solitude-justin!-krishna-et al

Hello good auroville folks, it is late night in ny, and i am searching this blog for familiar faces...i went on the fall 03 geo trip to india and worked at solitude...seems like yesterday, but also very far away...on a recent post in february i noticed a photo of kids outside of solitude farm...i look closer and then i notice a familiar face...hey justin, i can believe you're there... please, read this, reply, and give my love to krishna, kali (the cow), saraswati (mama cow), the other...

The Jain Temple

This is one of the temples we visited with Dr. V. He is a sweet man who took the time to show us around the temples in Madurai. The first day he gave us the some stories from the Hindu culture related to the Meenakshi Temple and the second day he gave us the basics of Jainism. As he was telling us of the practices of the Jain peoples we were sitting at a worship place of theirs on top of one of the mountains outside of Madurai. This was a site where Jains used to come and make...

Madurai

After a two hour bus ride and a seven hour train ride through the night we arrived here at Madurai. Such a change to our peaceful days spent within Auroville. Again sights, sounds, smells, feelings invade. We were given a lot of "free" time to explore while we were here, which is really good because I feel it helped some of us get better connected the the culture of Tamil Nadu and India.

Auroville Idol

So this is how we spend some of our 'free time' as a community. Auroville Idol, where we all got together and shared artistic expressive forms. Some read poetry, sang, played music, and did skits. It was truly a fun experience seeing everyone just let go and enjoy!!

Beauty and the Beast

There are many dualisms present here in India. These contradictions surround us in our daily lives, but it is an interesting experience to be living them here in a foreign country. The bottom three photos are of the entrance of one of Sri Ramana Maharishi's caves that he...

The Holy Body of Shiva

Arunachala Mountain in Tiruvenamalai is believed to be the body of Lord Shiva, one of the Holy Trinity of Hindu Gods. He is the Lord of Destruction, while Vishnu is Preservation and Brahma is Creation. Arunachala is on the geographically opposite side of the Earth to Machu Picchu in Peru. Quite an amazing fact to have thought about on the hike up...

Our Service Learning Projects Combine

Kendra who is working at one of the schools here brought a group of the kids to Solitude. It was really neat as she brought them so they could get a better understanding of what it is like to grow your own food. They were pretty young so I think that some of them may have grasp it while for others it was just fun to go on a field trip. We (Justin and I) gave them a little tour of the farm and introduced them to some of the things that are grown there. It was great to see them running...

Tiruvanamalai

Well the whole time we were here I came down with a fever. This is strangly symbolic as this is a "big" place for Shiva who is directly attributed with fire. The mountain here is said to be Shiva's abode and there are many temples devoted to him. Despite my illness I did get...

The Road to Tiruvanamalai

We all left last friday, Feburary 17, 2006, for Tiruvanamalai by bus. It was about a three hour ride getting there and pretty hot. I say it was pretty hot but I keep in mind that summer has not even started here in India. I found myself looking out the window at the "rural living" going on in between the towns. The towns of course were filled with the usual chaos of daily life here in India. The rural areas of India, for me, though have this amazing...

Living Routes: India Spring 2006

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