"Reverence awakens in the soul a sympathetic power through which we attract qualities in the beings around us, which would otherwise remain concealed." - Rudolf Steiner

Heating our temporary tent structure with a kerosene heater to allow the mortar to dry, we were out in the blistery wind this morning working with Hans, finishing the containment structure for our Composting Toilet Eco-Temple. Hans Lohse is the ring leader of the Eco-temple Project. He runs Lifespace Architecture and Interior Design with his partner Kris D’Errico. Hans is a green architect and builder rooted in the traditions of sacred geometry, Native American architecture, and views the pursuit of Beautiful Form as a Process of Unfolding Wholeness. Good architecture designs itself, is ecologically regenerative by healing the environment, is alive and sentient, and tunnels through to cosmic consciousness.

The Sanctuary currently pays about $100 each month to service a “porta-potty”, whose waste is collected and processed at a central sewer treatment plant. The process –centralized sewage treatment - is costly, energy intensive, not as effective as nature’s own way of breaking down harmful pathogens, chemicals and heavy metals through microbial digestion, and produces a toxic waste (sewage sludge) for which there is currently no environmentally safe way to dispose of. This is what you call a high entropy technology, since a lot of energy – both the energy used in the treatment, and the organic energy contained in the human “waste” - are lost in the treatment process. In contrast, a composting toilet - essentially a constructed paradise for worms and microorganisms - helps nature’s own digestive processes to breathe more deeply, closing a nutrient cycle and returning human excreta back to condition the soil. After we complete this project, the Sanctuary will save a cost, reduce its harmful eco-footprint, and replace an ugly industrial artifact with a beautiful shrine which will harmonize deeply with its locale, and ornament the meadow stand of trees like a some strange flower.

Built and designed of mostly local materials, labor, ideas and inspiration, the process of the construction itself will serve as a healthy learning ecology. A learning ecology is a project or situation in which individuals work towards understanding an aspect of their natural, social or economic environment which reveals something fundamental about their collective fate, their values, their identities. When one experiences a larger self, a community-sized self, an invisible bond is uncovered, through which information from a deeper pool of life activity can be transmitted to the individual. This information is a source of energy which empowers the individual to the level of spontaneous, patient, loving commitment to the long-term health of the community. This is where the Sanctuary sees the connection between ecology and spirituality.