Located just a short distance from the Rock Shop at 47 Billman Lane on the outskirts of Livingston, our traditional Mongolian Yurt is a powerful place set aside for physical and spiritual healing. Created as a center for sound therapy, Spirit House now also plays host to focused meditation groups and healing energy shares in addition to our regular group and one-on-one Himalayan singing bowl session.
Singing Bowls: Come and listen to the relaxing and healing vibrations of the singing bowls. Bring a mat, lay back and float away! Donations are gratefully accepted! Private sessions are available by appointment. Have a private meditation for your group, or an individual session where the bowls are played on or near you for a very deep release of stress and trauma. $75. Call Barbara 406-223-8032 to schedule.
Meditation: Led by a local expert, our group meditations are both deep and resonant. Recently the group has focused on open awareness, non-duality and the art of dying. There will often be readings and discussions on texts such as “How You Live is How You Die” by Pema Chodron. New people are welcome to join in, and donations are greatly appreciated! The group meets Saturdays at 10am. For questions, call Rob at 406-222-2587.
Energy Share: This is a time where we can come together and share healing for each other and ourselves. Each person will have a chance to receive healing from the group and we’ll take turns working on everyone. We meet the second Thursday of each month at 6:30pm.
There are so many places to start, when you tell the tale of a journey. I am not sure where to start this tale. Spirit House came about when I was searching for a space to practice Sound Healing with Himalayan singing bowls.
I looked at several spaces in town, but none of them were right. Too expensive, the location was too loud, no parking; nothing seemed right.
I was reading an article about sound healing—I do not remember where I read this—and it talked about the shape of the space. Indiginous structures are often round because this gave a better connection between the energy of the Earth and the Heavens and Spirit. I thought about teepees, hogans, huts, and yurts—they were all round. The round structures have no corners for energy to build up and become stagnant in. The center hole for smoke provides a conduit between heaven and earth. Could I afford a yurt?
So, this being 2020, I did what we do in the USA these days when we want to know something–I Googled yurts. The Spirit House journey began!
First I looked at yurts made in the USA. There were several manufacturers in the local Pacific Northwest region. Then, I ran across a picture of a traditional Mongolian yurt, and it was so beautiful! The picture had a link to the importers, Groovy Yurts, out of Ontario, Canada.
I loved the name, “Groovy Yurts”! Groovy is one of my favorite words(yes, I am THAT old!) From my first contact with them, I felt a connection and an understanding. I knew these were my people!
Yves Ballenegger is the founder of Groovy Yurts. As he tells the story, he loves to drive big trucks. He has driven trucks all over the world. He went on an adventure, driving semi-trucks of school supplies to the rural areas of Mongolia. The Mongolian people support education, and have nearly a 100% literacy rate in their country, better than many developed nations. (The USA has 79%) He said he really liked the Mongolian people and he wanted to do something to help support them, and to make his return trip “Come full Circle” by bringing something back from the Mongolian country side. Around 2003 Groovy Yurts was born.
Prior to delivery, we had to have a platform for the yurt. The Groovies provided specifications for our yurt. Bryan Schute, a friend of mine, was hired to build the platform. Bryan was also hired to build a port-a-potty, that didn’t look like a port-a-potty. Little did Bryan know, when he bid on the job, the cost of building materials was going to sky rocket when it cam time to start the project. He also did not know his wife was going to get a job offer in Utah, and they were going to move in 2021.
The original delivery estimate was for May or June 2021. No one counted on the shipping backlog! Updated estimates for mid-July/August, then September, and finally, a definite date of October 20, 2021 at 8am. We needed to have the platform and our crew ready.
Yves arrived right about 8am in this huge, brightly painted, beautiful Groovy Yurts truck. Our neighbors slowed down to see what was happening as they manuvered around the truck. We were supposed to have a crew of 2-4 able-bodied people. Since the delivery was the middle of the week, most strong young people we knew were working. Our crew consisted of my son, J Taylor, a very strong and helpful person; Sam Blevis, she looks little and skinny, but she is a force to be reckoned with; Sarah Taylor, my daughter in law; and Merlin and myself. We figured we were each worth about half a person. We unloaded all the parts of the yurt onto a trailer, then moved them to the area around the platform and started staging where everything needed to be.
As we unloaded everything, Yves was assessing the crew we had assembled. Ever so sweetly, he said, “Barbara, your crew is very nice, but we are going to need some big strong guys to get the felts up.” Everyone started scrambling to find a couple of more strong young guys. Eric and Mike (sorry, I did not get their last names) joined our team, and the assembly began.
The walls, toono, and bagans were set on the platform. We laid plastic down to keep the felts off the ground. Our location is Montana, so I ordered two sets of felts. Each set of felts covered the top and the sides of the yurt. The felts are made of sheep’s wool and are machine felted. Each piece was about 1/2inch thick and weighed a TON! Each one had to be unfolded, and then rolled up in specific directions so they would be simple to unroll onto the yurt. LOTS of felts needed to be rolled!
The lattice walls, khaans, are held together with little knots of camel rawhide. A traditional yurt, or gher (which is Mongolian for home), is a 5-wall yurt. A traditional yurt will have 81 huns, roof rafters. 81 equals 9×9, and 9 is a sacred number to the Mongolian people. Mine is larger, it is a 7-wall yurt, approximately 26 feet in diameter. Actually, my yurt has 6-walls. 7 is not an auspicious number. The walls in my yurt are a little bigger, so they accommodate 15 huns. (6×15=90, a good number!) Where two walls come together, they are cut so they will interlace. A horse hair rope is used to bind them together, securing them into a pillar. After all the walls are up, a horse hair rope is interlaced all the way around the yurt, holding everything in place.
Next the toono is raised with two of the bagaans. “For Mongolians, the yurt symbolizes the universe. They believe the axis of the world runs down through the toono (central dome) to the center of the earth. The toono represents the interface between humans and the cosmos, being a passage to the divine world. The bagaans (central posts) also connect human and divine, earth and sky.” In a traditional yurt, there are only two bagaans holding up the toono, representing the male and female holding up the cosmos equally.
When the toono is raised, it is centered in the middle of the platform, and four cardinal ropes are attached and tied to the walls. Then, the huns are installed. At this point, Yves said the only safe places to be were in the exact center of the yurt, or outside of the yurt, because as the huns are being placed, things shift around, and often they fall out! This resulted in several people being hit with huns! Not funny! (But it was kind of comical to watch!) It was at this time we were most grateful Livingston’s famed wind was NOT blowing! Each hun is inserted into the toono and the other end sets in the V’s of the wall lattice, and are securely tied down with horse hair ropes.
Yves cut a space in the wall to install the window. Traditional yurts do not have windows, but it makes a nice addition to Spirit House! Barbara and Merlin are tying horse hair ropes onto the huns, and then they passed them to the hun installers. (Notice they chose a job that kept them outside of the yurt! They did not get bonked by huns!)
A cotton liner is installed after all the huns are in place. Then the felts for the roof are installed. Please note, Sam and Sarah are helping Yves put up the roof felts. The big strong men are observing!
Two layers of felt were put up on the roof, and then the walls. A house wrap was then put over the felts. Mongolia has very extreme weather, but is not as much moisture as most locations in the USA. The house wrap helps keep the moisture out of the felts.
After the felts are in place, and the house wrap is installed, the canvas cover is put on. Notice Sam sticking out of the top of the yurt helping to straighten out the canvas. Merlin and Barbara are holding the canvas centered over the door. After the canvas is in place, horse hair ropes are tied around the structure to hold the canvas in place. We put several wind protocols into place. We tied a huge piece of leopard skin jasper to the center of the toono to keep the wind from lifting up the yurt. We also put some extra ropes over the top, and staked them to the ground, to hold the yurt in place. Livingston is known for being windy! We get 75-85 mph winds!
The rayartch, blue and white ‘skirt’ around the bottom of the yurt, is tied to the bottom rope. Yves says this keeps the goats from peeing on the yurt! (We don’t have goats, but it looks very nice!)
Spirit House was done by about 3:30pm! From Central Mongolia, by camel, horse, boat and truck this beautiful structure travelled around 6,000 miles to live here. It is hoped it becomes a place for people to meditate and heal. It is our prayer a community of like-minded people will grow and support each other as we all seek to raise our consciousness and awareness.
All the painting is done by hand. The whole family works together, and the women sing as they paint all the woodwork. While we were putting up the yurt, you could feel the tradition, pride, and love put into the yurt. It felt so warm, safe and comforting.
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