Pebble Garden

Imagine, creating soil out of nothing.
This is essentially what "Pebble garden" does.
200 million years ago, the land around Auroville was rich tropical forest. Eventually, the British and French came, and settled a small town called "Pondicherry". They had issues with the tigers and elephants, so they cleared an area of 10 kilometers to prevent the animals from coming into their settlement.
However, tropical land and growth is very fragile, and can easily erode. With the monsoons, the topsoil can easily get washed away, and then no plants can grow. This is what happened to the land all around Auroville. From the deforestation, vast desertification was caused.
So now, the land we are left with here is thousands of years of layers washed away, and the result is pebbles. We are in an ancient riverbed.
The only trees that can grow in this terrain are Australian acacias, which somehow got introduced to the area along the way.
The only problem is, we can't eat these trees. So, the folks at Pebble Garden have tried to figure out how to reforest their land, using ONLY materials from that land itself. Otherwise, the 50 million acres of desertified land across India would have to be supplied with soil from elsewhere, and this doesn't solve the problem.
So these people decided to study the land. They noticed that termites are the best example to follow. Termites climb inside trees, and eat the bark. They then produce earth, or soil. So the PB folks used this method essentially, working with what they have:
They took the Australian acacia trees, grew them in flower beds, and as soon as they were grown, cut them down. Then they chopped them into little bits, and soaked them for a day. They then spread a layer of the chopped trees down on their garden bed. (Similar to fallen leaves). They then spread a layer of silt on top, which they collected from ponds they had built. (This layer of silt develops over time from rain and things getting washed into the ponds over time- don't ask me how they figured this out!!) They then repeated this many times, until they had a bed of 9" of shredded trees and silt. Then they let it process for 3 months. (Things in the tropics grow 100 times faster than other places!)
SO, from this process (it is really simple!) Pebble Garden now has an incredibly diverse garden, and they are invested in maintaining traditional crops. They have many different types of eggplant, tomato, and many other crops, which unfortunately are going out of use. This is because the large corporations that want to sell food for profit use mainly GMO, which are resilient to the pesticides that they use. This not only narrows down the type of crop produced, it also harms US. WE put these pesticides into our bodies through the food, and there is no way to time-test the effects of these pesticides. Who knows what could be the outcome of GMO food in 50 years...
Unfortunately, Obama made a deal with India to pass along the US's GMO technology. (NOOO!) So essentially, Pebble Garden is working to fight this monopolization and narrowing of crops, by growing diverse types of crops traditionally grown in India, and distributing 5000 seeds per year to many different farmers. They grow most of their crops for seed.
And imagine.... they began this in 1994 with no soil, and now look at what they are doing! This is truly inspiring.
And the best thing they said was, "Anyone can garden!"

Sat Chit Ananda, Street Theatre and Ecological Spirituality

Well it is certainly hard to follow up that last blog. That was definitely an intense experience, which has continued to affect me.
I want to say thank you also, to everyone who is staying with me and continuing to read my blog! It makes me feel so warm and loved to read your comments! :) You really are going through this with me.
I have been extremely busy recently, doing some amazing things- making raw food with Anandi is one experience I have been drawn into powerfully. She is a magic-mama in the kitchen, and is full of wisdom, laughter, lightness and warmth. I am learning so much from her every day I go. She has decided to name her raw restaurant "Satchitananda". Sat means truth, Chit is consciousness, and Ananda means Bliss. the restaurant is planned to open in 6 weeks. I am excited to be a part of its grand opening.
The other day at Anandi's, we went for a nature walk to learn about some of the local plants and their medicinal and nutritional qualities. Before we even stepped foot off the property, Anandi said, "And now we must begin here. You have to learn, to start in your very own backyard, to find the abundance which awaits you." We found so many plants, and she had a story and information for all of them. Afterwards, we put all our greens into a yummy green juice with pineapple. Before eating and drinking each day, we all hold hands, feel our gratitude rising within us, and OM together. I swear, treating food as such a spiritual, communal ritual makes me so deeply happy. I wish that we treated the food we put into our bodies as more sacred all the time. If we don't, how can it really fulfill us? Food is not simply physical fuel, it is our greatest connection to the material world, and to nature. What we put into our bodies from the earth IS sacred, and to give it energy, blessing it and respecting it brings such a beauty and power to the interaction. It makes me feel fulfilled on an emotional, energetic, and even I could say spiritual level.
This morning I spent my time in the village. I am planning to make a video documentary illustrating the beauties of village life. This project is working with Balu through Mohanam. However, I feel overwhelmed, because I don't have much filming experience, and this feels like a really big project! However, I am taking it bit by bit, and trying to portray what I see as artistically, honestly, and accessibly as possible. I have been working with this wonderful woman Sudha, who is a teacher at Mohanam. She has been my tour guide and translator essentially, bringing me everywhere I want to go in the village, and making connections so that I can talk to the villagers. She is eager to help! So today, I was fortunate enough to interview a street theatre artist. He has been doing it for 30 years, and talked spiritedly about his work, the problems with modern culture (film is becoming more important, and street theatre is declining), and his work teaching the children of Mohanam the craft. Then I was lucky to film some teenage boys perform some street theatre. I didn't understand what they were saying, but it was really fun! They have raised money to go to Thaliand next week for an international music festival. They will perform some traditional Tamil drumming and dancing there. I am excited for them!
I have also started classes with my group. Our main class is called"Nature, Spirit, and Political Theory". It has been really interesting so far. OUr group is the most diverse yet according to Karen, our teacher. We come from all kinds of different backgrounds spiritually; we have a couple of Christians, a Muslim, a couple of Buddhist-aligned people, a couple of Pagan-aligned people, some atheists, and many mixed or confused people. We all agree though that we are here to find ourselves spiritually. However, when discussing such things as how religion can relate to ecology in the face of this huge environmental crisis, some really deep values are put up for questioning, and it is hard to keep an open mind without being so attached to your own view. It has been really great so far though; the group is really tight-knit, and we all enjoy spending time together. I look forward to continue bringing up questions about ecology, and how we can relate to the earth and the material world from a more spiritual standpoint. As it is, things like politics and the environment are dealt with from a very rational point of view; but perhaps belief could be essential in re-framing our relationship to the earth. Because one thing is obvious: our consumerism has to change. As Karen puts it, we are living in a system that is linear: from mining resources, to production, to consumption, to waste. However, nature works in cyclical patterns. Thus, we are living in a system that has violated the patterns of nature. We have to learn how to round the corner of our linear system, and simplify our own lives so as to work in tandem with our Earth. What is needed is a change of consciousness. Then we will realize that MORE does not actually make us happy. Then we can practice contentment, and focus our energy instead on striving to live in alignment with Nature.
But what drives us most is our beliefs. These are deeply held. So to examine them, and see what we hold as most important in our lives, is essential.
I am really tired right now, so I hope this all makes sense. :) There are many more details I could go into, but I hope this gives you a little overview of some of the things I have been doing.
As always, I am thinking of you and holding you all in my heart. :) Be well!

My Heart is still Burning and Pulsing Right Now.

Some people take LSD. Some people read Sri Aurobindo.

This is my outlook about 20 minutes after having a significant experience.

My group and I went to talk with Shradavan, a woman who runs Savitri Bhavan. It is a center built from a poem by Sri Aurobindo, “Savitrti.”

I had no idea who the woman was. But when we all gathered into a basement room in a circle and she asked us to tell her our names and what we hope to find in Auroville, I instantly thought, “Oh, great; this is what- the tenth time we have to do this, and I don’t feel like it. Can’t she just tak with us and be happy?” So I automatically held a minor, superficial annoyance with her.

However, when she began talking, I unfortunately- and fortunately- couldn’t help but pay more attention.

She has been in Auroville since 1970. Auroville was founded in 68, and the Mother died in 73. She is the oldest Aurovillian I have met. It wasn’t this that got me, though. It was how she began to explain the philosophies of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Again, when she began speaking, this weird feeling came over me; before today, I have held a perception that some of the older Aurovillians I have talked to seem already dead. They seem so disattached from many human desires perhaps, that they seem perpetually out-of-body. It freaks me out; I get an eerie, dry-wrinkled-carboard-skin-lifeless feeling from it. I really don’t know how to describe it better…. Like time has already gone, they are no longer here, they are so “higher consciousness”.

However, this time, while I noticed this feeling coming on, I decided to try to keep an open mind, and see if I could figure out where this feeling was coming from, and WHY.

This woman’s energy was SO calm. The things she talked about – that evolution is not finished yet, and that Auroville is a place to look toward to future, are pinpoints of what makes me feel weird. I directly related this to my readings of Echkart Tolle, which I hold very important in my own spirituality. While this woman was saying that our spirits and centers exist inside of us, there is this focus on the future. I thought, if we have spirit inside of us, why do we have to look toward the future? Why can’t we focus on accessing this higher consciousness right here, right now? Why not move from where we are? This focus on the future seems to be a really disconcerting and disconnecting ideal to me, and I think it is part of what creates this feeling inside of me that is SO strange and squiggly-yucky-removed.

Then I dove in- I went straight into an Alex Grey painting. I began realizing, these things she are saying are’t invading me. They are more like slithering snakes on the outside of my being, which is a vibrant, colorful DNA strand constantly spiraling. These snakes are on the borders of Me, but they are not trying to invade. They are just eerie, reminding me that they are there. And what are they made of that makes me feel so weird? Mystery. It is precisely that the philosophies of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are so non-existent in a sense that I feel so uncomfortable; it is because I don’t know.

They say no religion in Auroville. So it is easy to mistake their philosophies for a new kind of religion. This is not what they want. So I realized, maybe I am used to people tryng to get me to see a certain perspective when they talk about spirituality and religion and philosophy; maybe I am used to putting up this defense, very subconsciously, because this is what people are ater- to relate through a common understanding. Yet, this is different…. Maybe this is the freedom to choose.

There. From then on, I stopped feeling like I was being threatened by these ideas to come away from myself, but rather I was being invited to not listen to the words, and find my own connection. It was this super weird, twisted way of making me come about to realizing that I have my own connections to make. I have to fight to keep my center. These words, you have to read in between them. Maybe some people don’t, but as soon as this thought crossed my mind, I began to break the social code of being still while listening to this woman talk, and I began the simple movement of rolling my head.

Wow. This was a physically noticeable change in a super crazy state of awarenss already; I felt instantly connected with myself, and instantly, this weird, eery, heady feeling of looming disconnection and impending specific, different spirituality morphed into a warm, tingly buzz in my stomach and feet. Instantly, I dropped into my center. Then I felt like I was going to cry.

YES. I had found myself.

I went back into the Alex Grey painting, and this time I really just felt that my being at this moment was the huge, colorful, spiraling DNA sequence. It was my energy. I remember actually thinking, “Wow, I have just made a significant leap in consciousness.” I felt like I was witness to a whole huge deep shift of awareness that happened right before my eyes.

Then I started to warm up to the lady, and to the ideas of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. “Maybe this is precisely what this is,” I thought. “the opportunity, the invitation, to get out of yourself in order to hold stronger to your values, to your core, and in doing so, in being reminded of the great mystery, shed what isn’t important, and cling with your life to your very being.”

This was very intense. So after this movement though, I began to listen with a more open mind to the words, and some of them made more sense to me.

What a strange, subtle, thing energy is…. And I thought, after so long in this Intense pace of Auroville, I am sure that this woman has mastered some of her own understanding! So yes, it is good that she is having such an effect on me.

So after I got out of the room, I was on a mission. To do what? TO write some of these thoughts down….. and then, I really honestly truly realized I was having a significant psychadelic experience, and I didn’t even take drugs….

So then I realized, “Hey. If the Mother is saying that you have the freedom, and you can take your own power, then what is it you want to do”?” So I put my bag and shoes down, and began to dance. I think that was a significant choice.

So anyway, this whole account is really stream-of-consciousness, because it just happened. So I understand if some of you DON’T understand!!

HOWEVER, I guess that’s it.

Amazing Morning and Tibetan Monk Inspiration

Oh my god, I had so much fun today!!!
My groupmate Richie and I went off on an adventure bike ride, in search of the Mohanam Cultural Center. We had driven there before, but it is located deep into curves of a local village, so we actually ended up going about 30 minutes out of our way.
But it's okay! When we finally arrived, after many cows and MANY different sets of opposing directions from villagers, we were graciously and excitedly welcomed by Baloo. He ushered us in, and there was a traditional Indian dance class happening with a dozen local village girls. I instantly jumped in to join! They all looked back at me shyly yet intrigued; I was a huge, blonde foreign visitor who had no idea how to dance like they did! They laughed at my efforts and helped me to get the correct hand and feet positions. I actually followed along pretty well, but the dancing is HARD! It is very strengthening for the core. I will have to show you when I get home...
After we had danced - and I had sweated - (the little girls were very composed), we sat in a circle together. They asked my name, and then they went in a circle telling me theirs. Oh, it was hilarious- they had to repeat each one about three times, and I still didn't say it right! It was very funny. A lot of giggling ensued. I felt so yummily girly sitting with all these village girls with sparkly Indian clothes and flowers in their hair, giggling together.
I learned that thank you is "nandri", and that dance is "nadanam". Other than that, whatever I asked them, they would reply, "That is too complicated for you to say." They were so cute, and it was so fun communicating with them through the language barrier. They were all so welcoming, sweet and eager to help. They found me funny too. :)
After that, Richie came back from learning martial arts, and Baloo exclaimed to us excitedly, "You should come back here and teach the kids some modern dance and martial arts, and then we could have a performance before you leave at the visitor's center in Auroville!!" Oh what a great idea! This is exactly what I have been wanting to do!
SO we will see how this tentative plan pans out over the next weeks, but I know I will definitely return when I can to learn and teach dance with these girls. It was such a rich and heartfelt experience to communicate with these villagers. They were all so excited for us to be there, and to show us what they were up to. It was so invigorating to be with people who were so unabashedly welcoming. How often do you feel that...?
On the ecstatic bike ride back, Richie and I reflected that these people's "spirits are more intact (than westerners)."  That seemed like a good way to sum up the feelings we had interacting with them.
This set up the rest of my day for good-vibes, and I have been riding that wave of appreciation and happiness ever since. This shows you- judging from my last blog to this one- how many feelings I have been roller-coastering through here! What a testament to the Buddhist philosophy that all things are impermanent, all things pass.
SPeaking of which, last night at the Tibetan Pavilion we saw a Buddhist Monk give a talk on Buddhism and Ecology. He runs about 30 social programs, from ecological awareness to education. He was the sweetest guy with a great sense of humor. He said, "Enlightenment? Oh, that is very far from me. But I love compassion.. compassion is the force that makes me do what I am doing now." He also said of the growing environmental disasters, "It is all coming from greed- our desire to constantly have more. If I am not happy with one pair of shoes, how will I be happy with many? We have to go into ourselves. We have to start from where we are. Practice contentment. Try to minimize. It begins on a small scale."
Everything he said was very inspiring and comforting. I will end this blog with one of my favorite things that he said: "If I don't lose my heart, then yes, I can overcome. Building trust with friends, this is the way to survive."
I love all of you so much! Thank you for reading!

The Matrimandir

Here is just a quick one, as I am mulling so much over in my head- and am probably thinking too deeply for my own good still. ;) But as it is, I am wondering: what is the difference between spirituality and religion?
The founding thoughts of Auroville come from Sri Aurobindo, a spiritual master, and "The Mother". You find large photos of them everywhere in Auroville, and yesterday we visited the Sri Aurobindo ashram in the city of Pondicherry, where people come to meditate on their graves. There are numerous bookstores filled with their spiritual teachings in all different languages.
And I just keep thinking: how did one woman- The Mother- come to have such a dream fulfilled? What level of spirituality must she have been on to have some people worship her like a god?
Today we visited the Matrimandir. Bear with me for a short description, as the place was literally- in-credible. First of all, it is a huge golden sphere bursting out of the earth, surrounded by 12 large "petals". It was built like this because the mother wanted to symbolize the ultimate divine awareness bursting forth out of the earth like a lotus flower. Each "petal" is a room, and each symbolizes a different state of being/awareness. They are supposed to build up to ultimate divine consciousness.
The Matrimandir is extremely regulated, as the mother had wished for it to be only for those who seek to concentrate. According to her, this center of her city should have no religions, no chanting, no regular meditation, or anything. It is just for concentration.
So after watching 3 movies, examining a room explaining it, and hearing a 30 minute speech on it, we were finally allowed to enter. We had to be in complete silence.
Walking down into the huge golden orb, I felt like I was about to levitate into a spaceship. First we reached a dark chamber alit with a red glow. Here we had to put on clean white socks. Then we proceeded in a silent line up the spiral staircase toward the sacred inner chamber. Walking up the ramp and looking around, I felt utterly weird; I was in a place unlike any other I'd ever been. If the mother was going for futuristic and otherworldly, she had certainly accomplished her goal.
Entering the inner chamber, there were huge white marble pillars reaching about 100 feet up to the sloped ceiling. Everything was white- the walls, the carpet floor, the sitting pillows. There were no windows. All that existed in the chamber was a large crystal ball, sitting exactly in the center of the dark-white room. It was being hit by a single ray of light coming from a tiny hole at the top of the ceiling. The energy was thick.
As amazing as the Matrimandir was, I felt still adrift in my own feelings, distant from the Mother's vision, and having critical thoughts and resistance in my mind. First of all, if there is to be no religion in the Matrimandir and Auroville "should belong to no one in particular", then why do so many people seem to worship pictures of the Mother like a religious figure? Is this simply a case of misinterpretation on the people's part? (I certainly know that there is a lot of mis-interpretation in other religions.)
Also, in myself, I feel that my inner being and True Self is aligned with and in Nature. How am I to find this center when I am enshrouded in a huge expensive weird spaceship ball?
Perhaps I wil come to understand more in time. However, for the moment, since my thoughts have been with the poverty in the villages and trying to process that, I have had a hard time coming to terms with these two radically different existences in my mind. On one side, you have people who come into touch with the Divine out of need and ancient tradition; on the other, you have people seeking the Divine out of progressive spiritual aspiration.
I know that this is all connected and that we are all part of the same Source. Experiencing the different ways of being in touch with this can be such a trip!
On an ending note, when I experience my inner Divine Mother, she is a forest sprite dancing her spirit, emotions, and humanity out in the forest and desert and mountains with her fairy companions. I suppose that the presence here of The Mother can be a lesson to find my unique and beautiful Divine Femininity within.

What is the Balance of Inner and Outer Connection?

Wow. Things here on the Auroville program have been BUSY! The past few days, we have biked around the entire area of Auroville and some surrounding Tamil Nadu villages, experiencing a little of what is going on in some organizations. They are all fascinating! We did some work on the “Buddha Garden” farm, we played with village children in their banyan trees and sand boxes, we strolled through the sprawling botanical gardens, we heard about what goes on at the Healing Center for village women, we learned about natural herbal remedies, and we got caught in a late-season monsoon!

Tonight, we finally went to the Mohanam Cultural Center! I feel like I already had a connection with it, since my friend Allexa volunteered there last year, and my friend Mario threw a, amazing benefit concert for it recently in Seattle.

The place was warm and magical- upon arriving, three beautiful little girls greeted us with fresh flowers and donned us with red bindis, which is both a spiritual practice and a celebration of friendship. Then they gave us a performance of incredible Indian dance and theatre. It was such a sweet place- yellow and bright in color, which mirrored the inspirational energy wafting through it. We were fortunate enough to speak with Baloo, the owner of Mohanam, who has an infectuously bright spirit, and is a local who has grown up in the very same village. His vision with the center is to keep the culture of Tamil Nadu alive and thriving through traditional dance, music, crafts, healing, and other ancient practices. He spoke about how the world- including the villages – is growing exponentially toward modernism. Some people want to keep forging forward at lightspeed, but it is so important to remember the roots of where we have come from, and hold our own culture as something to be celebrated. Mohanam aims to keep this culture alive through giving village children the freedom to explore different aspects of their own culture through learning from their elders, as well as giving them the freedom to express themselves in their own creative ways.

Being in the center, I felt alighted with a sense of expansion, culture, purpose, mystery, and “real-India”. This has been something the group has been grappling with since we’ve been here:  Auroville is very much an oasis within surrounding areas of poverty. It is unbelievable sometimes to see the inequality of wealth living so closely together. It is a very complex undertaking for many of the organizations that we’ve visited to work on weaving together the village culture and the western culture in mutually positive ways. One example is the Matrimandir: the towering golden lotus center of Auroville. It is huge, plated in real gold, and solely a place for Aurovillians to meditate and find their inner selves. If you scan about 40 yards away, you will find malnourished people living in rags and piled trash. They live in extremely close quarters, calling home to small straw and mud huts. Everywhere in the villages you will find many stray dogs, even more cows, and disease-ridden, stagnant water. There is a big question that the group is facing: are things like the matrimandir inappropriate and selfish if there is such obvious poverty existing right in its shadow? It is easy to turn away from these realities when you are surrounded by the comforts of home and western living, but it is not such an easy thing to deny when it is right in front of you. Can one fulfill their truest spiritual purpose better by “going within” to realize their inner self, or by giving of their self to help others who are in need?

  Like I said, these are big questions that we will continue to talk about this quarter. I personally have been staying unattached to any emotional conviction about the issue so far, because honestly, I don’t know the answer. I feel that if you put these questions in different lights, it becomes a lifelong question of balance between cultivating self-connection, and acting with empathy and care for others.

            So as of now, I feel really drawn to working in the Mohanam Center. I ask myself: When else will I have the opportunity to interact with village children in an open creative environment and go out to learn about the local village culture in hopes of helping it to persevere? I do love raw food and have great passion for it, but I feel that I can foster my passion for it at home just as easily as I can here. Mohanam seems to call to my sense of community building, desire to expand my horizons and deepen my understanding of the world, and challenge my comfort zone by exploring a very different reality.

So… wish me luck! J I hope you all are enjoying the first part of 2011! My love is with you all! 

The International Pavilion's Projects

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hope you all had an amazing beginning of 2011. I am thinking of you across the world!
This post will be short, because we are about to start our first class. I am so excited to start the program officially! SO far, we have been just relaxing, adjusting, and honestly seeing a lot of what the (more than expected) tourists of Auroville see. However, starting today, we will be touring around to different sites where people who live here are working on their own specific projects. Honestly, this place seems like an extended Burning Man- in the sense that people come here to realize their dreams that haven't necessarily been proven to work in "normal" society; however it doesn't matter here because it is all about experimentation and trying new things.
For instance, at the International pavilion here, we will be working with the family who lives here in their projects. They are planning to build two new buildings this year. However, let's talk about sustainability in practice: they are using compressed juice boxes for roofing, since juice boxes cannot be broken down and recycled. These "tetrafan" roof sheets have been invented by an Indian guy about 8 months ago. They are not time tested, but this group is going to try it.
In addition, for the concrete of the walls for the building, they are going to make it out of the usual ingredients: sand and cement, and instead of small pebbles, they are going to use the styrofoam waste of Auroville. This will make the concrete lighter, have more insulation, and be more soundproof. (Plus use this non-biodegradable material!)
For the floors of the buildings, they will use their recycled paper to make thick sheets of paper mache. This will make the floors flexible, which is good for a tall structure in the wind.
ANd one more awesome thing about this place: They have compostable toilets. We separate the pee from the poo, pour sawdust on the poo, and let it sit in barrels for 6 months, so it can turn itself to compost. Then it helps grow the trees and vegetable garden!
Needless to say, I am already amazed at the passion of these individuals who have taken their trade- architecture- and turned it into their own experiments!
And this is just the first place we have seen- I am so excited to visit the dozens of other endeavors and people behind them in the coming week.
Everyone here has this sparkle in their eye- they are doing just what they want to be doing, and it is so inspiring! What a playful and community oriented environment, to be supporting each other in all individual expressions of creative, sustainable invention.
That's all for now, I love you all dearly! I will write soon!
~NAMASTE~