Working together

A picture of one of my favourite jobs – making compost – because it gives us the opportunity to work closely together. The work is very physical and there is great satisfaction in seeing the finished compost heap which is more than any of us could do on our own in such a short space of time.

When everyone is working together with the same rhythm it is a very unifying experience.

I wish me and my technology could work in a more united way! Some of it seems to need a lot of fiddling with to make it work at the moment.

Pierre

After doing the picture yesterday I had this very strong image of Pierre today.

He reminds me of a rather wayward fire cracker bouncing around all over the place and only hitting the ground every now and then.  

How it is

Had a meeting with Vivek and Pierre today.

This picture shows how I saw the situation which I can either embrace or not.

Next project

This morning we went to the Food Forest and I saw these bougainvillea flowers. We had planted bougainvillea all along the fence as 'protection' (Mother's name for it) but these flowers were on the only one or two plants that seem to have taken.

I have decided that my next embroidery project will be to embroider these flowers with some leaves. It seems to me, however, that I cannot just embroider what is on the photograph as it won't be very interesting and won't show how the flowers are constructed. I have got to find a way of drawing them that shows these things. Which is an interesting problem to solve.

Had very intense depressive feelings last night but managed to go through them with breathing and yoga. I sometimes feel that it is only the yoga that stops me slipping down into a very dark pit.

Doodle

Another day when I have felt devoid of any sort of inspiration. So I did this doodle which I really enjoyed. I loved mixing up the colours which I did in lots of different ways until I got to this one.

Unexpected blossom

Got up early and managed to complete most of the grass cutting. With so many volunteers I don't have time to do grass cutting during work time and then after work it is getting to be too hot. So I'm doing it at weekends although as the rain has stopped once I have finished it this time it will probably be quite a while before I need to do it again.

As I was cutting the grass I noticed out of the corner of my eye these very beautiful blossom on the drumstick tree. The blossom are very small and it is only when I got up close that I realised how beautiful they are.

Mandala

Today is Mother's birthday although I haven't been to any of the celebrations. There was some kind of meditation early this morning in the Amphitheatre near Matrimandir, but for me these events are too much like a display that we put on for the public.

I very much liked this mandala that had been made in the Visitor's Centre and Martin very kindly took a picture for me with his very advanced camera.

No inspiration

Once again I have had no inspiration at all for a picture today. I was interviewed for another movie this morning and then spent a lot of time talking with a couple and their child who want to come and stay several months in Auroville. Apart from taking a lot of time it also takes a lot of my energy.

I took a lot of Buddha Garden work pictures this morning for the Facebook page and this is where this picture comes from. The sweet potatoes on the last sweet potato bed in Le Jardin were far larger than anything we have taken up so far. Although I don't think the total amount from the bed will be more than the 66kg that we got from the bed in the Pryog garden.

The interview this morning helped me to elucidate better my feelings about how I work with the earth in Buddha Garden. I'm still not sure I can write it down though.

Flowers

I didn't know what to do for a picture today. I had absolutely no inspiration for drawing so I took my camera and walked around Buddha Garden. I got a lovely picture of the sunset over the pond as well as these flowers which grow just outside the office.

I decided I liked this picture the best as I love all the different colours. So that is my picture for today.

Me

I rather like this picture of me taken by a volunteer. Have uploaded it as my Facebook picture.

Feel I am getting clearer about myself in Buddha Garden.

Brighter

For some reason which I don't understand I feel a bit brighter today. I had quite a strong visual image of something similar to what is in the picture. Although both the shape and the colours were different to how I first envisaged them the image feels as if it is expressing the same energy.

Have no idea what it means but it was very satisfying to make it.

I feel like I would like to physically move more so now perhaps I will get myself to dance classes.

Emergence

This is a picture of the embroidery 'Emergence' that I finished this afternoon. As always it needs a good iron and then to be mounted. To do it properly I need acid free mount board (whatever that is!) and I've written to an arty friend of mine who I hope will know where to get it.

I'm rather pleased with it.

Its the end of the day as I write this and I feel rather tired. Its the first hot day of the year and I think that is probably the reason. I always wonder how I will manage as it gets hotter, but as it does so gradually I find that my body adjusts.

A spider's web

This morning there was a very heavy mist, one of only a few that we have had this year so far. All the spider webs – and there were a lot – were covered in dew drops. When the sun started to come through the mist they looked beautiful and I managed to capture one on my camera.

Today I have realised that I need more people to come and work with me in Buddha Garden. People who will share the vision and live here and share the work. As both Pierre and Vivek move on to something else I need others to come and share the work with me and like me, grow with the place.

I need to weave a different web.

Growing anywhere

We harvested sweet potatoes this morning and I was most impressed with this one. It had managed to not only grow under the brick wall onto the path, but to reach a good size as well.

Just goes to prove I suppose that you can grow anywhere and that maybe overcoming lots of difficulties makes you stronger. In which case I should be like Hercules!

New day

I was taking pictures much earlier than usual today. Early enough to see the sun rise over the Souryan garden.

It reminded me of how beautiful Buddha Garden is at this time of the morning. How privileged I am to be able to see and enjoy the newness of each day.

A lot of baggage

I went to a mediation meeting this morning with someone who I had a very noisy argument with last week. Before we started the mediator asked us to put down all our baggage about the situation before we started. I was horrified to get the above image which was of huge piles of baggage on both sides of a road that went into the distance!

It was a good meeting as it was good to me to articulate and understand why I am still in Auroville. I now have more hope and positivity about what I am doing.

New beds

We started the first of four what I call 'intermittent beds' in the Wild Orchard. The main growing time on these beds will be the cool season when we will grow tomatoes and lettuces. The rest of the year, when we don't have so many volunteers, we will grow either green manures or vegetables like pumpkins that don't take a lot of looking after. This will improve the soil as well as providing more vegetables.

The first job, as the picture shows, is to take off the top layer of grass. It will be watered this afternoon and the top soil broken up tomorrow. Then we will put a layer of compost on top and start growing something. We need irrigation pipes but the irrigation system is already there so It won't be a lot of work.

At this stage the bed looks more like a path. A path to a new way of doing something?

New colours

Today I went to the New colours project in the nearby village which is an after school project for children there. Two of their volunteers came to Buddha Garden and then asked me if I would go and help them start a garden there.

This is a picture of what will be their garden which is like a walled garden which you find in some large country houses in the UK. Here it looks very beautiful, but the soil is very clay and it is going to take a lot of work to get the soil in good condition.

I have got to think how I am going to teach the children how to do the work. I asked the volunteers to try and find a way to make the project belong to the children.

New project

This is the new project that I started today.

It will be called 'emergence' and is an abstract piece. First time I have ever tried doing anything abstract with embroidery.

Embroidery

Here is the embroidery – 'return of the sun' – which I put up today.

I am very pleased with it, and as I hoped, now I have finished the piece and it is up I now have ideas for the next project. Great.

Dry earth

This dried up earth at the bottom of one of our dried up ponds reminds me of how crucial our water supply is. How we must remember to use water consciously and do what we can to protect the aquifer.

Very fragile

I am feeling incredibly fragile. As if I am covered with points and I am rolling around and every time a point hits something it hurts. This is my picture of how it feels.

I find I am worrying all the time. Every little twinge I feel in my body I am convinced there is something badly wrong – especially with my heart. Everything in my body feels very tight, especially my stomach, and the only thing that seems to help that is going out for a bike ride or going to yoga or preferably both. I also find myself with very dark thoughts a lot of the time. Everything seems very grey and I feel too old to get excited about anything or believe that there are any good things left for me in this world. Or that I have anything of value to give to the world.

I do not want to see the doctor as I am sure she will just want me to have a lot of invasive tests that I do not want because she cannot trust her own judgement now I am so old. I have made an appointment with a homeopath but I did not feel good about her talking to her on the phone. I don't feel there is anyone I can talk to about it.

Very productive garden

Every day we are producing a lot of lettuce, but I am so glad that other parts of the garden are proving just as productive. These are all the pumpkins – more than 130kg – that were produced on less than half a bed in the Souryan garden. And we also have large amounts of sweet potato (don't know how much as haven't weighed it yet) from a bed in the Pryog garden.

I am really pleased as I don't want Buddha Garden to be turned into just a lettuce factory.

My new water filter

Today Muthu came and finished off doing all the water filters. This involved putting an automatic shut off in each tank so that it is kept permanently full. I was rather amused that he doesn't have too much confidence in them though as he says I should shut off the water at night!!

I am very pleased with it. The water tastes good and my whole digestive system feels a lot less agitated and I wonder if it is because it is not getting a daily dose of not very nice bacteria! Or maybe it is just my imagination......

I have wanted my own filter for a long time and now I am very pleased to have it.

What is going on?

We got the first people in the cottage two nights ago, but it seems no one wants to stay. There were a group of three came but then two of them were a couple and wanted a separate space which we happened to have available. Most annoyingly all three of them decided to go after only one night here. Then this morning another person said she wanted to move back to the dormitory because she didn't like the toilet facilities.

What is going on? Everyone agrees it is a lovely space and for the last two days we have been working really hard to make it so. I wonder if I am reacting too much because of the difficult history of this place. Or maybe the place just needs a bit of time to settle down into its new way of being.

I will see what happens with the new volunteers expected this coming week.

My anti venom suit

Had yet another experience of someone attacking me personally and telling me that I was the cause of all the problems she was experiencing with the Farm group.

Instead of getting upset I felt my anti venom suit, let her hatred just wash over me and jumped up and down and laughed and crowed about how much influence she thought I had. I suppose this was a bit naughty, but it was completely absurd as I don't have control of the farm as it is run collectively by the Farm group.

What it did do was make her even more angry as by refusing to engage she lost the opportunity to try and manipulate me. In the picture I am putting on my anti venom suit.

A flower for me

Got a lovely letter from two Dutch friends who sent me this picture of an Iris for my birthday. They invited me for a birthday dinner when they come to India on Tuesday. It was really lovely to be remembered and to have something nice planned for me.

The meaning of Iris is faith, wisdom, peace of mind, friendship and hope. Purple iris is symbolic of wisdom and compliments. In Greek 'iris' means 'rainbow'.

Protected

Today we had an emergency Farm group meeting to discuss a problem on a farm that is ongoing for several years. During the meeting I felt really attacked by someone – his viscousness and hate towards me as he accused me of all sorts of things felt really horrible.

I had to leave the meeting. As I sat trying to make sense of it and understanding what the best response would be I asked for help as I just couldn't see what I should do. I went back into the meeting and felt that I was protected and that nothing he could throw at me would hurt me.

The rest of the meeting was not that good but I felt that I was OK. This was feeling was much increased by my yoga class.

My birthday

Organised to go to the Ashram to meditate in Sri Aurobindo's room – something that can only be done on your birthday – and was very disappointed when it didn't happen. Organised the taxi but then Pierre wanted Rajan to go and collect cashews so I felt I had to stay to be with the volunteers as Pierre had to leave as well to do the deliveries.

Then a group of 13 people from Khazakstan turned up so I had to deal with them. The universe was very clear that I was not going to go to the Ashram this morning!

Later I at last got my bike repaired and am SO pleased as now it rides really well. It seems that large squirts of WD40 in various strategic places and oil on the chain was all that was needed. I then bought myself a beautiful silk dress – lovely cut and colour with a feel like cotton. The above picture was the best I could do without a selfie stick but unfortunately it doesn't show the cut and shape of the dress which is very simple but lovely.

Yogic peacefulness

Had yet another not very good night's sleep, but after getting up in the early hours and going to the toilet I realised that my tight stomach had relaxed. So I got a few hours of peaceful sleep and went to work this morning feeling much better.

Have managed to sort out a watering schedule with Pierre, but why did we have to go through all that hassle yesterday? Why couldn't we sort it out from the beginning? Pierre said he 'didn't realise' despite my asking questions about the watering before he started.

The picture describes how I felt after yoga as there are no words.

A bit better

Felt a bit better, but then was made to feel worse by having to sort out the non working wifi and negotiate with Pierre about the watering in lettuce land. Of course he hasn't thought that the watering is going to take a lot longer and that it will affect the other watering that we do in Buddha Garden. I was quite annoyed that he just starts doing it and doesn't discuss with anyone so we can come to arrangement that we can all live with. He just went ahead this morning and I couldn't start watering until 10.00am.

Just as well that I hadn't arranged to do anything today although I did organise my last lot of shelves using the most recently purchased plastic boxes. At least it stops everything getting too dusty.

Sick

Have felt really sick today waking up with an aching back, pains in my stomach and diahorrea with my whole digestive system feeling tight and uncomfortable. Later in the day I had a runny nose and scratchy throat.

It felt it was a response to the dancing last night although maybe I have also got something. Nothing seemed to ease it very much although my back got much better as the day progressed.

Dancing again

Went to my first Nia dance of the year today – first time I have been able to manage it.

I felt as if a lot of negative stuff got shaken out.