Near Punta de Choros, Chile, Eduardo is digging a community out of the earth. Most houses don’t require massages during construction, adobe homes are the exception.
“Watch out, there are big sand crystals that cut like glass,” he says while shovelling more earth into a wheelbarrow.
The soil is a mix of sand, clay, and salt. We add water. Massaging it is a full spa treatment for my hands, albeit a bit sketchy. Once the mud is relaxed and smooth we wheel it into the outline of a barn.
Its empty silhouette looks like a children’s drawing.
Bamboo shafts stack up against the frame, creating thin, vertical drawers to fill with wet soil.
“Just take a handful and slap it hard into the lattice. Make it three inches thick,” slap, he throws mud against the wall. He then presses it deeper into the bamboo. It sticks.
It takes an hour to fill in a part of the wall. We run back and forth to massage more earth and then pack it into the frame.
A new earth
“We want to create an agrarian commune here. We’ve got a conscientiousness festival coming up soon,” Eduardo says.
It’s called Piuke Maipu, meaning “The Heart of People” in the local indigenous language Mapudungun.
No smoking, no drinking, just spiritual transcendence is permitted.
Days are run by the sun here, both spiritually and practically. Eduardo holds meditation prayer circles at dawn and dusk.
Also, the only electricity available is solar. We’re far off the grid.
“You like to cook?” He asks me.
“I love it,” I follow him deeper into the roofless structure. Everything is a window, from the walls to the ceiling. Mandalas, woven prayers, dangle in the ocean breeze.
Along one wall, there’s tiny adobe stove that looks like a chimney. An open air fire pit sits beside it. Somehow, I have to use these two things to make dinner and tea. But first, I need fuel.
We walk into the sandy fields outside.
“Pull at the sticks gently, and shake them like this,” he grabs a shrub root and gently tugs it.
“If it doesn’t let go right away, leave it: It’s still alive.”
Everything looks dead in this coastal desert.
You need to check if plants are still literally still clinging to life.
“Watch out for scorpions,” he calls over his shoulder without explaining how one might go about this.
Bush whacking
I walk alone around the beige, brush-filled fields extending from the mountains to the ocean.
I fully grasp why they call Chile “an island.” It’s wedged between the Andes and the Pacific, waves of earth and sea on either side.
I sling the kindling and sticks into one arm, cradling them like a baby. Some plants I give a gentle tug and then a few more, just to be sure. It turns out a lot of life is hanging on in this strip of sand.
I slide pieces onto my arms, my neck, until I’m wearing an entire brush suit. I’d feel ridiculous if I wasn’t completely camouflaged.
Eventually, I’m engulfed in a giant, whiley tumbleweed.
I wander through a wall into the house and undress from the firewood.
Making a fire in the open pit is basic. I had cumin in my spice bag, my friend had brought veggies, Eduardo had rice, and our new friends brought beans. I throw this communal stew into a pot and set it over the open flames.
Then I move to what Eduardo had called the “more efficient” chimney stove. Starting a fire is easy, but boiling water takes over an hour all the while demanding constant fuel. It eats five times as much as the fire pit.
While I’ve been playing desert dress-up and cooking, the others have been constructing.
“Food,” I call.
Sense of community
We gather together in the sun, I find a spot of shade in the uncovered home. We give thanks for food and friendship and adventure.
It’s kumbaya, but we get stuff done.
“Que rico,” my friends compliment the meal.
There’s a primal warmth in building shelter, making food, and pumping water out of the ground.
Out here, it’s survival. Working together soothes old instincts.
There’s something about seeing the direct result of helping others and accepting their help as well. Our friends wash the plates, using sand as soap to exfoliate them.
“Come on, we need more rocks for the shower foundations,” Eduardo waves us over.
We hop into the back of his rusty, grey truck, on each others’ laps. Those who weren’t friends before, now are family.
We drive a few kilometres out into the grey fog.
A spherical structure appears on the moon-like horizon. It’s a dome home.
Eduardo stops to drop off tools in exchange for some others. Three women live here: a mother, her sister, and her daughter. They pass around Mate, a tea you refill with water and share.
The cup changes hands, stories are exchanged. They give us intel into the best locations for rocks.
We leave the space station. No matter how fast and long we drive towards the mountains, they never get closer. We stop randomly.
“Look for flat rocks about this size,” Eduardo picks up a few and throws them in the back of the truck. We’ve only got the wind for company.
“OK, that’s good, we need to be back before sunset,” he says and we cram out legs and arms back into the truck.
Hindu at home
Beside the new adobe home we’re slapping together is a cylindrical one. It stands on stilts. This is Eduardo’s home.
I’d noticed the Hindu shrine beside the door when we arrived. He’d offered to let us sit in on his faith.
We sit in candlelight as Eduardo, our friend turned priest, creates an altar. He lays down a woven carpet and places an inverted pyramid fire pit in the centre.
“It has sacred geometry,” he says as if this is common knowledge.
Beside it he places a mason jar of fat and a plate of grassy, dry balls: cow poop.
He begins burning animal fat over a flame, although he’s vegetarian this is the proper offering. He grabs a nugget of cow poop and spreads animal fat onto it. It’s like a tiny disgusting snack.
He lights it.
“It’s poop, processed organic material, but it still serves a purpose.”
“It’s still poop though,” he snickers.
Cows are sacred in the Hindu tradition.
As the sunsets the poop burns. It has no smell. He says it’s because cows eat grass and have many stomachs that purify and digest it.
It’s still poop though, repeats in my mind.
We hold hands. We say some words in Hindi then in Sanskrit. Then we offer gratitude in our own languages: English and Spanish. We thank the day, the food, the friendship, the poop.
We then sit cross-legged and prepare for Kundalini meditation.
It begins with some chants.
“Breathe in deeply and release with these words,” Eduardo begins.
A-mah-sah-ra-sah-ra-rooooh. We repeat sounds and syllables after him.
“Breathe in hard through your nose and then push it out in short, sharp breaths,” we repeat this for many minutes.
“Now, breathe in deeply and then release it in one sharp burst,” we do this for several minutes.
It takes a lot of focus to override an automatic system like breathing. The strong, extreme breaths create intense feelings in the body that consume attention. Sometimes, I feel lightheaded. Sometimes, I feel panicked.
All of the time, I feel very present. Tapping into survival creates a forceful presence.
Finally, we sit in silence and breathe evenly until the oranges and pinks fade into the night.
Chimes ring.
“We’ve thanked the day and welcomed the night,” Eduardo says.
The rest after the pause
The sun sets at 8:00pm. By 8:20pm a high pitched wail signals that the night is over.
“The solar panel has limited power without sun,” he explains.
Electricity is shorter lived than prayer.
We curl up, all five of us, on a floor filled with mattresses. None of us knew each other before today. Tomorrow, new people will arrive and we will leave.
“If you build it, they will come,” pops into my mind. We’d all been attracted to creating this dream, and had done a part in pulling it out of the earth.
I stretch and feel both grateful and exhausted for the day.
After massaging a house, I could use a massage myself, I think as the night fades into dreams.
