Kiva, Clay Model

I've lately been obsessed with the Morningstar adventure that was fictionalized as the Risingstar, New Mexico, commune  in my novel (the title of this blog)... having made contact with one of the founding members, Pam Hanna (Read), who was the wife of the Kiva's roof designer, Larry Read, I decided to make a clay model of it from memory. I'm just assuming that there were eight timbers, as eight was the mystical number of the eight pointed Morningstar. I could be wrong.  These are pictures of the progress so far as I am now cutting the timbers now for placement on the roof.

The story goes that when the timber's were all put in place, (I heard about it back then and Pam reminded me of how it was done in an email pasted here): "Hey George - Larry was an admirer of Buckminister Fuller & a student of Paolo Soleri for a time.  Hippies built a lot of domes everywhere - Drop City, Placitas, all over Hawaii.  That Kiva was a  sort of Tinker Toy Tech conception.  Was quite a scene when we put it together - no nails.  Big poles held by man at each pole; on signal, they eased the poles into place.  You can do it on a table with toothpicks.  They hold each other up."

All of that took place before I got there. She also wrote: "M*, NM now looks like ancient ruins and only David Pratt's house is still standing.  A guy named Army Joe came thru like gangbusters & tore a lot of stuff down, including the Kiva," 

I was only there for about five months but what I experienced there was a vision of how life can be... haven't quite figured out the how of it but it is a vision of people working together for the common good that stays with me today.