The cell I loved most was the most simple. It was called a hut. I called it the Swiss Chalet hut, shaped like a very small chalet with peaked roof (to shed the incessant rains of our Kauai, Hawaii, locale) that one crawled into through a door less than three feet high. It was like the tube sleepers in Japan airports. You literally crawled in on your knees, after removing your sandals outside, cleaning your feet, bustling up your robes and stepping up two wooden steps. You learned to quickly slide back the door's bolt, swing the door open with lightening speed and crawl/jump into the spare futon mattress that was right at the edge of the door. The idea was not to let the mosquitoes in. The little chalet was made entirely of redwood and sat on stilts off the ground to bring its screened windows up to the trade winds that during certain seasons would be a cooling blessing of delicious comfort.

The chalet was eight feet long and three feet wide, and about 4.5 feet high at the peak of its roof. Screened windows ran the full length of the long sides and were over two feet high, coming down to just above where your body lay when you were sleeping. Screens were also punched high in the front and back walls of the hut. The affect was to allow as much of the air flow through, and especially the trade winds when they were up. The stronger Kona winds from the south in winter would blow against the hut's sturdy door, and tropical storm force winds would literally rock the hut like a pitching boat. The chalet hut was placed by itself in a thick forest of very tall swamp mahogany with heavy, brittle branches, rainbow eucalyptus and allspice trees. A camphor tree was also nearby. The aromas kicked up by breezes and stirred by temperature rises were rarified in softness, relaxing to a wearied body and acted as a sleeping incense as I lay in the tropical purpley darkness. I never burned incense out there. Partly because you didn't need it. And partly because it was a monastery rule not to burn incense in the huts. There were about six of these huts scattered around 20 acres of property. One evening smoke and the just-starting orange tendrils of flame were coming out of one of the caboose-type huts and several of us ended up racing at full gallop for fire extinguishers and heading back to the hut in offroad small vehicles to spray it down with foam. The hut came through fine and was easily repaired, and it was determined unattended incense had been the cause.

On the right side of the hut was a box frame for two shelves that stored my books, citronella mosquito repellant (a constant companion wherever I traveled), rosary beads, a small meditation altar, a lighter, strands of a mop for wicks and a bottle of vegetable oil. There was no electricity in any of our huts or cells. No lights. No fans. I didn't miss the electric lights. I did miss the fans. Rather than candles we used oil lamps, dipping a thick wick into vegetable oil, learning how to place it in an upright position so it would burn brightly for hours and not slip into the oil. They made little smoke, but one of the occasional chores was to clean the hut and screens of oil soot. I would read and study philosophy, metaphysics, stories of exceptional spiritual people and circumstances, history and science-the flickering light of the oil lamp casting deep shadows throughout this small enclosure while the entire sounds of the forest in its evening-into-night phase came in in pure stereo through the left and right screens.

To be continued.

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