The Pyramid Project
The Pyramid Project |
|
Daily News - February 2008
24 February 2008
"Art" section added to website An Art section was today added to the website in which project artist friends David Hewson and Lamda are featured. It is planned that the section will become a gallery of all the art in the pyramid
Iron workers recruited Two new workers were added to the payroll today. Jose and Guillermo. Jose is a iron maestro with experience building iron ships. The men will lead the group that build the outer iron skeleton of the pyramid
22 February 2008 Balcony Much work has been going on in the pyramid since we received more wood but I am waiting a few more days before releasing the photos so you get to see the progress in more of a jump. However, here's one of Emile making the balcony. The balcony is 88.88cm high, exactly twice the height of the meditation benches. The middle bar is 0.618, Phi, times this height and the small triangles are designed to resonate with the pyramid
19 February 2008 Wood arrives! Today our wood finally arrived so fair play to the men of the jungle for getting it here safely despite problems with the weather etc. The time we lost because the wood was late was not wasted because we worked on other important things
Immediately two teams got to work on stripping the bark of the 11m Remocaspis so they can get hoisted into position quickly
The wood isn't always exactly what we ordered but we have to work the best we can with what we have. Here you can see that ancient Japanese join finally being applied. Remember him?
Difficult to spot, well that's because it was made so tightly. Credit to Jerry for his carpentry skills and Teddy on the right there for helping navigate the two giant 20m beams together There are now around 60 people working on The Pyramid Project. 26 in the jungle headed by this man, Augustine...
(great job Augustine) and 26 working at the pyramid site. Others like myself have more administrative roles. Here's a gang taking dinner in the pyramid...
The space above will be an office, guard's room, toilet, shower and kitchenette once we get the walls in. It also houses a safe for the tools...
Upstairs from here will be my bedroom, at the moment the rope snakes around it like an Ayahuascan dream...
The roof above the stairs...
Now we have the wood we can build these external walls and raise the iron into position - then we will have a pyramid!
18 February 2008 Iron Arrives!!! Yippee, today we took delivery of 9 tons of iron which is now secured on site...
17 February 2008 Pyramid Artist turns the brush on me! Yikes, pyramid artist David Hewson has started a portrait of me. Here's how its going...
David starts with a drawing and then the painting comes - his speciality is gold leafing and entwining his subjects with esoterical content, which in my case is relevant to the sacred geometry of the pyramid
Well look if it isn't The Gringo Shaman who got in there first...
l will be making a promotion of David's Iquitos work sometime this week, having photographed it all. Remember David is the guy who is depicting the Incan Trilogy in gold in the Meditation Room of the pyramid for us
15 February 2008
Switzerland's Oldest Newspaper Here Today I was interviewed by Oswald Iten of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland's oldest newspaper. Hopefully the story will be published next week after Oswald spends time in Brazil - We wish him safe travels. We discussed the 7 missions in some detail so hopefully that will get covered - that aspect of the project wasn't covered by El Comercio. The interview is exciting for me because it is the first press exposure in Europe which is getting closer to my home, the UK!
Record Breaking Heights We have just broke another 2.7m which means the pyramid is now 2/3rds of it's destined height - We are now 16.3m or 53 feet high (that's height measured above the iron ring which itself is 1.5m high, this 1.5m will eventually be underwater). It will take us at least one more week to secure this gain but to really strengthen the last 11m we need the iron skeleton of the main pyramid in place. We are waiting for two more Remocaspis of 11m
Base 3/4 Done Late in the day, due to the delivery of our new walkway, we were able to tie more rafts into place which means we can see 3/4s of the base square now. The little swimming pools we have created will all get filled in with rafts but this will happen after we have the iron pyramid skeleton built. Remember in order to get the height as we build this giant skeleton we need to be able to float the central structure to different parts of the sides - only when it is done can we fill in the missing rafts and add the "Spoke beams". The Spoke Beams are 8 walls that connect the outer square with the inner pentagram. Due to the fact that it looks like Phase 1 will run late, probably at least by one month, I have decided to do Phase 4 in parallel with Phase 2 and Phase 3 - that way we can make back the time and keep the jungle operation of wood sourcing active
Rain Shelter Added In the last 48 hours much of the leaves have been added and so more of the rain is being kept out. We also dropped two more major anchors in the North-East and South-East corners. We can't add more leaves until the 2 x 11m Remocaspis are raised
Iron in Iquitos! Late in the day on Friday we heard that the project's iron has finally arrived in Iquitos. It will be delivered to the site Monday
Workers get massive pay rise We should also get a major delivery of wood on Sunday so I am stepping up the number of site workers to around 25 for three weeks. We have also made a much better deal for the 16 regular workers - they are understandably very happy with their 32%
The Alchemist Strikes
Not a brilliant photo but I am not satisfied with the gold spray we used and so my friend Marco is going to have a go using the same technology used when spraying cars - if he can do half a good job as he did on his jeep I'll be very happy - the Ankh needs to luminess as it calls out to the spiritual world
Laser Adjustments With the 11m being fixed in place vertically it is now essential that the structure is horizontal. To that aim each of the 5 corners had it's height above water level measured by a laser measure. It was discovered that the Western corner was still 5cm too high and so we need to adjust that. Also the laser measure has been used to accurately measure the Western side ready for when we do our first Japanese join on Monday
Plastic Bottle Experiment A bag of plastic bottles was placed under the walkway today. The experiment is to see if water will enter any of the bottles, some of which had their caps screwed on less tightly. The plastic bottle collection will begin after Phase 1 is complete and will be a major operation calling on a whole city for support - we need a million of them!
14 February 2008 Location, Location Location! - Thinking Ahead Thought today I would share some future planning with you. This is the location the pyramid is currently in:-
And here is the same view of Pevas Bay in different times of the year...
In the photo on the left the foreground green is grass but to the right it is floating vegetation. The plan is that by May 2008 and at the end of Phase 2 (Objective: "Health Restaurant running") we will relocate to the other side of the river. If we don't get out by then we could get trapped in the lake! I am also thinking that if we have enough money and the permission from the navy we can hook up with other local businesses that operate tours out of the Pevas Bay and together dig out (by hand) a 3m wide canal which would keep the lake linked with the river Itaya during October. The alternative boat trip adds 20 minutes which messes up the convenient connection of the city centre to the river - the local fishermen in the floating houses will also be pleased In August we will be floating the pyramid on plastic bottles. This means we will have an underwater depth of 1.5m so we need to be located where this occurs all year round. The pyramid is designed to land on flat ground because of the possibility of drought and the whole river drying up. Well by August, in the low water, we will be able to see where to locate the pyramid at exactly the best site for this. The location we have so far pinpointed is within 50m of this I believe
From the other side of the river the pollution and noise of Iquitos is 1.7km far away but only 12 minutes directly by a boat with a gentle 9HP engine (Speed boats operate over 35HP and could make the trip in 2 minutes but there is no plan to use one. The plan is we'll have two boats shuttling between the city centre and the pyramid crossing every 15 minutes punctually). The photo was taken at the proposed site looking West, back at Iquitos. Here again is the view of the site looking North-East with the pyramid superimposed:
It's a quiet spot and kind of tucked into a corner which is great for sheltering us from storms. There is currently a big issue with pollution (rubbish) on all the shores around the spot but obviously the project will have this all cleaned up as we get the volunteers we need on board. With the pollution gone the wildlife will flourish. The spot is also ideal for 15 minute trips directly into Belen, instead of heading West for Iquitos, Belen is more South-West
13 February 2008 Website Banner in place Today we added a 6m long banner to the site that displays the website. This is visible from the end of the Boulevard and we hope it will attract more people to this site
In other work the Ankh received much loving care as we smoothed it out and waterproofed it, the Midas touch can wait. Orison led a team adding leaves to the sides in our first attempts to keep the rain out of what will be the site office. Late in the day 67 more Topa arrived so we can build 3 more rafts. Hopefully later on tonight we will start to receive the massive shipment we have been waiting for these past 2 weeks. This wood has taken a month to prepare in the jungle and we are all excited to see it at last
11 February 2008 More Ayahuasca Guidance Last night I went to Don Guillermo's place and had a very powerful Ayahuasca ceremony. In the ceremony I was warned of how the central structure is in danger of flipping in the water because it started tilting after work on Friday. Today all men were sinking more balsa wood under the Eastern side to correct the tilting problem. By the end of the day the problem was fixed. We have had heavy rain today and I had to ask carpenters to swim in the river which has been cold for them - on Friday one guy got bitten by a piranha but managed to get out quickly before his blood attracted others. Thanks again guys - an outstanding effort
El Comercio print story Thanks to the reporters at El Comercio for printing the Pyramid Project's story in their Sunday paper. The report was well written with only a few minor mistakes...
You can see more closely how it appears here, it is written in Spanish of course Following soon on the Channel 19 Iquitos TV crew were at my home and they did a quick interview which is on their "Indirecto" show at 9pm tonight Web hits jumped overnight by 6 times in volume. We had some nice supportive emails and one couple have offered to help with the Forum Administration which is great news
Ankh taking shape Thanks to the team at the Iquitos aluminium boat building yard in the Puchano district for building the Ankh for us. Tomorrow we'll turn it in to Gold using an old alchemy trick I know!
To Emily & Jacob... I couldn't help smiling when I saw this today. "The Princesa Emily". PS. Now I need to find a Jacob one!
So how are we looking today... Like this. We are lacking wood and progress from now on will be slow until we get our next delivery (due a week ago and delayed due to low level rivers in the jungle)...
That looks like the Gringo shaman stopping by there!
Article Written for the Iquitos Times (Will be in the March edition) The Pyramid Project
By Julian Haynes Hi
I’m Julio an Englishman living in Iquitos.
The Iquitos Times asked me to write a few words about the pyramid I’m
building so here goes… Currently
the pyramid is being built in the water at the end of Pevas street but
eventually it will be towed to the other side of the river where it will be
visible from the Boulevard. It is
24.44m high and the four sides are 38.39m, so that makes it an exact scale model
of the Great Pyramid (1:6) It
is made of wood and some iron and will eventually be floated on 850,000 plastic
bottles – at the moment whilst we are still building this platform the pyramid
floats on balsa wood logs. These
are made into 4m squared rafts and there are about 100 of them There
will be 7 levels on the pyramid which are each 2.71m high. The 7th level, the Mediation Room, is 8.15m high.
This room will depict the Incan trilogy in gold leaf with a 2.7m high
glass apex that depicts the four shamanic elements. (Artist David Hewson or
Slocum to friends: www.davidhewsonart.com).
On the top of the pyramid there is an Egyptian Ankh which is 2.222m high
(that’s exactly 1/11th the height of the pyramid).
The Ankh is the ancient symbol of life and the pyramid is a celebration
of life. 11 is for new beginnings
but there isn’t the time to get too far into the numerology here Inside
the pyramid there is a 12m (aprox diameter) pentagram swimming pool – this is
just a sheltered opening to the river, no chlorine here! If you swim the 6.4m to the centre of the pool and look up
you will see the light entering thru the apex of the pyramid.
This light will be dispersed thru the pyramid using crystals of varying
refractive indexes. Wind chimes in the Mediation Room give voice to the breeze There
is no smoking or alcohol consumption on the pyramid and music must be thru head
phones. The pyramid is a peaceful
and sacred place and a shrine to shamanism.
No smoking and shamanism, can it be true? Well, some shaman such as Don Juan out at the airport do not
believe that blowing smoke is necessary to evoke protection – this new way is
making the break and may be evolving shamanism to something better.
Shamanism is alive here in Peru and it is the job of living shamanism to
evolve shamanism not just preserve it One
criticism I hear of shamanism over and over again is that the shaman seem to be
too much in the ego and non spiritual beings – well they haven´t had the
benefit of 20 years of New Age thinking but what they do have will take the New
Ageists into the next dimension. Whilst
the shaman´s quest may be to loose the ego and unite as a single world
political force, the spiritual tourist´s treat is to gain the real proof of the
existence of higher intelligence (God?) and actually visit the esoterical
dimensions rather than just relying on “positive thinking” and gratuitous
blind faith to get thru life The
pyramid will contain a theatre that seats 500 people, a gymnasium, an internet
café, a health food restaurant, a lecture theatre, an artisan shop, 2 juice
bars, 37 hotel rooms, 2 dormitories, 2 small apartments, offices and will be my
home. The building will breath with
a mesh of intelligent ventilation shafts that use AI to catch the breeze and
bring it inside. The interior will
have monkeys, birds and butterflies along with lots of vegetation.
The 7 levels represent the 7 chakras – the building is alive On
a 7 day cycle the pyramid will bring in about 70 tourists who will experience a
personal development holiday. This
will teach them about a good diet, how to motivate themselves better, how to
empower themselves emotionally and finally leads them towards a knowledge of
shamanism. Films like “What the
Bleep “ and “The Secret” will be shown in the min cinema. On the penultimate night a boat trip will take them into the
jungle where, if they choose , they may learn the shamans’ secret The
restaurant prices, the gymnasium and internet will be kept low so that
Peruvian’s can afford to enjoy the pyramid as well as the gringos.
It is an important principle of the project to mix tourists with the
locals of Iquitos. Every 15 minutes
free boats will shuttle visitors across the river.
There is a 2m wide entrance for non gasoline boats so that they can reach
the swimming pool inside. It is
hoped that one day a dolphin will visit. Already
on the construction site a dolphin was spotted 100m away which in the Pevas bay
is very rare – perhaps they can sense some magic in the air The
lecture theatre will donate 2 hours a day to the local universities to get
students out the city heat for a few hours a week.
It is a goal to have good quality pantomime theatre in Iquitos by
Christmas 2010… oh yes it is…. The
pyramid will encourage local Gringos to provide trance dance, massage, tarot,
acupuncture and other such arts in the pyramid. The pyramid will be a meeting ground for the thinking person 75%
of the money from the pyramid is being donated to 7 missions.
These are: 1)
Find a renewable energy source that
is cheaper than gasoline.
We will use esoterical working methods to boost this research 2)
Convert 20,000 of the Iquitos taxi
cabs to electricity and lobby the local government for a 15 block gasoline
exclusion zone in the city centre.
(Fights air pollution and noise pollution because electric engines are
quiet) 3)
Educate the people of Iquitos about
Health and Medicine and reverse the obesity trend in a modern city 4)
Rebuild the district of Belen in 3
stages. A) Pollution cleanup, B) Rebuild houses and infrastructure C) Create a
World Class Sailing Boat industry 5)
Create a “Keep Peru Beautiful”
TV campaign to fight littering 6)
Create a mechanism for getting
people off the streets and back in the jungle 7)
Create a spiritual mechanism for
preserving and uniting shamanism and spreading the “connect to nature”
message globally The
other 25% of the money will pay off the investors The
pyramid will be finished by 9th September 2009. It will be floated by 8th August 2008.
7-7-7 was an important date but that’s a secret, you’ll have to ask
me about that in person if you catch me hanging around! In
the next few years Iquitos will become the spiritual capital of the world.
If good vibrations were felt in California ’69 then get ready for the
tropical tycoon coming soon. From
the centre of the most bio diverse land mass of the world the answer to the
worlds problems will be realised. The
nonsense of the current situation will be forgotten as mankind enters the New
Age with the confidence and identity to reach for the stars and a beautiful
world to offer our children
08 February 2008 Creating the Ankh Today I started working on the Ankh. This is exactly 2.222m high and 1/11th the height of the pyramid. The width is 2.222m x 0.618 = 1.373 where 0.618 is Phi the number Fibonacci discovered. The Ankh below is the template which will be used to cut two pieces of aluminium sheet. In between the sheets I think we'll make the Ankh a few inches thick and inside it will have a lightening conductor. The Ankh will be painted gold or gold leaved and positioned on top of the pyramid, in fact the objective of Phase 1 is to position the Ankh
The Ankh is the ancient Egyptian symbol of Life Thanks to my friends Estella (Peru) and Manuel (USA) for their help this morning There has been lots of other progress in the last two days, I'll get some more photos on Monday as it's been a busy day
06 February 2008 11m Remocaspi making it's way skyward... Now we can start to appreciate the height of the pyramid better because we are moving one of the 5 11m Remocaspis into position. This Remocaspi is 11m long and will stand vertically above the central structure. Right now it still has one floor to go. The top of the Remocaspi is 16.3m above the first floor (which will eventually be just 40cm above the water) - right now it is actually 18m above the water. The top of the Remocaspi will meet the floor of the meditation room but don't forget the Mediation Room is itself a further 8.2m high
You can see that the Central Structure is sinking again with the additional weight and so it is time to get more Topa underneath. The 16 rafts under the central structure are working hard and so once we get the iron pyramid girders creating the sides of the pyramid we can start to hang weight from the top of it to lighten the load on this Super Raft
Orison has been busy getting stones in bags ready to add more weight to our anchors. This is in anticipation for the wind having more surface area to blow against on the pyramid
Emilio has done a great job of adding the 6m diagonal supports to the corners - these two corners are now dead on 90 degrees
05 February 2008 We'll be climbing the stairway to heaven... Great progress this week but still no sign of wood from the jungle. We are desperately low. Here is a view of the central structure:-
Take note of the beautiful stairs - great work from Jerry and Pablo here:-
The stairs leading from the site office...
This floor will contain the site office (which will also be the headquarters of the shamanic tour housing 4 or 5 desks assuming we can hook up internet), a bathroom, a tea kitchen and a mini bedroom to house the site guard
Now the workers are adding the floor above which will be my bedroom for the next year...
As we add more weight and soon vertical areas such as walls and leaves it is important to add more anchorage:-
Two corners of the pyramid are also being worked intensely at the moment. This is one of the 6m diagonal dove beams that strengthens each corner
Pyramid Project Web Community is born The web forum is now up and running thanks to one of Matthew's friends in the States. Please feel free to post away. I'll check in there from time to time
02 February 2008 Iquitos Carnival Today Iquitos celebrated life with the annual jungle carnival. Click on the picture to see more photos
The reporters from El Comercio stayed in town for the weekend and went to visit the Gringo Shaman!
01 February 2008 Wow! Everything is going well and we can now see the size of half the pyramid...
Floor The temporary floor is nearly complete and tomorrow we will work on the floor above. Remember we are building a temporary home and site office. The stairs we add here will carry the restaurant visitors up to the spiral staircase. All of this will be removed in November 2008 at the end of phase 5 when the Western stairwell is built
El Comercio newspaper here Today reporters from Lima were here to take a few shots and talk about the project. I hope I didn't scare them off when I started talking about the aliens guiding the design! El Comercio is the biggest, serious newspaper in Peru and they said that the story might make their weekend addition next week. So I guess that means I'm gonna be famous here which will be great fun!
|
|
|
