Dhe Solitude Farm in Auroville is a 'food forest'. This is one of the few English terms that is difficult to express in German with a compound noun (Esswald?). We don't have anything like that, and it's hard to think about. An orchard that we would let run wild with other edible annuals and short-lived plants until [...]
Mantras
Me are still at a loss for words. The last few days have been characterized by thoughts about the Vedic scriptures. A companion from another life took me to visit Nishtha Muller, an Aurovillian who has dedicated his life to the Vedic scriptures. He spent almost 2 hours telling us in his very humble abode in the forest that he himself planted [...]
Center guest house
Iany films feature good hotels that are centrally located and where the political, intellectual and economic elite meet. I have always perceived this as something very elitist, colonial and power-hungry. What I missed in the films, and was probably rarely a topic there, is the networking that takes place in such places. [...]
Arriving in Auroville
MMy perception changes when I arrive in India. The smell, the sounds, the slowness, the intuition, the acceptance, the hope are wonderful things that I see. Others may see stench, noise, inefficiency, irrationality and doom and despair. I think it is this different view that allows me to feel comfortable in India. So I have quite [...]
Birdsong
Auroville was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfasse. The architect Roger Anger developed the city plan for it. It is based on a cosmic spiral nebula. The land that was made available to Auroville was a dry plateau. A forest has been planted since the early years. There is a beautiful, slow documentary about it (Ever Slow Green (2020) - S.O.S. [...]
Participate
Hoday, after many years, I may have come to the market here for the first time. There are so many economies here. Shopping - of course - routines run their course too... Efficiency - the best for the best price. Meeting people, looking out for acquaintances. What I've never seen is the social aspect. People know each other and play [...]
Forest
Dhe forest is a wonderful habitat. I recently heard a little story about a man who whistled a tune whenever he entered the forest. The animals recognized him after a while and accepted his presence. They no longer ran away and sometimes even greeted him. We usually don't see the forest as it is, [...]