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The original members of Lama Foundation expected, consciously or unconsciously, to live their entire lives on the land at Lama Foundation. The original By-laws invest all decision-making powers on the consensus of the (resident) continuing member body. Once granted, continuing membership continued for life, as long as the member chose to renew membership at annual meeting. This self-governance bears more similarity to native American tribal councils than it does to democratic “majority-vote” institutions. At a later date, caretaker members were added, the necessity of unanimous vote on all occasions was diluted, and other refinements were made.

A Board of Directors is required by law. The original By-Laws provided for a Board of Trustees(Directors) with very limited powers of advice and counsel to the continuing member body, basically a rubber-stamp Board of Trustees. In accordance with new Mexico law, the Board of Trustees has the power to appoint officers (rubber-stamping decisions already made in community) and has to have the power to unilaterally change the By-Laws. In an irresolvable crisis, the Board of Trustees does have the power to take over, to completely revise the By-Laws, to dissolve the corporation, etc. – but the original ser-up was that the Board of Trustees through the By-Laws was basically delegating all of its powers to the continuing member body.

What was not fully anticipated was that Lama Foundation would become primarily a spiritual school, a mystery school as some of us call it. And the nature of any valid spiritual school is that it is a temporary phenomenon, existing for a certain time in a certain place to serve the movement of spirit in a certain group of people. It can be seen that Lama Foundation is a physical and social framework, which has nurtured and supported a succession and variety of spiritual schools. (This is only one way to look at these things.)

Two of the founding members of Lama Foundation, after building their own house with their own money to live in for the rest of their lives, experienced rapid spiritual transformation and left permanently within the first ten years (and the house was struck by lightning and burned down.)

Later on residential impermanency was institutionalized in the By-laws by limiting the continual residency of a member to seven years. Although a member is free to come back and resume residency after a hiatus of a year, so far no one has done this fully. For the last twenty-five years, the resident community has been experienced as an impermanent and changing body.

Over the years the continuing member body has grown to something like fifty souls, of which no more than a handful are resident on the mountain at any one time. The continuing member body as a whole is widespread over space, and the majority of continuing members are not actively involved in Lama Foundation at any one time. The decision-making powers invested in the continuing member body have been constantly questioned by the resident community. At last annual meeting there was not even a quorum of continuing members present and decisions could not be made.

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