I can build with meaning and purpose
With my Higher Power’s help, I can build with meaning and purpose.
It has been 3 weeks since we returned to our build after a week’s break, had a late semi traditional Seder supper, and reintegrated into our house and housemates.



I am falling in love with this work, with the community of it, with the possibilities and hope of what might be possible from it. Probably like nearly all of us, I didn’t grow up with an idea that builders could be women. Or that women could be builders. I understand that buildings could always be sacred spaces and that they could be of and within nature in a way that promotes our sense of being part of it, rather than separate from it.
Last weekend, a friend/housemate and I travelled further West and South to Grand Escalante Staircase to do some simple volunteer tasks to promote keeping the borders clear between the designated “Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) ” of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the BLM that is available for more recreational use. This meant doing basic practices such as getting rid of the traces of illegal fire pits and racking out tire tracks where people have driven into wilderness. For the WSA to officially become protected wilderness (they’ve been in this bureaucratic limbo since the 1960s) will take an act of Congress and proof that the land has no trace of human use. The BLM ranger we were working with told us that if “we do our work well, no one will notice.” He also told us how the dead wood juniper trees here remind him of fire—a representation of their life force. Among these trees, are also the ancient petrified trees that are scattered about against a backdrop of colorful purple, green, yellow, red clay, mesas, slot canyons. At night, the new moon was on the horizon and the stars were visible in every corner of the sky. There is so much to fall in love with in the world. And so much to grieve (see Ai Wei Wei’s movie Human Flow) I am so eternally grateful to all the beings who have taught me to not be afraid of love and grief which seem not at all different. The beauty here makes my heart want to explode. Some day I will let it.
With Higher Power’s help,
We can build with meaning and purpose.
Your grandfather would so have enjoyed keeping up with this journey of yours.
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