Pikkies for your Wikkies

I don't know what the title means. Don't ask... maybe i am just getting into my rhyming scheme mindset... you know, another way to express my creativity.

Okay, wait. I know... It is too sunny to be on the computer right now, so I'm going to go for a bike ride! To Kuilapalayam (I can FINALLY say that right!) I am going to get some yummy fruit and nuts and honey and make a RAD fruit salad. Then I am going to learn about hinduism for 3 hours. Then I am going to creep early in the morning to a sacred temple on a mountain, and meditate in ancient sacred caves.

I will let you know how it goes!

I am always watching. ;P 

Mama is Mid-birth!

Today, I Witnessed the Miracle Of Life.

~*~*~*~
Tonight is a Full Moon.
The night I arrived here, I stepped out of the car, and the first thing I noticed was the upwards-facing crescent moon.
The second thing I noticed was Mozambique.
All of the dogs here look alike. Today I asked what breed Mozambique was, and Kalsang replied, "the Tamil kind".
From day one, Mozambique was a source of comfort and kinship for me. When I felt out of place and lonely, I could go to here and feel love. She is the calmest, most zen dog I have ever met.
Today, she gave birth. And I arrived home just in time to witness the 6th and final pup be pushed out.
Since this morning, Mozambique had been shivering and whimpering; we all knew that today was her day.
Diane says that her having birth on a full moon makes total sense. Diane is our assitant teacher on the trip. She lives on Hornsby Island near Vancouver, and spent about 10 years as a midwife in India, traveling all over through rural villages. She has written a book on midwifery and rural India. She says that many births happen within 3 days surrounding the full moon. The moon pulls on the tides, and pulls on our watery bodies.
I think we are all glad that Diane is around, as she was able to give assistance to the exhausted Mozambique. We all sat with her and sang her songs and gave her water after she was done. She had been working SO hard, and all her pups looked like little closed-eyed wet seals, nuzzling their way to her breast. We were all amazed at how Mozambique and her pups knew exactly what to do. The process of birth is so instinctual!
The only person present with Mozambique throughout the whole process was Karen, our teacher. It must have been a pretty powerful experience for her, especially since this is her first year ever in Auroville without her only daughter, Maya.
Tapping into this incredible and natural rite of motherhood is giving in to the divinity of womanhood. The pain and instinct that birthing takes is like tapping into the most ancient tribal dance; the most universal song of creation.
And so, I suppose it was also instinctual that I began calling Mozambique "Mama" before I ever knew her name. She was a "student's dog", meaning she was originally a village stray and began hanging out with a student who stayed at the Tibetan Pavilion. Thus, I think she has found a beautiful home here. :) She is an incredible dog, and I will always remember this experience.
Now, my biggest thought is, "I want to take a puppy home with me!!"  :)
~*~*~*~

I am Relaxing in the Sunlight

~*~*~*~
Today at Anandi's, we talked about the wisdom of our bodies. Our bodies have their own language, and their own wisdom. Rather than cull our symptoms of imbalance back with allopathic medications, we can listen to the cues our bodies give us. We can allow things to pass through us, and we can trust that if our bodies need to rest, they will sort out the balance. In listening to our bodies, we can "eat to optimize phenotypic expression." In other words, not every way of eating is for everyone. Some people may thrive on a meat-laden, diet, some may thrive on veganism. Our make-ups are each unique, and we need different things to put into our bodies to fully realize ourselves in this way. Body-wisdom is the key to realizing our optimal balance and nutrition.
Today at Anandi's we made hibiscus juice with fresh hibiscus flowers, pomegranate seeds, honey, lemon juice, fresh aloe gel, and water. We also had a salad and stuffed tomatoes, and a dessert "halvah" of beets, dates, and cardamom. ...SOOO yummy! I love raw food. :)
I have been reading the Tao Te Ching recently, as I will be presenting on it and its connections to ecology for my class. Here are a few excerpts that are inspiring:

All streams flow to the sea
because it is lower than they are.
Humility gives it its power.

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.

To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.

If you want to know me,
look inside your heart.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength.
Use your own light
and return to the source of light.

~*~*~*~

I am enjoying the warming sunlight and the singing conversations of birds. I am reveling in my sustained moments of simplicity. I am drinking yummy kombucha, and I am relaxing. I am loving the blue sky.... and I am thinking about Christianity, what makes history (ideas versus actions), mortality (why do people cling to religion?), ecology (how to relate to it truly- through emotional connection, or to rational facts and statistical evidence?).

So you see, many things are going on for me.
How about you?
~*~*~*~

A Few More Pongal Pics

Pongal weekend was full of coconut, sugar cane, colors, flowers, kolums, smiles and singing children!

A cow cart full of kids making the rounds. "Pongal-o! Pongal-o!"

This boy was helping to prepare the sacred cow for pulling the cart. The family blessed the cow and fed her, and of course decorated her too!

This house had some adorable baby goats! This village girl was my model. :)

In-motion, passing another cartful of joyful, colorful children!

A village man and his wife. Many villagers ask to have their picture taken, many times. They love it! I like this man's face; he looks friendly and wise.

I got a quick henna job by a village woman, because my group was leaving me behind and it was getting dark! Here I am offering a mutual blessing to this angel statue at a local clay wheel hut.

A "kolam" in front of a Ganesh altar.

A family in the village of Kuilapalayam on Pongal.

The streets of every village are filled with colorful "kolams" during the 3 days of Pongal. The women of the houses make them everyday, and they take around 2 hours! This is part of the celebration weekend.

Pongal-o!

I figured out how to post pictures! It takes a really long time to load though, so here are just a meager few from the Pongal celebration yesterday! We drove in a big bus to a village where they celebrated by making rounds of the village on cow-drawn carts. The carts held about a dozen children- or 6 of us! Pongal is the Tamil New Year, and it is a festival of abundance and greeting. We drove around the village shouting, "Pongalo! Pongalo! Pongalo!" This means "Happy Pongal". The villagers were all so welcoming and happy to share their traditions with us. It was a great time! 

This villager was making a piece of art at a temple in the forest.

In the village where we celebrated Pongal, a father and mother celebrate together 

Baby cow gets some rest from all the festivities

Today was fun!

 Today was fun-
I was helping make a garden here at the international pavilion, and I was digging a trench in the hard soil, and really WORKIN! It was so fun. I even got blisters on my hands! Jessica and this volunteer Sam had an intense political discussion. Sam went to UCSC for 2 years, and has spent the past two years roaming Israel. He has no faith in our government. Jessica wants to be a lawyer, and work to make the government better. I am somewhere in the middle- I think that we can choose where to put our energy and money, and I choose to put mine into local, sustainable communities!
Anyway- with all of us helping, we finished a whole bed! And also filled these tubes with new concrete that we made from sand right here, syrofoam and mixer and water!
Then I went to the beach with Henry and richie, and we stopped at the music store. We played drums for a little bit; they both are really into getting drums. Then we went to the beach, and were walking along, and I asked Henry if he was going to swim and he was like, "Hell yes!"and then we saw a dude pooping on the beach! Then as we walked, we saw more and more piles of poop along the shore.
Apparently, it is the thing for locals to do.
No one ended up swimming!
Then 3 of our girls- Sarah, Caitlin, and Anshika ran to us, and they had some beautiful shells. Henry and Richie and I drank coconut water out of fresh young coconuts. Then I had chai with Sarah at the beach cafe, and she asked me if I could see myself living in a place like this... and at that moment, in the warm air, right on the beach, with yummy chai, I thought "definitely yes!". Then we colored cards with Anshika's sharpies, and then headed home.
On the way home, I bought some really cute clothes from a shop from Kashmir, which is in the north of India, in the mountains. They come here during their cold season. I chatted with the shop owners; they were super nice, and gave me a good price. :)
Then Richie and I -and Henry with Anshika on the back of his bike- stopped at a produce stand to get food to make for the group tomorrow night. (Yay, cooking! We all miss it!!)
Then we rode home; but the thing is, Auroville gets REALLY dark at night. Like, scary dark. And we had two measly headlamps between all of us; so, we talked in British accents and sang "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from the Lion King. Well, Anshika and I did. Then Henry sped up, because I think he was getting annoyed with our loud singing and British accents!
Whatever, Henry. ;)
It is so warm out tonight; last night we had a huge bonfire here at the International Pavilion. It was really mellow, really great.
At the music store today there was this mini guitar; I am considering buying it, because at the end of our trip we will have a ten-day trip to the mountains, during which we will do a "solo", and spend time alone fasting in the woods for a day. I think a guitar might be really nice to have.... it was 2000 rupees, which is around $40. Do you think I should get it???
Anyway, peace, over and out.

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!"