The Pyramid Project

Daily News - January 2008

31 January 2008

How Big?

At last we can start to see how big this pyramid is going to be.  Below one quadrant is in place.  Hopefully by the time the newspaper is here 12:00 tomorrow we'll have another quadrant in place too

The guys also were working on the temporary floor.  I said to the guys as I took this photo, "Here are the men who built the Iquitos Pyramid"...

But who is the mad chainsaw man? LOL!!

Today we added the Peruvian flag because altho I am British the workers are all Peruvian.  In fact when the pyramid is running 75% of the 50 employees will be Peruvian.  Another piece of pyramid trivia - 75% of the profits will be fed back into the missions which heavily support Peru and Iquitos

Any Ol' Iron?

Yesterday Lima phoned and I am relieved to report that the iron is finally on it's way, all 12 tones of it!  Also the half ton of bolts should arrive on Monday or Tuesday

Design Section

And finally I'm happy to announce that the website has a new section called Design.  The Spanish version will follow once Charlie gets the chance to translate it (he's busy at the moment in his new job)

29 January 2008

Progress Steady and Sure

We now have 16 men on site with 2 others working nights on the raft building station.  Our progress was challenged by bad storms on Thursday and Friday.  Since then our work has been in the details, doubling up on bolts and preparing the 20m base beams ready to for the outer walls of the pyramid.  Delivery of wood has been delayed by low rivers out in the jungle... all God's will

Above you can see we haven't received more Remocaspi yet however we have started on adding floors - you can see the cross beams half way up.  I must stress the rooms that we are adding in this structure are temporary for the first year of the project whilst it is being built - you'll see!

In the two floors there will be a site office, site toilet and shower, a bedroom, a kitchen and a lockable room for tools.  The idea is that I move into the pyramid right away when this is built so I can be closer to the project at all times.  Also I will begin the experiment of bathing in rain water, drinking rain water and collecting solar energy for my computer to run on - all valuable experience as we head towards a time when we have a floating hotel of over 40 rooms dedicated to the natural ways of life

Adding a floor that spans 12 meters was quite a challenge - we did not want to rely on the balsa rafts for support as these move considerably with waves.  The 12m trunks you see above were too flimsy and so we decided on the design above that is proving to be extremely strong - it does not bend at all!

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the past week has been straightening the Masaranduba beams and getting the rafts aligned.  We are getting there.  The carpenters have now prepared 3 of these giant beams and we hope to receive the upper beams by the weekend

Tedi Mozollbite

l'd like to formally register my appreciation for the contribution to the project from Tedi Mozollbite (Aka. Gordo).  Tedi has been working on the project since we started building the rafts and he has consistently shown initiative and dedication in his work.  Tedi has also taken on foreman duties and responsibilities for guarding the site.  Thanks Gordo and please keep up the good work!  Here he is...

Peruvian Residency

l am pleased to announce that I have been awarded Peruvian residency status which means I am no longer considered a tourist.  This puts the project in a stronger position politically.  It is hard to get this without marrying a Peruvian and I am grateful to Wilder and the staff at the Iquitos immigrations office for all their help.  Maybe one day I will marry a Peruvian but it will be for love, no other reason

Publicity

The project is starting to experience some national media interest which is going to be marvellous for promotion.  The daily newspaper "El Comercio" will be here to take a look and presumably write an article.  I understand that this is a national business newspaper that is highly respected in Peru.  They fly in from Lima on Friday and so we look forward to welcoming them to Iquitos

23 January 2008

The Boat Entrance and the Cosmic Designer

Altho we are still lagging on getting the bolts added (the guys are working this as I write), you can see that Jerry, Westaben and Modesto have done a great job of getting the entrance tied into position ready for bolting...

When I was thinking about this entrance I considered that it would look ugly compared to the other 4 Remocaspis coming down directly to their pentagram corners.  In fact I was considering, so as to avoid the problem, of making 2 columns come down from each of the King's Pentagram corners to the centre of the sides of the pentagram below.  I changed my mind several times and the Ayahuasca I meditated with could not give me a clear answer.  In the end the decision is that we will do both.  In phase 4 I will add another 10 Remocaspi's which will criss-cross the sides and massively strengthen the whole central structure as indicated below...

When the two forks were cut for the Remocaspi entrance they made a mistake.  The entrance is 2m wide but they made the fork 2m wide as measured to the outer edges of the Remocaspi.  This meant that the internal gauge for boats entering would only be 1.6m.   It was therefore a workaround solution to allow the bottom of the forks to splay outward

However, this splaying outwards completely cured the fear that the entrance would look ugly as coincidently that slight splay makes the fork Remocaspis approach the top at a beautiful angle in keeping with the other columns.  (In fact it looks like the entrance to an Egyptian tomb).  This is the second time a mistake has improved the design which got me wondering.  We are being guided here in many different ways... when the so called mistakes happen instead of getting stressed I can think to myself,  there are no mistakes, this is an esoterical intervention and so what preferred solution are the Gods guiding us towards?  The project is protected by God and that overrides any apparent setback

Other Work

The raft building operation is now back on a two shift pattern and so we are building rafts16 hours a day.   Walter's team did a great job adding a strengtheners a long the side of the steps - now the steps act as a whole and not as independent steps.  Slowly we are getting what I want, a kind of minimalist, floating, vertigo experience (but which is safe).  Thanks to Wilder and Augustine this morning for saving the project over $200.  The chainsaw was broken and the shop insisted the fault was due to a lack of oil which is outside of guarantee.  With a great delivery from Wilder (which was something like a speech from the film "My Cousin Vinny") we persuaded them (and rightly so) that mal-usage on our part was impossible and that this was a manufacturing error.  The money on the project is tight and so we all do our best to guard it

21 January 2008

7m Remocaspis in place

I started the day buying 3 safety harnesses.  Jerry's team worked on raising the 7m Remocaspis into position.  By the end of the day 4 are approximately where they should be ready for large bolts to be added tomorrow.  The photos below were taken at lunch time when two had been positioned.  In the second photo you can see how it has been shaped to seat on the Upper Pentagram (The cross-strut there is just temporary and the upright below is not yet positioned permanently)

Stairs experiment

The experiment with the stairs design is coming along.  For the iron we decided on the design on step 2 not the one on step 3 - both are strong but step 3 is ascetically more pleasing I decided.  There is still a problem with the side zig-zag wood warping so we have to think of the solution for that still.  There were 3 people on Walter's team today

Pyramid's sides started

Orison and I were working on getting the Lower side beams positioned.  First we lost time straightening some of the 4m rafts.  I'll post a better photo tomorrow but one of the 20m beams has been straightened and is ready to be worked.  Remember this 20m beams are just half of one side!

Design Section

This week, when not on the raft with the guys I have been working on a new section to be added to this website shortly.  This section is called "Design" contains all the plans of the 7 levels and describes the functions of the pyramid such as the theatre, gymnasium and internet café

The drawing above is the first floor.  Thanks to Gina for getting down into the detail and improving the layout.  The Western stairwell and reception area are particularly beautiful

20 January 2008

Iron Crown complete

The iron angle ring around the top of the pentagram was completed on Saturday, this has been nicknamed the "Iron Crown" - it is to massively strengthen the structure.  We also added more mini beams to brace the corners at both the top and bottom.  When a motor boat goes by now the balsa wood moves with the waves but the central structure is solid...

Path Added

Thanks to a couple of locals for helping build a path to the site - more people are visiting lately and so we wanted to make access easier...

Water rising

Unfortunately our work building rafts has been hampered for around 3 weeks now because the suppliers have let us down.  We are now sourcing from different suppliers.  The water level is rising, soon our raft building station will be underwater so the race is on to get rafts built faster - we still need around 60 having built around 40. Below, the raft building station, the green area is floating vegetation on the river...

Spanish website coming along

The translation of the Shamanic Tour pages has been completed and is live today so a big thank you to Charlie for this!  It is expected that our customers will mainly be English speaking however we want Spanish speaking Peruvians to understand our project and in time perhaps travel agencies as far away as Cusco and Lima will help us promote the Pyramid's Shamanic Tour here in Iquitos.  (This is the business plan: The agencies will receive 5% commission and the customer will get a further 5% discount for booking thru the agency)

First Stairs emerging

Below you can see we are experimenting with the design for the stairs.  I want the stairs to appear to be floating which is quite challenging.  The idea is to induce a little vertigo and primal respect for the pyramid.  Tony Robbins says we should "Dance with our Fears"

And Lastly...

Myself, Shaman Ron and his buddy all witnessed a visitor come to the pyramid yesterday (well within 50m).  It is virtually unheard of to see a dolphin where the pyramid is being constructed because they prefer to be away from Iquitos and in the Amazon not the river Itaya.   Well despite the odds, a large dolphin stopped by - I like to think that he could sense the energy of the coming pyramid.  It would be lovely if one comes into the Pyramid's swimming pool one day.  I believe this will happen as a matter of fact

17 January 2008

Central Structure Gaining Height

Sorry for not updating the news - I was in Columbia & Brazil but that's another story

As we reach for the skies we ask God's blessing and pray that no accidents occur.  Apparently lots of people are stopping by and taking photos of the progress.  A local newspaper was also asking questions

As soon as I got back I climbed straight up to the top because I didn't want the guys to think I'd send them to a place that I wouldn't go to myself.  I must admit I felt a bit scared and that's just 8m high, nearly a 1/3rd the height of the pyramid!  (Actually the King's Pentagram has been tied 70cm too high which reminds me not to leave the site for too long but we can correct that tomorrow)

The 13 pyramids around the pentagram are now finished but the most observant may notice that the corner uprights are not positioned yet, this is because we have to position the spoke beams first

A reminder of the Phase 1 objective below with the beams in the photo above highlighted

Remember, the objective of phase 1 is to state the project's size and position the Ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life and spiritual icon to so many.  This will spearhead our promotion as action speaks louder than words.  So when we climb the next 11m I wonder how long it will be before the media in Lima pay a visit?

12 January 2008

Arrival of first 20m beams

As work steadily continues on the main structure (with not much visual change) the site received it's first shipment of 4 x 20m beams of Masaranduba.  There are 16 of these in the pyramid.  Remember the sides of the pyramid are 40m - suddenly here, we are beginning to realise just how giant this building will be!  At 20m the beam bends easily but the iron will straighten it out later...

Thanks especially to our friends in the jungle for some staggering work.  One of the major challenges was navigating the first bendy jungle stream of it's journey.  I think that stream is now straighter than it was!  People had said that it wasn't possible to pull such a big beam from the jungle, that it was crazy.  Well, sometimes you just gotta ignore the critics and do the crazy thing.  I doubt if there are many buildings in the world using such large pieces of wood and that puts Peru's newest pyramid in the history books

The beams above will get paired up with the Japanese join below giving us our sides of 38.39m

We are dealing with some iron challenges currently, as soon as we get past this, the building height will start leaping for the sky - watch this space!

09 January 2008

Julio is 40 years old today!

Apart from that, not much news because since the last post on Friday only Monday and Tuesday were worked and we seem to be going thru another phase of working the detail.  The younger carpenters continue to create the diagonal uprights around the pentagram,  I have men continuing to tie rafts together ever more stronger using better rope, there are three guys cleaning Remocaspi full time, but one main task has been twisting and contorting the upper pentagram ready to receive it's iron crown - that's 3" x 3" iron angle which goes around the top and obviously requires everything to be dead straight.  (This is quite a challenge but I'm confident that by the end of this week we will have that)

A shot taken at 7:30am...

Remember, only the 4 by 4 SuperRaft under the pentagram is properly tied, the rest of the rafts in the lower half of the picture are just strung together temporarily.  You may notice that under the boat entrance on the lower pentagram there is now another mini beam strengthening that corner, in fact  I decided last night that we will add that on all the lower corners.  This is simply dovetailed in but massively strengthens a 108 degree corner without using any iron - remember the lower pentagram is underwater where I am trying not to use any iron. (The depth of water will be about 17" below the upper pentagram)

Esoterical News Flash!

Last night I stayed on site, it was a New Moon and I could see many stars.  Of course I was thinking about how we are going to lift the "King's Pentagram" (Smaller Remocaspi pentagram currently resting in the middle) and then join it to the 7m Remocaspis coming down to the Upper Pentagram corners - that's the next big challenge.  However, my mind was wondering as it does and from out of the design popped the number 13, I was wondering when she would show!  I was delighted to see this and I take this as a birthday present from the Gods, well why not? ;-)

So where is it?

Well, there will be 13 mini pyramids around the side of the pentagram swimming pool (3 per side but 2 lost to the boat entrance (3x5-2 = 13) - see first photo on 4th Jan).  This is a powerful position for 13 to manifest itself because it has placed itself right in the heart of the pyramid and intrinsically linked itself to the pentagram.  This horseshoe shape of fractal pyramids resonates with the ground plan of Stonehenge in the UK and I guess those guys knew what they were doing

The number 13 has shown itself to be a common quantity in groups of spiritual people - For example, Jesus and his disciples were a coven of 13, the priestesses of Avalon - the witch's coven.  I believe that we associate 13 with bad luck because around the time that the Christian church was burning many of the priestesses of the older Pagan faith they were demonising everything to do with Paganism including the number 13.  If you think of it, the older faiths aligned themselves with the Mother Earth and shamanism (spirit of the plants and animals) - the Church's distortion of Christianity resulted in a segregation of Mankind from nature which would go on to manifest in global; bad health, bad diet and mass disrespect for the environment, resulting in widespread disease and extinction

It was noted that the timing of 13's entry was on the first full moon of the year - (there are 13 moons per annum).  Other numbers that I have discovered (or intentionally placed)  are 2,

05 January 2008

Iquitos is 144 years old today!

Celebrations thrutout the day here in Iquitos

No work on the pyramid today I guess rain stopped play.  Wilder returned from the jungle with good news - we have another 4 x 20m beams cut.  Can you imagine these are beams of wood 6" wide by 6" deep and nearly as long as a swimming pool - and now to move them!

Last night an Ayahuasca ceremony helped some designs along regarding the entrance of the boats into the swimming pool.  The problem was to have the Western 7m Remocaspi maintain the same angle as the other 4 whilst not being able to meet the upper Massaranaduba pentagram because that space is opened to boats entering.  Yet again the Ayahuasca came up trumps and the design ahead is clear, in a few days you'll see that

04 January 2008

Sacred Geometry magically appears as "Woodhenge" is born!

Look at the picture...

You see the vertical uprights, they are there for compression (to absorb the weight above) so that the pyramid can land when there is no water.  The diagonal uprights are there for tension so that the lower pentagram can hang off of the upper pentagram in the water when the pyramid is floating (If you look closely at the joins you'll see what we are up to there).  The horizontal distance between the two vertical uprights is exactly one third the side of the pentagram and the height between the pentagrams is 1.3m which was carefully calculated because this allows the pyramid to have just the right number of plastic bottles to float 1000 tons

So, with the rectangle above dictated to by other factors it is a surprise that the two diagonal uprights form a triangle which has exactly the same angles (52 degrees) as the whole pyramid itself when viewed side on.  (This phenomenon also occurred when the balcony was designed).  This puzzles me and when I see this phenomenon occurring I appreciate that the design was from a higher intelligence than myself - i.e. channelled thru Ayahuasca ceremony (fact).  Shamanically speaking it makes sense to me that the pyramid wants to create fractals of itself thruout the rest of the building, perhaps this is to amplify the pyramid's power

Above you see the carpenters working with a smile.  The beauty of this building is just beginning to emerge.  The King's Pentagram above is ready to be hoisted up into the air as we make our bid for 7 big metres

In the shots above you can see the magnificent progress today,  the building is now a wood henge!  To the right there you can see the 7m Remocaspi beams that are now all stripped and looking wonderful

03 January 2008

The Pyramid is now 1.5m high!!!

Here Gordo, the site foreman, is strengthening the Super Raft with 1/2" nylon rope.  They are doing a really good job of this and so rather than the raft behaving like 16 x 4m² rafts it is acting more like a single 16m² raft

In the second photo you see how we are using the 6m iron angle to create a crane.  This enables us to lift the beams.  You can also see one of our maestro carpenters up there, he's now earned the name "Spiderman"

So, at last! - the pyramid has height!  One of the interesting features of The Great Pyramid in Egypt and of course this pyramid is that the mathematical constant of PI (written like this... П) is locked into the architecture.  This is because the height (H) of the pyramid times П equals twice the base side (S) ...

П x H   =  2 x S

Well you can also see from the photo above П is locked into the design in more than one way!

It was too late in the day for another photo when we finished work today but something beautiful showed up in the architecture, another piece of sacred geometry emerged.  I'll share this in the next News update

New Cooks

With now over 10 men a day regularly on site we decided to bring in help with dinner.  The ladies above provided a nice meal that the men were happy with

Spanish Translation

The News for December was translated by our friend Charlie yesterday.  Next Charlie will be translating the Shamanic Tour.  Thanks Charlie!

02 January 2008

Work resumes after New Year's break

We are now seeing different joins coming into play as the carpenters progress.  With the break just gone I am hoping we will see some vertical progress soon

I cannot wait to see the upper pentagram 1.3m above the lower pentagram.  From there the 7m Remocaspis will take us up to the King's

At the moment things seem to be moving slowly because the work is in the details.  I'll update this news again in a couple of days

December 2007