Filling
making clay balls
Once the precious substances had been wedged into the clay, it was rolled into balls. It took about 45 minutes to roll sufficient balls to fill one gTérbum, and after a few, the workers hands ached and they had sore spots in the centre of their palms. Ngakma Nordzin says with a smile:
With the hard labour of rock breaking, long days because of the kiln packing, and aching hands from clay preparation and ball rolling, we were all pretty exhausted by the end of the retreat. We laughed a lot – though sometimes a little hysterically!
After drying the balls slowly in the oven, they were gently poured into gTérbum that were complete.
