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Dear Friends,

Our big news at Tara Mandala is that Charlotte and Pieter's baby arrived on the afternoon of May 15, the Buddha's birthday. Mateo Kai Rotterdam Oosthuizen (Mateo for short), is now thriving on mother's milk, doting grandparents, and the pure air of Tara Mandala. We look forward to getting to know him and having the first baby living on the land; it's an amazing precious transformation and adjustment for Charlotte and Pieter. Thanks to everyone for holding them in their absence this spring during the birth. Pieter is now back and working, getting ready to receive summer staff.

Community Building Update
The community building continues to develop, the upstairs is almost finished, and the downstairs is being prepared for plaster and cabinets. We've had two gifts that will beautify and serve the community building for many years to come. Mike Schweitz from Durango Marble and Granite is donating a granite island for the kitchen, some side counters and the tea station in the dining room and Fran and Bill Reynolds from Captain Marble in Santa Fe are donating all the sink counters in the bathrooms, showers and the herb room. Great gratitude to them, this is a huge gift. We are also excited about Roma Inderbitzin coming from Switzerland to do the plasterwork inside and outside. She's a plaster artist and will be offering apprenticeships. We look forward to the celebration of the new building's completion the weekend of October 1-2: put it in your calendar! There will be feasting and teachings and practices.

On The Grid
We made the difficult and we feel sensible decision to bring electricity to the land. We discovered that the solar power for just the community building would cost $300,000, and then we'd have to do a whole installation again for the temple. This was so shocking that we looked into the cost of line extensions and found that we could bring in electricity for about $52,000. So although it requires a trench that will need to heal over, there will be no electrical lines and we will still use solar hot water and solar radiant heating of the floors, and energy conservation in lighting.

Manifesting the Mandala Continues
We are now beginning the process of designing the temple, library and retreatant housing and plan to have designs and drawings by the beginning of July, thanks to Stephen Forneris and colleagues in TPG Architecture, who flew out for a meeting May 21.
We still need major donations for the building fund: please note that you can now donate online on our webpage. Being a donor during the founding phase of Tara Mandala is great merit and a wonderful way to create a connection.
I had a wonderful tour in Europe, teaching six retreats in England, Germany, and Switzerland meeting old and new friends. More and more there is a feeling of community bonded by the invisible luminous threads of interconnected Sangha and many Europeans are coming to Tara Mandala this year or planning to come next year.

Kapala Training
We are beginning to formulate a training process based on Chod and Prajna Paramita teachings and feeding the demons called Kapala Training: we will soon be able to let you know how that will be formulated exactly, but there will be a Kapala Training retreat at Tara Mandala in the summer of 2006. The first training will be held at Felsentor Zen Center halfway up Mt Rigi in Switzerland, May 2-10, 2006. Felsentor (the rock gate) is located on the car-free Mount Rigi, perched 2400 feet above Lake Luzern surrounded by pastures and forests with a view of the high Alps. My trip to Europe next year will be much shorter including only a conference in Germany April 28-30 called "Collective Wisdom: New Perspectives for Resolution in Small and Large Group Conflicts, in Families, Social Groups and in Politics". Successful and promising participatory projects from current conflict areas such as Israel-Palestine, Eastern Europe, and Africa will be presented. For more information contact Tel. +49-(0)931-7840100, Fax - 7840101, Email: a.u.b.mahr@t-online.de.

Summer on the Land
We are looking forward to a wonderful summer at Tara Mandala starting with a really hands-on Ngondro Retreat June 18-26, Carre Otis' Yoga Workshop June 25-26, and then Green Tara June 29-July 3, and Chod on July 8-12. The rest of the summer schedule is on our website, but these are the first programs. We hope to see many of you here this summer.

Local News
Local news: Janet Hollerbush, who has been holding the fort in the office during Charlotte and Pieter's absence, and her husband Mike Horsey will be going on walk-about this summer wanting to live a wandering yogins lifestyle, but have bought a condo in Pagosa Springs and hope to stay connected to the growing Tara Mandala community. Janet will continue to help with computer and software questions. Blake Walton is moving from Massachusetts to take the registrar position and join the community. Tai Vautier and Robert Woods have bought land and are building a log home between Tara Mandala and town: this past Guru Rinpoche day we gathered there and did a consecration gana puja. It is a beautiful, peaceful spot for their family to live. Whitney Wolf is also buying a place in town and settling in. Claudia Webinger sold her psychotherapy practice near Munich to join the community and do extended retreat in Ratna cabin; she will be arriving in August. My son Cos, aka Osel Dorje, is now three months into his first year-long retreat in Dragon's Nest, loving being in retreat. He'll come out for Adzom Rinpoche's retreat, and then go back in until February, 2006.

We all very much look forward to Adzom Rinpoche's retreat this summer at Tara Mandala and feel blessed that he is coming all the way from Tibet to do this retreat. Please try to come to join us in August for Rinpoche's first summer retreat in four years.

May all be auspicious!
Tsultrim

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