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The purpose of my trip to New Mexico was to document the Taos Pueblo, an 800-plus-year-old First Nations village made from mud. I had heard of the Lama Foundation, a eco-spiritual retreat center, and had been told that it was within driving distance of Taos. But my visit to Lama was more of an afterthought than anything else, done on my last day in the area. After a two-and-a-half hour tour, I wished I had arrived a week earlier, and stayed. If I may be so bold as to describe Lama after only a single afternoon on site, I would spake thus: Lama is an intentional community whose primary focus is holding a space for the individual and collective practice of many different mystical spiritual traditions, including but not limited to Sufist Islam, Hindu gods, Jewish Kabbalah, and local Native American practices. Cultural fusion, like molecular fusion, is a really, really tricky bag. It can result in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, even much greater. Or it can cause a Franken-culture, a bland, watered-down version of rich traditions that is patently offensive. My experience with experiments of this nature have all too often been a lot more like the latter.
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So I was totally caught by surprise by what I found at Lama. They don't just pay lip service to a multiculturalism that is politically correct. They strive to experience ecstasy and understand existence, unburdened by dogma. They honour the truths of teachers, without crowning kings. This is a spiritual path that so closely mirrors my own, and I was literally overflowing with joy at the realization that this otherworldly vision was being manifest. The logical extension of all these belief systems that eschew material wealth and any kind of attachment is that the community experiences a turnover rate of 100% of people every 3 or 4 years, approximately. In other communities, this would be seen as a sign of dismal failure. But here, they know that once you've learned your life lessons and recharged your chakras, it's time to go back out into the world, in order to change it. A great fire burned almost all of the buildings at Lama just over a decade ago, and since that time, every new structure that has been erected on the land has been an ecological one. Their flexible philosophy towards divinity is reflected in their open-minded attitude towards the profane act of providing shelter. Not only are the buildings imbued with intentions and blessings, but they playfully test new possibilities. Check out these images... and then when your soul is ready for a rudder, check out Lama. =)
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