Colorado Yurt Wins Grant for Solar Power

Former State Senator Jim Isgar presents a symbolic check for $13,071 to the Colorado Yurt Company

Colorado Yurt Company has won a grant for solar power. Read their story to find out how these grants can work for you.

A Woman's Fine Arts Show Presents Passionate Yurt Traditions

Yurt in Kazakhstan

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art presents Daughters of Turan, Almagul Menlibayeva’s third solo exhibition of video and photography at the gallery. In the Steppes of her native Kazakhstan, Menlibayeva stages and films complex mythological narratives, with reference to her own nomadic heritage and the Shamanistic traditions of the cultures of Central Asia.

Daughters of Turan explores the emotional and spiritual residues of an ancient belief system as well as a historic conflict, still resonating among the peoples of Central Asia today, between the Zoroastrian ideology of former Persia, spreading widely across Eurasia and influencing Western politicians and philosophers and the Tengriism (sky religion) of the Turkic tribes, reaching as far as the Pacific Ocean. Tūrān, the ancient Iranian name for Central Asia, the land of the Tur, inhabited by nomadic tribes, takes center stage signifying the relationship between the male and the female principles ingrained in the stories, myths and ritual practices of a widespread population and its cultures.

The nurturing earth goddess Umai and favorite wife of Tengri, the god of the sky, much like Gaia in the Greek mythology, created life also gynogenetic, out of herself, and symbolizes the close relationship of the people to the land and its given riches, without agriculture, by animals and humans feeding off her body and drinking her milk. The elusive sky god Tengri, foremost living on in Christianity, where then becoming omnipotent, is here still in his adolescent phase – while Umai satiates the voracious appetite of her inhabitants, Tengri watches over her body, the plains of the great Steppes of Central Asia, playfully entertaining several other wives and fathering many children.

Menlibayeva reaches further into the psychological fabric of the people living today on the Steppes which their ancestors had traversed before they were forced to settle down, first by Persia and China to become peasants and in the 20th century by the Soviet Union in a cultural genocide. Umai, said to have sixty golden strands, still has her ‘daughters’ today, the female population, engaging in the same acts as their predecessors, symbolizing the circle of life, the most powerful Shaman symbol by making sure the circle remains undisturbed and intact, reflected in Menlibayeva’s video, Milk for Lambs. From this perspective, all men remain ultimately adolescent- feeding on the female riches, “When I look at the Steppe, it reminds me of my body, dry and in some places hairy,” referenced in all roundness of all things, “When I look at the round yurts and tables, they remind me of my breasts.” (lyrics, Milk for Lambs, Menlibayeva).

Best 1st Time Camping: Yurt Camping:

Yurt camping deemed ideal for first camping experience.

Colorado Yurts Needs Your Help to Help Haiti

The earthquake in Haiti has left thousands without shelter. The Colorado Yurt Company is producing and shipping tents to Haiti to help out, even before the figured out how to pay for them. You can help this project out by sending a check for a tax deductible donation made out to Colorado-Haiti Project. Send your check to

Colorado Yurt Company
28 W South 4th St
Montrose, CO 81401

More Info Here: http://info.coloradoyurt.com/bid/33872/More-Tents-to-Haiti-Wanna-Help

Phone Sam at 888.328.6494 or 970.240.2111 for answers to questions.

Thanks in advance for helping out.

David Cain's Yurt/Waitsfield VT

David Cain, with whom I am giving a yurt building workshop at Yestermorrow this coming June has designed and built a yurt, in Waitsfield, VT. Check it out! David is a thoughtful teacher, craftsman and designer, who has much to share with students.

Disaster For Mongolian Yurt/Ger People

Yurts more accurately are named"gers" in the Mongolian tradition. The following is from an article recently posted on Mongolia.

Reuters

SIMPLE LIFE: Mongolian herder's child play outside a tent in Gachuurt, around 40kms (25 miles) east of the capital Ulan Bator.

"Immense landscapes and warm hospitality make Mongolia an adventure like no other, writes Louise Southerden.

'Time isn't money out here," said our trip leader, the former Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Tim Cope. 'Money has no value on the steppe. Animals have value.'"

An awareness: Last week a freeze killed 20 million animals belonging to nomadic Mongolian People.

Three-q

The bottom line for many Mongolain Yurt/Ger people: For many, their wealth is gone. For many, their families are starving.

Another awareness: International Red Cross is making rescue efforts.

You can get involved with a donation to the IRC here: http://donate.ifrc.org/

Some details on what donations are doing: http://www.ifrc.org/docs/news/10/10021101/

A Tono Is A Yurt Roof Ring

From the Vancouver Sun today a report of performance arts under a yurt roof ring, a "tono" in the Mongolian Language. The tono is the eye of God or an opening to the heavens. In the time of the old ways, Mongolian shaman would ascend. spiritually through the opening to travel to the heavens in quest of solutions to life's challenges.

Home is where the yurt is Tono explores the power of Mongolian shamanism, horse culture and music

"Searching for a unifying symbol for a dance work inspired by and about the horse culture and shamanism of the nomadic people of Central Asia, Sandra Laronde found it in the most important place of all for a Mongolian: the home.

Wei Jie, Morigen, Caihong are dancers performing in Tono by Red Sky Performance. A wagon wheel-like ton hangs at centre stage.

The indigenous people of the region live in yurts, which are circular, portable homes that can be quickly dismantled and moved to a new camp. At the top of each yurt is the ton — pronounced with a long “ o” similar to tone. About the size and shape of a wagon wheel, the ton is both an actual and symbolic connection to the world beyond. It can be opened to look to the night sky or closed to keep out rain and snow. The ton also represents both the order of the universe and of the human mind. It provides the structure to keep society functioning smoothly."

Bruce Sargent

CEO/Author http://www.forloveofyurts.com

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