Heart of Sun Temple, Mt. Shasta, California

designed by Rowena Pattee Kryder

In 1986 I received the inspiration to go to the wilderness and attune to Nature and Spirit as the "Taoist Immortals" told me in a vision of 1976. My artist friend Zenon lived in Mount Shasta, and I took many trips into the wilderness when I was still teaching in San Francisco at the California Institute of Integral Studies. the first place I saw was a 42 acrea piece that had a stream running year round for over a thousand feet through the land. Although I had very little money, and had not sold my house in Point Reyes where I was living at the time, I asked friends to make me a loan of $2000 each to sponsor a flag from a nation they felt resonant to. Hereby I received over 20,000. enough to make a down-payment. For Zenon and I had both received the same vision while meditating in the manzanita bushes: of a round Pavillion with flags of all nations around it. Soon after the building was started, I went to Yosemite and saw a couple who ere selling flags of all nations! I bought them, and after the building was completed for five successive years, we had flags-of-all-Nations ceremonies for the healing of all Nations. I was able to pay back flag sponsors when my house in Poitn Reyes sold.

During the construction (which took place between November, 1987 and April, 1988) I stayed in a tipi through the winter. That was an initiation, where I attuned to Nature and Spirit to an extreme degree. I wrote much of the Gaia Matrix Oracle book in the tipi. We had a ceremony at the time of the Harmonic Convergence, August of 1987 while I was camping on the land. This was a place where I could manifest my vision more fully: of having groups of people come for week-long or ten-day Intensives and go deeply into the Truth of ourselves and Nature and Spirit.

We continued these Intensives for 12 years when I received a called from Crestone, Colorado to create a new Sanctuary in a new place: The Grail Heart Sanctuary of Inner Life.

airview of Heart of Sun Pavillion (on right) and Garden (on left).	CHI pavilion and Mt Shasta
I designed the roof with 84 trusses, of five different kinds. 84 is the number of years it takes for the planet Uranus to circle the sun.	Capricorn mosaic tile floor in the north. Each zodiacal pattern is about 15' long and 6' wide
Cancer mosaic tile floor in the south	Libra mosaic tile floor in the west
The meditation room was dedicated to the "Mother of the World" which this painting shows	The whole building was designed around the meditation room, which was build on a platform 33 inches high
The beauty of Mount Shasta winters is awesome. I skiied in and out through the winter, parking my car 2.6 miles out because there was no snow plowing here in the wilderness	The day the trusses were brought in was like a medicine wheel. The four directions were placed first
White Eagle - inside tip	Group outside tipi
The tipi I stayed in during the winter of 1987-88 became later a glorious place for groups to meet. During my retreat I was solitary for 6 months.	Many Sweat Lodges were performed during intensives
We performed "Flags of all Nations" ceremonies every summer	The building of the platform/meditation room
We used masks of all the Gaia matrix Oracle archetypes in our enactments of out mythic journey.	Masks were made by Aroshn Gebrandzen
Some were inspired to created robes to enact their inner process	Participants had profound death and rebirth experiences during week-long or ten-day intensives
.  In 1993, we built a Retreat House with a commercial kitchen providing a place for groups to stay. This is a view out the eastern window toward Mt. Shasta	Part of the Shasta River ran through our 42 acres year round

Workshops and Intensives are now carried on in Crestone, Colorado at the Grail Heart Sanctuary of Inner Life