Feeling Battered

  

This is a picture of a very strong image I had this morning as I woke up.  Of feeling very battered and of having bruises all over my body.

Funnily enough it has helped me be a bit more gentle with myself today and as a result I feel a lot better.  I have had a battering - emotional rather than physical - but the way to healing it is the same.  I must be gentle with myself and give myself enough time and space to heal.  So no rushing off to start new projects and 'trying to get everything done' when I really don't feel like it.

Rachael has her first interview today as a teacher of physics.  According to her there is a huge shortage of physics teachers such that if she gets the job she might be sent on a special course to learn how to teach physics.  On the other hand, if a physics specialist is part of the short list however brilliant she is as a teacher there is no way she will get the job!  The job is in Sheffield so its clear that this is where she wants to be for the next few years.

I hope she gets the job and/or something else wonderful happens!  I should know later on this evening.

Playing in Pondy

Today I decided I would go on a shopping trip to Puducherry or Pondy as we call it.  I felt very much that I wanted to get away from Auroville and Buddha Garden and be somewhere else for a change.  Pondy is not a very restful place but it was quite fun to go to a super market (nicely air conditioned in this hot weather) and another shop where I bought the shoes.

These shoes are going to be my 'best shoes' for wearing outside Buddha Garden - so no walking around in the chicken house in them - although I don't know how long it will take for me to forget.  I'm really glad I got the water bottle as with the hot weather coming I will need it.

I feel very much better today but also feeling rather languid and not wanting to do anything very much.  I think it is just as well to keep going slowly and do no more than what needs to be done.  I notice that if I try to do more it seems to take all my energy.  I have to remember that I have been exceptionally busy for a very long time and with all the other upsets I need to give myself enough time to recover.  This will take the time it takes.

I will try to remember that next time I want to rush out and do something!

Lovely surprise

  

Have not felt too well today as I got up early and rushed outside to do grass cutting.  Then it got extremely hot and I have not felt like doing anything.  After the dance class last night I woke up with a very sore shoulder although after I had slept all morning it went away.  I must stop pushing myself so hard.

I don't feel like doing very much and my brains feel very squishy.  

I couldn't get it together to create a picture but then I looked at Facebook and saw this lovely picture of Sam.  Rachael went up to Sheffield as she has an interview on Monday and Emma went to see her today.  With the internet not working properly I haven't been able to contact them although I have sent an email.

Beautiful Nia dance

Sabine and Phillippe are leaving on Sunday and had the last Nia dance class of this session tonight.  What I really liked was that there was some live music.  Unfortunately I haven't felt well enough to go these last two weeks and I was hoping that they would stay through April, but they have a very full schedule so that is not to be.

I will miss them but there are two people who are continuing a class on Saturdays which unfortunately clashes with one of my yoga classes.  Perhaps I will try to go now and then although as it gets hotter active classes make me too hot!

Verite

I went to a community called Verite this evening and was looking for pictures.  Everything was incredibly dry and I came across a really lovely garden that didn't need any water.  I took a picture, but I feel more attracted to this picture of a double hibiscus.  This  also had not been watered and yet managed to produce these very beautiful flowers that really stood out in all the dryness. I tried to get a picture that showed this but none of them were successful.

I felt there was some truth (Verite means 'truth') that the flower was trying to show me, but I cannot put it into words. 

Light in my belly

I woke up this morning with this very surprisingly strong image of light in my belly.  I could feel the light on the inside of my bowels as if it was warm and healing.  

Now do I really need to go and have that very invasive test to see that everything is OK?

Silly me

Have been feeling a lot better today, not least because there was a meeting I didn't go to.  It made for a much more relaxing day until I heard about what went on in the meeting.  

I got very upset and it was as if the inside of my belly had been struck by lightening.

Stupid, stupid stupid. To get so involved with what is going on in a way that impacts me so negatively.  But how to do it differently?  The reality is that I am passionate about things and want to see things done in a different way that benefits everyone.  Not as the result of a sleazy process which has at its heart a manipulation by individuals to get their own way.

Designing

I have been spending some time doodling around with different designs for some hangings that I want to make.  I have decided that I will use second hand cotton cloth as this will be cheaper as well as doing some recycling.  So far my themes are mostly to do with growing and Buddha Garden and my favourite so far is of this germinating seed.

I love the curves in it and if I put the sun above it I love the sense of the plant reaching up to the light

Sunsets are difficult!

Recently we have had some spectacular sunsets and this evening I was determined to get a picture.  I got there in good time but I don't think my camera is good enough to get a really good picture, despite the automatic gizmo for taking sunset photos.

The sun was a huge red orb, but this didn't come out on any of the pictures.  The colour wasn't deep red in any of them but more like the orangey yellow like it is in the picture above.  I thought this one was the best of a bad lot because the clouds have come out very beautifully.  Which was something I didn't really notice until I had taken some photos.

Friends

Had a really nice lunch with friends who are coming to Auroville - wonderful that they are coming rather than going and shows that I am not being abandoned.

The last few days have shown me that I am very blessed.

New cycle

I feel so much better today.  The drugs given to me by the doctor seem to be working and my stomach is much less painful, more calm and the diarrhoea is much better.  At the same time it feels like a new cycle is beginning.

I have time it seems to do things like creating an online course about organic farming that we can share with anyone who is interested anywhere in the world.

I have found that I DO have friends.  Julia phoned me up out of the blue and came to see me yesterday with John's son Jonathan who is staying in Auroville at the moment.  Amy phoned and various other people have contacted me with very positive responses to what I have decided to do.  Rachael contacted me and Emma sent me a card....

Yesterday Ulli, a volunteer, told me he would like to support Buddha Garden financially and will contact me when he returns.  Today I heard from Jaap that money from students we had at Christmas time has arrived - I had completely forgotten about it.

I do still feel very tired and the picture expresses that.  How I just want to lie down under a cool blue sky and absorb the light of the sun to allow it to heal me.  I have been wondering whether I should go away somewhere, but don't want to go on my own and go on complicated journeys that are expensive and difficult.

I am sure if I need to go away it will happen easily.  I feel more carried by life's energy than I have for a very long time.

At the end of our land

Was still feeling very tired and weak this morning, but managed to work for an hour or two after which I walked to the furthest extent of Buddha Garden through the Jalabhoomi trees.  They are mostly terminalia arjuna - because they can stand flooding - but are very beautiful in this dry weather.

The area has been very disturbed by increasing numbers of drinkers who come in and leave a horrible amount of litter around.  So Vivek got he digger in to make a large trench and bund along the fence as we can't put up an actual fence as that would get knocked down too easily.  So far it seems to have deterred everyone who presumably don't want to struggle up the bank and then down  into the trench at the other side.  The digger also made some more holes which means we can plant even more trees there to make it even more beautiful.

Now I am hoping we can finish the job by making a similar trench and bank along the the remaining side of the land.  We can do this without annoying the land owner the other side who is disputing the boundary and it will stop cows coming in as they won't try and get across the trench.  

Or will they?  And then we would have to rescue them from the trench which make another job for us!

Burnt out

After Holi I had a horrible conversation with Vivek who was very upset indeed by the festival.  He didn't like that a charge was made to come in and thought that the whole thing was really inappropriate.  I then got really upset as well - its not that he is wrong - but I felt that although the idea was correct the way it turned out was really wrong.  I certainly will not do anything like that again.

Not only that, we had a horrible Farm group meeting where it seems the group has completely lost confidence in what I do.  As a result I have resigned from all my representative work.  I am in any case far too sick to carry on.  I can't eat and have a permanent headache and stiff neck.

This picture just reminds me that life carries on and we get beautiful sunsets and the earth keeps renewing herself as the seasons continue.

Holi festival celebration

  

On Sunday the volunteers organised a Holi festival - Holi being the spring festival which is normally celebrated in the north of India.  This is a picture of the start of the festival when there was painting and various other activities and when there were quite a few families.

Unfortunately everything deteriorated as the evening wore on.  The music was very loud (and horrible techno music, but I suppose that is a matter of opinion) and although I kept asking them to turn it down they wouldn't.  They said they would finish by 10.00pm which came and went.  In the end I had to go and just turn off the computer so they couldn't play any more. 

Not a nice thing to have to do.

Anticipating Holi

There is a sense of anticipation in Buddha Garden today as the volunteers get ready for a Holi festival here tomorrow afternoon.  Some of them went to a Holi party in Mahabalipuram last weekend and as with the help of two north Indian volunteers want to have their own celebration tomorrow which is the day before the actual Holi day which is Monday.  I hope it doesn't get out of hand as Holi celebrations can sometimes do.  The volunteers have very sweetly said that they will donate and funds they raise to the new kitchen, but the way they seem to be piling up the expenses (sound system, tents, snacks etc) I am not sure they will be anything left.

It is nice to have something organised here that I am not organizing. I do hope it goes well as the volunteers are obviously putting a lot of energy into it.

Friday afternoons

The picture is where I spend every Friday afternoon along with the rest of the Funds and Asset Management Committee.  I am the only woman and often feel completely out of step with everyone else in the group.

Today this meeting came at the end of a very tiring week and I feel very tired.

A very big hole

This picture makes me laugh as it encapsulates so much of the atmosphere of Buddha Garden.  This morning I sent some of the volunteers to what we now call Jalabhoomi - the place of water - where we have just had the new pond and terraces dug.  They had to fill the tree holes with a mixture of soil and leaves in readiness for planting when the rains come in July.  They also had to start digging some holes that the machine didn't have time to do.

Kevin is a very sweet volunteer who isn't incredibly practical but always tries to do his best.  He had spent most of the morning labouring over this deep hole which is more than we really need for our trees.  Yet it is beautifully dug and ROUND compared to the squarish ones made by the machine.

It really makes me smile to see the way he is looking at his handiwork as if he can't really believe that he did it.  That is what Buddha Garden is all about.  Finding out about what it takes to put food on the table and experiencing and doing new activities and all the while learning about the land and ourselves.

Shade at noon

Just before lunch I went to the land where the latest pond has been dug and which we will probably call 'Jalabhoomi' or 'land of water'.  This name coming from one of our volunteers who knows Sanskrit.  

I am very attracted to the pond which is on top of the original well.  The place feels very special and I think will be a lovely place to meditate whether there is water or whether it is dry.  It is beautifully shady even when the sun is hot as it was today for the first time this year.

Cows on the road

This is such a typical picture of Auroville - the red soil, the trees and the hoards of cows walking around.  I think the cow problem got much worse after the tsunami when there was a lot of money swirling around with NGO's not quite sure how to spend it.  A lot of people asked for cows which various charities provided.  I think, though, that many people had problems caring for them - affording the food and so on.  As a result there now seem to be many more cows than there used to be and some of them can be very aggressive.  Of course it may be that fewer people now want to keep cows and just stopped looking after them.

We have a lot more problems with them in Buddha Garden than I remember when we first cme here.  If we are going to plant any trees we have to not only put up a fence, but a very secure fence.  With so many cows around I think they are all getting more hungry and therefore more willing to knock down fences to get food.

Water under the bridge

Today has been exceptionally busy.  I was sitting here at my computer and someone sent me a question about did I remember discussing something at a recent meeting?  I wrote back that I didn't remember doing it but that as there was so much water flowing under my bridge at the moment it is quite likely that I had forgotten.

She sent me back this picture which describes the feeling exactly.  The water is flowing very fast and sweeping all before it.

Our new pond

During the last week Kireet has been creating a new pond for us on what we call 'the back land'.  Not only has he built a new pond but he has also made terraces where we can grow amla trees.  I think the best thing though, is a small water course he has made between one pond and another so that we keep all the water on the land.  This is a picture of that water course which goes by a local date tree which is making its first lot of dates this year.  I can't wait for the water to start running although that is several months away.

This work has completely changed the energy of this place which I now want to call 'bhumi samudra' which is Sanskrit for 'land where the water gathers' (I will need to check this with a Sanskrit scholar!).  I think it is going to be really beautiful and already the volunteers are being drawn to the place to sit and meditate there and this before we even planted any trees.

Spreadsheet blues

My friend Amy sent me this after I had been talking to her about the problems I have working with spread sheets.

I love how it is so simple yet so expressive of what I feel.

After a tough week.......

After a tough day at the end of a tough week I got this picture from Emma.  Apparently she had to wait some time to get that wonderful expression.

It made me laugh and feel much better.  Absolutely brilliant!

Message

Someone said this to me today but I can't think of a good image to go with it.

The words have stuck though.

The pond at sunset

This is the second day of pond digging so I went down to the ponds at sunset to take a picture.  I am very pleased indeed with how the sky and reflection has come out.  This is courtesy of the smart technology in my camera rather than because of my technical abilities.  One thing that is obvious, however, is that if I am going to get good sunset pictures I have got to take the time to sit and watch the sun go down.  I can't just rush out at about sunset time - like I did today - and hope to get something good.

I just love the way these two pond will completely change the whole area here.  There will be terraces where we can plant trees and maybe plant trees in the lower areas that don't mind a bit of flood water.  There were two people just sitting there this evening and once the trees have grown this will be a beautiful area to come and meditate.

New pond!

Yesterday Kireet came to start digging the new pond just beyond the pond that he made for us at the end of last year.  Today was the second day and already the pond is quite deep and a terrace around it has been made which, when planted with trees will look beautiful.

I took this picture with my new camera which I am very pleased with.  Once again I was surprised how much I missed having a camera since my old one died.

Very old and very new

So much has happened today and my stomach is churning away..........  The new pond has started, a new course started, new people have come, we are working out how to have a new fence.  During the digging Kireet found this fossil which is millions of years old.

I have got my hand on it because it is a lovely thing to touch.  I keep it on my table where I can touch it easily whenever I feel like it.  

A very quiet day

It has been a very quiet day today when I have hardly spoken to anyone.  Of course that has meant I have time to do creative stuff like doing more on my 'Picture my Days' book for last year.  At the same time I have felt very lonely and missing the family.  Would it be better if I moved a bit closer? I am not sure about that....

Last week Emma found out that their mortgage request was refused.  They are so disappointed but are going to try a financial advisor to see if there are any other possibilities.  Blasted banks!! More interested in their profits than making sure that money is used for its true purpose which is to enable us to get the things we need.

Of course Sam's priorities are completely different.  All he needs is love and I hope he helps them both get over the disappointment.  

A bird

On the first of the month it should really be rabbits.  In the UK if you say 'rabbits' three times on the first of the month it is supposed to give you a lucky month.  Instead I had this strong image of a bird.  In my image (which doesn't come across in the picture) it was like an applique hanging with the bird's body being constructed of material of Indian cotton. 

No idea where that came from.