Anam Cara: An Invitation to Build the Spiritadobe Sweat Lodge
- Eric J. Reed
- Jan 29
- 7 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Anam Cara is a phrase from the Celtic tradition that means “Soul Friend.” The Anam Cara is a companion of the heart, someone with whom the bond transcends time, circumstance, and even words. Throughout my journey with earthen building, I’ve encountered soul friends at nearly every event. There’s something embedded in the DNA of this work—something magnetic and instinctual—that draws the right people together. Brothers and sisters. Some would call them their "tribe." With this next workshop, that pattern continues with even more intention than before. Because we are not just building a structure… we’re building a ceremonial space.
What We’re Building
The Spiritadobe Sweat Lodge
May 4th–May 18th, 2026
This workshop centers around the construction of a sweat lodge, featuring Superadobe and Hyperadobe earthbags, cob, and natural hydraulic lime plaster. Includes morning movement practices, clean meals, and a deeply nourishing community-building experience.
The vision for this space is to incorporate both functional and symbolic architectural elements from traditional Mayan Temazcal, Lakota Inipi, and Norwegian Schwitzhütte style saunas. This is an invitation to help build a unique ceremonial vessel that will offer a place of practice both personal and communal.
Techniques You’ll Learn
The structure itself will be a catenary dome, with a below-grade foundation, an integrated interior bench, and timber vigas. In the first week you’ll gain experience with both SuperAdobe and HyperAdobe techniques. You’ll get hands-on experience with each, and come away with insight into their respective advantages, quirks, and ideal applications. You'll learn proper site prep, bag layering, barbed wire integration, and get your hands deep in the earth. The second week will be devoted to finishing the exterior of the structure with a timeless, breathable, and beautiful natural hydraulic lime plaster.
Co-Guided by Valerie Østvik
I am honored to be co-guiding this workshop with Valerie Østvik, a dear friend, a sister in the clay, and an extraordinary earthen builder. Valerie is the founder of Terra Theta Building Company and the creator of The Lily, a post-and-beam cob ceremonial cottage right here in Kanab, Utah. The Lily features a stunning reciprocal timber roof and breathtaking plasterwork inside and out.
Valerie introduced me to the concept of the Anam Cara. She and I began our earthen building journeys at the same time, and it's been an incredible gift to receive a friend who shares my enthusiasm (read: obsession) about mud. Our first conversation was about natural building, and we'd started a club within probably a week. Since the day we met, we’ve inspired, supported, and catalyzed each other’s path. In fact, it was her idea to build this sweat lodge. Thank you, Valerie, for the nudge. It is a deep privilege to bring this vision to life with you.
The Land and Lineage of Workshops
This sweat lodge will rise on land I’ve been stewarding for the past five years in Kanab, Utah. It is the home of a budding permaculture farm and education center—a project that lived mostly in my heart and dreams until it began to manifest physically last spring.
The turning point came when Ashley Longnecker of Tiny Shiny Home—the day after we'd completed her daughter Adali’s dome—suggested that Hayden Annable of Curvactecture return from Australia to lead a workshop for me the following year. To my delight, he agreed.
Alongside Ashley and Jonathan, Hayden and Millie, and Nicolette from the Mojave Center, we welcomed 25 attendees and created something unforgettable: the Buffalo Domes.
That workshop sealed my fate in earthen building. You can watch the documentary below, and if you do, you’ll see me crying tears of pure gratitude. To those of you who were there... Ashley, Jonathan, Hayden, Millie, Nick... it was such an honor to receive your gifts here, and even more so to count you among my Anam Cara.
Why a Sweat Lodge?
Yes, the health benefits are real—deep heat therapy, detoxification, immune support. But this is about more than wellness. This structure is being built for rebirth, for transformation, and for the sacred mystery that lives within the dark.
In the Lakota tradition, the sweat lodge ceremony is known as Inipi, which translates to: “to live again.”
My First Sweat Lodge Experience
My introduction to the Inipi was while living in the Solola province of Guatemala, in a lodge that I attended almost daily for a number of months. One night, I had an experience that opened psychic doorways I didn’t know existed. It was the most horrifying experience I’ve ever had... and also the most empowering, transformative, and life affirming. It was terrifying and transcendent, devastating and deeply healing. That duality—of holding death and rebirth in the same moment—revealed something essential to me. It remains one of the most powerful memories of my life.
White Sage Landing and My Mentors
Back home, my practice deepened at White Sage Landing, guided by native elders Mike and Kathryn Sharp. Kathryn is, without exaggeration, a medicine woman—something anyone who meets her quickly recognizes. And Mike? His entire being is medicine to the western masculine. They are my allies, my teachers, and my family.
The White Sage Landing sweat lodge has helped me anchor what I first touched in Guatemala. It has helped me to begin remembering my truest nature. It has shown me sacred moments I won’t recount here, but know this: the sweat lodge has become my most treasured medicine, and I am now called to deepen that relationship with her, so I can bring that medicine into my community.
Mike and Kathryn have offered to join this event, bringing with them their humor, wisdom, stories, and ceremony. I can’t wait for you to meet them.
Participation Guidelines
Minimum Commitment: One Week
I normally invite drop-in guests, but we are requesting a minimum 1-week commitment for this gathering. This is for two reasons:
1. Protecting the Container
We are building a ceremonial structure. Earthen building can be, by its very nature, a container for transformation. We want everyone in attendance to feel safe, seen, and supported. Watching these communities form, these microcosms, is incredible to witness. To facilitate that, we are striving for continuity—familiar faces, shared vulnerability, and collective breakthroughs. These types of workshops always catalyze transformation. That’s the real reason people keep coming back.
If you're attending, please commit to either Week 1 (building), or Week 2 (plastering). Or, of course, come hang for the entire duration!
2. Capturing the Data
Valerie and I would also like to gather real-world data on what it takes to build a dome like this. Labor-hours, material cost, and logistical needs. These questions come up a lot, and our answers are currently pretty vague. As ambassadors of earthen-building, we are endeavoring to create clear documentation. That will be a lot easier with a consistent group who is equally invested.
Week One: Construction
Superadobe Dome: A circular, 10-foot diameter domed structure built from long, earth-filled fabric tubes. We’ll work in layers, using tamping and barbed wire to create compression and strength.
Foundation Below Grade: We’ll begin with a 2–3 foot excavation below ground level. This creates thermal stability and symbolic descent—mirroring the inner work this structure is meant to support.
Interior Bench (Hyperadobe): A Hyperadobe-style earthen bench will be integrated into the lower interior wall to offer seating during ceremony.
No Windows: The dome will be completely enclosed to preserve perfect darkness inside, essential for the deep inward journey that sweat lodge ceremonies often facilitate.
Vigas + Cleats: At about 8 feet above standing height, we’ll install cleats into the wall to anchor 16 vigas (wooden roof beams). These serve both symbolic and functional purposes—representing the sixteen great mysteries—while allowing us to cap off the space above and focus the heat downward during ceremony.
You’ll learn safe site prep, bag laying, barbed wire anchoring, and collaborative building methods.
Week Two: Natural Lime Plaster
We’ll apply a natural hydraulic lime plaster using the same method I learned on The Womb, a straw bale ceremonial dome in Virgin, Utah. This part of the build is slower and more meditative.
Why Lime Plaster?
Breathable and mold-resistant
Insect and rodent repellent
Water-resistant, yet vapor-permeable
Durable and beautiful
You’ll learn surface prep, mix ratios, natural pigments, and application techniques.
If we have enough people, we'll also begin sculpting the inside of the dome with a cob mix of sand, clay, and straw that has been used for millennia.
Final Words
This Project is A Gift, Not a Product
This is a free event. There is no cost for this workshop, because what we’re building is itself a gift to the land. But the event is also not open to the public—it is an invitation only event. Please resist inviting other friends without consulting either Valerie or Eric directly. You are welcome to invite your significant other, but they must commit to the same time frame and RSVP separately.
This sweat lodge will become a permanent ceremonial space on the land that I now steward. I can already sense the many past and future generations that will find healing here, and I am honored to be called as a facilitator in its birth. If you also feel called—if something in these words resonates with you—then you are already part of the vision.
I look forward to meeting you… or seeing you again.
With love,
Eric
If you're joining us, register here.
Eric J. Reed
The Duke of Dirt
Armchair philosopher, earthen builder, and aspiring regenerative agriculture practitioner at @aquarian.acres
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