Living Routes: Auroville 2005 Spring

Solo in the land of Rocks

What does one think about when sitting in a cave� for 40 hours by oneself? Recently students in our learning community had the opportunity to do just that at Hampi, just as their peers have done over the past seven semesters. It is a landscape of rocks, large and small eroded by wind and water over thousands of years. Our solos took place at the Open Island Centre, an island created by the splitting of the Thungabhabra River.

Off to travel!

Hello! I am off in a few hours to travel around South India for two weeks. The program ends at that point and I will be heading north for another two and a half weeks. A brief synopsis of what has been going on here� we have been in Auroville for the past two and a half weeks and we went to Hampi for a week before that. In Hampi we explored the landscape of boulders and pools of water from the river that passes through the site. It was a nice revitalizing week. Ever since we have...

The Yoga Circle

The yoga circle at the college guest house has become a wonderful and unusual learning classroom. Surrounded by bamboo and Neem Tree and Rain Tree it is the place that we begin our day at 6:15 with yoga. Some here say that yoga is a way of seeing the world, a way of life.

Half Way!

16 Mar 05 Vanakkam (Hello) !!! So a lot has happened in the last month, though I don�t really feel like I�ve experienced much of the craziness of India yet. I�ve been extremely busy with the program I�m in and have spent most of my time in Auroville. The second half of the semester has a lot more traveling outside of Auroville, so I�m hoping I will feel like I�m getting to know India more during that time. We�re at our half way mark in the semester and it seems to me like it�s going...

Blessing of an elephant

A few Sundays ago, during a visit to Pondicherry I watched each member of our learning community walk up to the temple elephant, Lakshmi and offer a small coin, which was taken easily by her trunk and given to her trainer. Then, to the delight and laughter of all, the elephant raised her trunk and tapped each one of us on the head in blessing. Thus we have walked about Pondicherry and Auroville with the blessing of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god that offers protection, abundance and...

Buckets of Cows

Christine, Heather, Byron, and I (Casey Burger) are doing our internship at a farm called Solitude. It�s a great place, the energy is on. We all seem to be finding our way around the place rather nicely. We start our internship weeks on Mondays and end on Wednesdays. It takes some adjusting to get back into the swing of things on Mondays, especially because Sundays are our days off. SOO the point of me telling you this? Its build up for the next thing.

Greetings from India!

10 Feb 05 Here are some of the highlights of my adventures since I last wrote�

I'm in India!

Here is my update written on 1 Feb 05.

An Evening in Pondicherry

Last night we all piled on to a bus to visit pondicherry, the kind of bus that drives very fast and very close to oncoming traffic... I have started to think of them as more of "deathmobiles". haha just kidding mom... It has become a good practice to just have faith that the driver will get us where we are going safely. It is about a twenty minute ride from Auroville to Pondi, and most of it is along the Beach Highway. As we got closer to the city, there were more and more...

Luck to be a Lady

Well, if you think it's hard to be a woman in India, it's even harder to be a loud obnoxious feminist in India. I'm supposed to avert my eyes to the male passerby even as their curious gazes burn a hole in my head. But, really, it's not THAT bad, and I feel really lucky to be here with the awareness I have about all of the psycho-gender specifics that are buzzing all around the culture here. Everybody seems to be having a pretty swell time, all things considered, with the exception of...

Safe Arrival in India

All is well here. Students and faculty arrived well and on time at Chennai Airpor. Ross welcomed them and brought them back to College Guesthouse, where they arrived at 4 am. Thulasi welcomed them and oriented them to their rooms. At 9 am we all had breakfast together, gathered for a check-in and welcome and went over some logistics. Then we had a nice walk to the visitor center, looked at the Auroville exhibition, had a great healthy meal, and students were able to go into two shops...

And they're off!

The group had a wonderful Orientation at the Sirius Community in western Massachusetts and is now on their way to Auroville in southern India. In fact, they are probably landing in Chennai as I write this. It will take a few days for them to land, but we hope to hear from them soon!

(This weblog is in chronological order)