Flashback Friday – Episode 47, Sunfire Recalls the Construction of the Temple

Construction of the Temple started in the spring of 2002. I received information about it along with an announcement that there would be a period of three weeks during which volunteers would come to construct the Temple. The architect was Hugh Russell, a man I'd met two years earlier at a Tantra weekend led by Rudy Ballentine. I signed up to come to the last of the three weeks.

The Temple as I first saw it.

When I arrived, there was a foundation, a floor and two sides. Three trees had been felled to use as cross beams and the bark stripped form these trees. These rough hewn timbers can still be seen in the Temple.

Working on the Ceiling

We worked for four days framing one end of the building. The summer solstice occurred during that time. On the night of the solstice, we sat in a circle on the floor of the incomplete temple, and held a ritual to celebrate the change of seasons.

Getting ready to put on the roof

The next day, when we started to put it up one end wall, we discovered that it was two inches too short. We waited until Saturday - the last full day of the three week period, for Hugh to come to tell us how to fix the problem.

It was almost a year before the Temple was ready for use. The idea of building it in three weeks was definitely a miscalculation. Here's a photo of the Temple in the spring of 2003. Notice the hand-made door on the right, the plastic that covers the ceiling, and the lack of finish on the floor.