Permaculture Internship at the Lama Foundation

The Lama Foundation is a 40 year-old intentional community that follows the aim of awakening consciousness through the ideals of selfless service, honoring all spiritual paths, and sharing in collective livelihood and governance. Over the years, the foundation has seen many respected spiritual teachers come and go, attracting many people who've shared in the making of this place. A dramatic shift occured for the foundation when a massive forest fire swept through in 1996, sparing the communities core infrastucture, but changing it in many ways. For instance, the community, needing to rebuild many of its structures, offered a series of natural building workshops which drew many people eager to learn from this growing field. Permaculture also became a deep part of the communties' vision and post-fire design.

Today, the Lama Foundations' primary means of income continues to be the hosting of summer retreats and workshops, with donations and cottage industry contributing as well. While the retreats and their focus are a valuable part of Lama and the embodiment of its' vision, the community aims to further diversify of its means of survival, both to become more sustainable ecologically, as well as ecologically. One way the community is beginning to pursue this is through developement of our gardens as well as resource and skill sharing with the larger community on the mountain. We maintain a close relationship with a local farmer at Cerro Vista Farm from which we buy weekly CSA shares to supplement our food needs during retreat season. We also maintain strong ties to the our neighbors at the Sangre de Cristo Youth Ranch/Localogy, who have now have a new CSA farm that is heavily supported by community labor and serves as a classroom for the kids from the local charter school; Roots and Wings, and the for the ranch's summer youth programs. This year, Lama Foundation will be hosting a workshop on homesteading skills, and with an emphasis on food preservation via fermentation, led by Sandor Katz, author of Wild fermentation.

The community is partly off-the-grid, maintaining all its electrical and some heating needs from the sun. The roads are dirt. The only toilets are composting outhouses, and water is gravity fed from a spring house to the community. Propane is used for cooking and some heating. Lama Foundation continues to transition its infrastructure away from fossil fuel dependance and towards reliance on sustainable resources.

Our community is located on 110 acres nestled into the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range north of Taos, NM. It is bordered on three sides by wilderness and by the small settlement of Lama further down. The slopes of these mountains are still largely covered in standing dead trees from the fire, with intact forests of alpine fir and pine nearer the top. The fire has dramatically changed the landscape and ecosystem, reinvigorating it with organic matter and sun. Mule deer, elk, and coyote prefer the scrub oak dominated landscape, while black bear and many others are drawn to the abundance of acorns in the autumn. Pristine watersheds quench the land of this high desert, and the Lama Foundation owes its existence to a small year-round spring which sustains the gardens, people, and abundant animal life on the property. This spring has been a sacred resting space along the Kiowa Trail for countless years, and is still held in deep reverence by people from the Taos Pueblo and beyond. We are blessed to have vistas that stretch hundreds of miles from nearby mountains in Colorado, across the deep Rio Grande canyon to the vast landscape of the Four-corners region, and south to the beautiful mounains and valleys near santa fe and albuquerque. This vista contains sunsets so awe-inspiring and unique as to keep those on the mountain in daily reverence of this place.

“If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees…” –Rainer Maria Rilke