grew. It started to seem like a small moat or swimming pool. I excavated the stupa a little more inside, and took some photos. Kai came out and kept me company, doing some walking in place while I was digging. At first Kai thought the mudhole looked like a toxic waste dump, but I explained that it was just mud. After awhile we started to compare the mud in the hole to hot chocolate with cream floating on top. 
There is something very satisfying about building a stupa. It is really just playing in the mud. It definitely felt like playing though I was doing hard shoveling work. Each shovel of mud is hard to lift up due to suction created underneath it as you pry it up from the bottom of the pond. I have started calling it a pond now since it is growing in size.

A Village Well
The mudhole started to remind me of a village well in India.  As the weather dries out and months go by without rain, the water in the well gets lower and lower, until perhaps eventually it is completely dry. Then hopefully the rains come. As the water in the well is getting lower and lower the well is being dug out more, to follow the water table as it gradually drops. This is probably how a lot of the wells were dug.

You see, the wells that I am thinking of, probably better called watering holes, are not deep and narrow but are wide and shallow. To get water from them you walk down into them, right to where the water is, and you dip your pitcher into the water and carry it back up the bank of the well. There is a path traversing the bank to the bottom of the well. So, probably over centuries, the well gets dug deeper and wider and the village becomes more durable, more prosperous due to a good water supply. And at the same time, the mud has to be put somewhere so it is made into houses and other structures.

Build When It Rains
I have now learned that mud-building takes place when it rains, when there is lots of water and mud everywhere for free. It makes no sense to haul water and spend all that time mixing your adobe, when you can simply shovel mud from your mudhole, pond, well, or whatever you want to call it.

I have hopes that my mudhole will endure for a few days. There is quite a lot of water in it now, though with the last big rain a few hours ago, it got somewhat filled in with mud from upstream.

So I will use the mud in it while it lasts, then wait for the next rain. We have been getting rain every two or three months, so that is not so long to wait. And as the hole gets deeper and wider, who knows, maybe sometime I will achieve a water supply that lasts for a part of the year.

The Other Pond
The other pond I dug last year was lined with plastic. It had a few problems. Dogs or coyotes got into it and punctured the plastic. The water drained out quickly. I was able to repair the punctures easily with a glue gun.

A couple of rodents drowned in the pond. Evidently they couldn't climb up the slippery sides. Kai did not like to see that happen to the little animals, so I allowed that pond to dry out.

The New Pond
But this new pond has no plastic liner. The critters that fall in accidentally, should have no trouble climbing out. I think that as the pond gets established, clay will begin to line the bottom and prevent water draining out so easily. I have high hopes for this pond.

And the stupa, well, it is taking on a whole new life. I have piled mud up faster than my calculations indicated, because I did not have to mix it, but merely shovel it.

Tansporting Mud
I have been wondering how to transport mud from pond to stupa. In India they likely carry it in baskets on their heads. Maybe whole families get involved. I reckon I could do it that way. But I am thinking in terms of a wheelbarrow running on planks. Or a trolley on rails. Or a chain conveyer with little buckets of mud. I have thought about automating the building system, using a conveyer and water supply that automatically mixes the mud and transports it to the top of the stupa.

So far the mudhole has been close enough that I have been able to throw the mud right up to the top of the stupa from my position standing in the middle of the mudhole. Some shovels of mud I have carried.

The stupa may eventually require a spiral pathway going up and around the outside. This will allow for easy transport of mud for building and repair.

Anyway it is a very fun project and I hope I can share the fun with other people sometime. I guess this is the kind of thing I like to do for recreation. But I am also in a constant search for inexpensive and simple building methods. I would say that the stupa method is the very cheapest I have found so far. It is completely free. One needs to acquire a shovel or a bucket or something but that is about it. Just wait for the rains to come and spend a few days building.