Trees are so important for so many reasons. They play an active role in the water cycle, in protecting and building soils, in hosting and enhancing biodiversity, in sequestering carbon, in providing biomass and so much more. The impacts of deforestation are well-documented: erosion, soil salination, soil acidification, desertification… which lead to water scarcity, famine, conflicts, migrations… Even though most of the permanent cultures and tribes revered trees as brothers and sisters, “modernity” and “progress” encouraged and keeps on supporting forest clearing (facts not debated here). Our solution and its expectable benefits Plant trees to:
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Ready for the supramental evolution? As stated on the Auroville website: “Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.” The purpose of this article is to share some of our impressions, stories and thoughts after our short-term stay in the City of Dawn. Abstract I tend to write (too) long articles. This abstract gives you an overview of the content and the key messages from this blog post. Feel free to read the complete post 😊
In this article we describe Auroville both as Auroville describes itself as well as how we discovered it. The main lesson is that there is the theory, the words on the paper, and there are the facts, what we really experienced. Auroville is a concept in action, it is a living project, which is not achieved, and which is evolving. Some of the objectives are met, others are far from being met. This article is not a cold critic of Auroville, it is our personal examination of what the town aims to be, what it has achieved, which challenges it is going through. We detail our observations regarding the town’s structure and architecture, the relation to money, the relation to spirituality, and much more. We acknowledge that Auroville is a creation of people. From the initiators, the charismatic Mother and Sri Aurobindo, to the current heroes of the multiple projects in Auroville, everyone brings its stone to the edifice. Finally, Auroville is about spirituality, and one thing we cannot deny is that the city is full of vibrant energy, from the Matrimandir to the gardens, the streets, the projects’ sites, the hearts of the people… Many come to Auroville for a unique spiritual experience, all will find it! A journey from conventional to regenerative agriculture to feed the City of DawnIf you check Auroville’s website, you will read that “Auro-Orchard is the oldest and the second largest farm of Auroville, that grows most of the fruits and vegetables produced in the community. It also serves as the main poultry farm of Auroville. Since its inception, Auro-Orchard’s main vision was to provide food for the Auroville community. For many years, to meet the immediate needs of the Auroville community in food, conventional farming practices were used, but since 2012, Auro-Orchard is being converted into an organic farm. (…) Regenerative organic farming (agro-ecology) is now the motto of the farm.”. This article is about the recent and successful transition from “conventional” agriculture to regenerative organic agriculture. You will read about our visit of Auro-Orchard as well as Mathieu’s two-week volunteering session there. Abstract I tend to write (too) long articles. This abstract gives you an overview of the content and the key messages from this blog post. Feel free to read the complete post 😊
I volunteered for two weeks at Auro Orchard with a great team of locals, volunteers and Aurovillians. I take the time to thank everyone of them at the end of the article because it was an amazing human experience. However, the focus of the article is to share with you the successful move of Auro-Orchard from traditional agriculture methods that killed the land to respectful methods that regenerate the land. As a volunteer I could see the direct results of the transition. This ongoing success has been possible through an intransigent and straightforward strategy:
On top of that I want to salute the effort for human and social respect as well as for animals’ respect at the farm. In this regard, another part of the article relates on how the present manager is addressing human and animals’ issues at the farm. As a broader attempt to describe the farm, Laura and I have listed a few areas of development which are task management, communication and other opportunities that can clearly help the farm optimize its work and grow in the future. As usual (you can find it in most of our articles), we tend to be as objective as possible in our report on projects, which means we also provide readers with subjective remarks. Feel free to comment and give your opinion too! Enjoy the read. Mathatitu Yoga Ashram, Varkala, India While Mathieu was doing the Permaculture Designer Course (PDC) in Aranya (read his article here), state of Telangana, I was doing a one-month Yoga Teacher Training Class (TTC) at Mathatitu Yoga Ashram in Varkala, state of Kerala. Indeed, our journey in India was the chance to learn from different areas and enrich ourselves individually to share this treasures together afterwards. Actually I also want to do a PDC myself and I already booked for the octobre session in Quailsprings, California, USA. Anyway, I rather took the chance to do a TTC in India in order to nurture my passion for Yoga by learning from Indian yogis about the philosophy and roots of Yoga. Initially I never planned to become a teacher, I just wanted to do a long retreat and the TTC are the best deals for such kind of long programs. However, I realised this would help us for our trip, to find more projects to volunteer at. We realised many permaculture projects also have interest for yoga. For instance, I might teach in Laos next month in the permaculture farm we go to, which happens to also be a Yoga centre! This article aims at sharing
As it is a very important part of the trip for myself but also for the project, I also want to explain why it fits in our project: this involves a reflection about how yoga and permaculture share important principles. Finally, I give a short reflexion on the importance of spirituality in our society. Permaculture Design Course (PDC), Aranya Farm, Hyderabad, Telangana, India |
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