I have been instilling in my son a fascination for architecture since he was two years old.  Who knows what path he will take, but architecture intrigues me and the things he learns through experiencing architecture through me will give him tools for his own path.  I know it is only a short time that I can live vicariously through him being my little architect.  

I have this desire to find a large patch of mud and crawl into it like a varmint.  I can just imagine the goopy wet mud oozing all around my body.  I turn in my little mud cocoon until my face faces the hole I crawled in at.  I then start to open the hole wider inorder for me to be able to access air.  I pat and stretch the mud at the opening and like playdough it conforms to my wish.  Now I start patting above my head and all around.  Soon my little cocoon is firmed up and I am no longer surrounded by ooze.  Instead I am in a little cave I have formed out of the mud.  Being curled up like this in this cozy place is fine for now but soon my body muscles will ache for the ability to move.  My magic play like mud stretches as I will it. I arch my back and push up ever expanding the height of the cave, until I can no longer expand it on all fours.  Now I push up with my two arms above my head.  Here a little there a little creating the perfect dome from the inside out,  it is now stretched to the point that I can stand all the way up inside.  If I were outside my cave I would see it mounding up above the ground.  Now I start pushing and padding the dirt back on all sides, ever expanding the mud house out wider.  When I am all done I have molded a perfect gathering place out of nothing but mud and my hands.  It reminds me of the sweat Hogan I visited in highschool  with my best friend while her mother was going through "a phase"

If only it were this simple to make a earthen home, dive in the mud and start molding it.  But maybe I can recreate something like this experience for my son, and my daughters also if they are interested.

Maybe we can have an experience more like the mud experience I remember from my childhood.  My oldest sister Julie was sick in bed for a long time and getting rather mentally tiord of the monotony of it all.  She almost begged me and my other older sister Linda to entertain her.  Linda turned all giggles and suggested we play silly in the dirt.  As if this was a pattern, and she was wanting to recreate an experience she had before.  She ran outside with glee and I followed in great anticipation. 

Julie was leaning out her bedroom window which was the perfect height to look out off the top of her bunk bed.  Silly in the dirt began.  Linda did any old funny thing she could think of and I followed suite.  We knew we were actually doing something that would frustrate my father very much.  But Julie was in so much need of entertainment and the dirt was so warm and soft.  Every year as soon as it begins to get warm dad breaks out the monster machine his rottotiller and wrestles it around the garden inorder to churn up the dirt and make it nice and soft for planting.  Once the garden is tilled the ground smells so wonderful and the dirt is so soft it would tempt any child to play in it.  But we know from past years that to touch newly tilled dirt is to bring on the wrath of father,  which must not have been to bad for we were risking his wrath just then.  Within a few days of the tilling mother would landscape the garden just as she liked by making vegetable mounds and pathways.  Once the pathways are made we could walk on them, and only them.  But this silly in the dirt was breaking all the rolls and a large section of beautifully tilled ground was being well trampled. 

As if that was not bad enough, Julie was laughing gaily and we were heartedly encouraged to continue in the silly fun.  The water hose inspired us and we started doing silly in the dirt with water works.  This was a pattern I knew well.  We manipulate the water coming out of the hose into any fancy shape or high sprayed stream we can in order to make it look like fire works.  What jolly fun we were having, then oh joy.  What should we find under our feet but, what else, mud!  Lovely warm inviting mud.  The worlds most delightful mud fight ensued.  Julie egged Linda and I on while we covered each other from head to toe in the lovely brown stuff.  Then we turned on Julie and started to try to hit her inside the window with mud.  Thankfully the window leaned out at a tilt and provided quite a bit of protection for her.  But it did not protect mothers brick wall on the exterior of the house from being covered in the lovely mud.  Oh the glee, oh the fun.  

This mud fight quickly turned into mud wrestling between Linda and I, no longer could one spot on our bodies be found that was clean.  All was fun and delight, we started shampooing each other hair with mud, making sure it got in good and deep in our hair.  The perfect mud bath.   Towards the end of our play I threw mud at Linda while her mouth was open and she was laughing, the mud ball went right into her mouth, and she still had the good humor to laugh after it.  Linda started to wash her mouth out with water.  It was getting dark and we were getting cold.  I ran in the house tracking mud every where and found some towels.  Then I ran then outside to Linda so we could clean up and wrap up in the warm towels.  We hosed each other off, and wrapped ourselves in towels and went inside the house still laughing.  Promptly we both took long showers in to get all that mud off our scalp.  In the end we were curled up on the couch good and clean, and happily watching a movie, not a care in the world.  

Never mind that when my mother came home she would be dismayed at the mud tracks through her house, the left over mud in her shower, and the mud now hardening into the cracks of the bricks.  Never mind the fact that we made a mud mess of over half of the garden, and not only would dad have to re rot but he could not until all the garden dried up, some of it was wet more then two feet down.  I do not remember my parents response, though I can imagine it now,  but I do remember the good muddy fun.

I want to have a patch of dirt somewhere where my kids and I could get messy as we experimented with different forms of indigenous building.  Alas I do not know where such a thing will come from.