THE AGEING ICE STUPA ON INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY (1st of May 2015) View Full Image

THE AGEING ICE STUPA ON INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY (1st of May 2015)

Today the 1st of MAY is a very special day for the Ice Stupa. As summer begins with the coming of May and the world celebrates international labour day the Ice stupa is slowly melting and giving itself away. And that’s the whole point! It melts nowadays and sheds 3,000 to 5,000 litres of water per day for the new trees.

Last year this same day we celebrated the success of the ice stupa prototype at the SECMOL Alternative Institute Phey. We had set 1st of May as the deadline for its success and to our pleasant surprise on this day the two storey prototype was still one storey tall. To celebrate the occasion we had invited Hiss Holiness Drikung Chetsang Rinpochey and His Holiness was so pleased that He immediately asked for a project of building real scale ice stupas to help green the deserts in Phyang village. Well the rest... as they say is history, and here we are, exactly one year later… the six storey ice stupa is still five storeys tall and irrigating many trees.

'Ice Stupa on 4th of April.''Ice Stupa on 18th April'

'Ice Stupa on 22nd April''Pilot Ice Stupa on 1st of May 2015'

Now for some fun, let me announce a betting...err sorry guessing game. Look at the pictures of the ice stupa as on 4th of April, 18th April, 22nd April and 1st May and then predict how long it would last this year. The day when the last piece of ice… the size of a cup melts, we consider that the last day of the ice stupa.

Last year all the students at SECMOL did this guessing game and it lasted till 18th of May, longer than most of our guesses.

So! Any guesses for this year’s ice stupa!!! Remember that the weather gets warmer at a very fast rate as summer advances.