Six rows of three-string bales of straw, usually two feet wide, up to four feet long and maybe a foot and a half high, made up the north and west walls, perfect protection from the arctic winds that pummel the Navajo plateau, mid-winter. It's a dry wind that can sneak through just about anything except two foot wide straw bale walls.
 
A simple machine, pulled behind a pick-up truck, compressed native soil, some loose straw and enough water to dampen the mix, into a thousand mud-bricks, ten inches wide, four inches high and eighteen inches long, precisely. 
 
The mud bricks, stacked solid, glued with mud-mortar, faced the rising, warming sun, south and east.  
 
Windows, salvaged from a stick-built home, slammed down the life of a sheep-herding people, modified by the clan to house their flocks, not their children, windows, finally facing the rising, warming sun as they should, here, were set solid in the array of mud-bricks.
 
The design of the straw bale and mud-brick home came in the orange-blue of morning. 
 
I emerged, facing east, from the small and warm traditional Hogan.
 
In the billion diamond silence, the bright white light of the blizzard had spent its pack thick on the pony's rump and the many layers of thick wool blankets held tight on his shoulders. Shea Che, Respected Grandfather, sat watching his flock, bareback. His weathered brown face was lifted to the rising, warming sun, absorbing the freest of gifts. His face, east and south. His back, north and west and he seemed not cold.
 
He turned and smiled and waved, "Ya ah te shea keez".
 
I smiled and waved back and in the orange-blue of morning the design came.
 
Thick, insulating blankets of straw bale, north and west. Absorbing warmth, dark mud-brick, east and south. Windows, eyes, open and clear, opened the soul of the home, east and south, the rising, warming sun, radiating deep, penetrating fully, heating the ox-blood and linseed oil skin, red adobe floor.
 
And within the perfect thirty by thirty foot square of straw and dried mud and well placed glass, an eight sided scoring was etched forty five degrees into each corner, traditional Hogan. 
 
The simple hipped roof ended in a four by four foot, operable, pyramidal skylight, the smoke hole, traditional Hogan. Four by four is sixteen, twice eight, twice four, the four directions, traditional Hogan, sacred geometry, holy design.
 
The children's loft shaped the space, eight equal times, family, traditional Hogan.
 
Nizhona. Beautiful.
 
Sixteen years ago, the design came, radiating deep, penetrating fully, heating the mind of this red adobe floor.
 
And I get paid to do what brings me joy?
 
Wow.