This shows the "shell" pattern around the edge
with the stone wall showing beneath.

The shell pattern on the top.

While the cement was still wet we added smaller black stones as an inside border and then we added broken pieces of slate ( from our old kitchen floor). Then for a touch of magic we added some coloured glass stones. Zenzi and her son are shown here creating the "shell".

To start I used chalk to outline my design, then glued the light green stones on the top to form the borders of the shell pattern. Next we formed wet cement inside each border.
Zenzi is shown here smoothing the cement around the rock border.

I added a special piece of art for the top. This slab design piece of stoneware was
made for us by a visiting potter from Canada. She appeared to make the perfect "goddess" to be riding on the back of the turtle. Along with some other clay figures made by women in the circle, crystals and gems they were cemented in to finish off the entrance and top of shell.

A few years after the sweatlodge was "complete" I saw that she was shaped like a turtle and then

started to add the mosiac turtle shell on the top of the cement roof.