Solitude Farm
This is Annie's blog entry...
I believe that my experience at Solitude taught me about a multitude of components intrinsic to running an organic farm with a clear vision for social- and self- sustainability. Being present on a daily basis and open to interactions with whoever happened to also be there gave me the chance to engage with both travelers from around the world – who shared their stories – and with the local Tamil villagers – who shared their love and language. I loved being able to work with my hands and to get dirty – covered in dirt or cow s*** or mud or sawdust – and found it to be a truly refreshing way to get out into Auroville, away from my classes and out of my room at Mitra. Solitude is a truly inspiring place. I sincerely believe in their vision and in their ability to live very differently from both the average Aurovillian and the average American. In the end, being able to participate in the community around Auroville on a daily basis provided me with a sense of grounding and understanding that would have been difficult to find elsewhere.
Pitchandikulam Forest
Pitchandikulam Forest is a 63-acre patch of land on the outskirts of Auroville, India. Founded in 1973, Pitchandikulam’s mission was, and continues to be, the revival of the bits of Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) that are still in existence. Throughout the centuries the TDEF has been almost completely wiped out by the many civilizations that have occupied the area. Today no more than 500 acres of undisturbed TDEF remains.
Today Pitchandikulam Forest is an environmental education facility for the local community with a focus on the teaching of conservation, identification and use of indigenous medicinal plants. They have children’s learning programs visit the forest and educational walks where information is displayed artistically on slates of stone painted by artists. Pitchandikulam also has many outreach projects up and down the east coast of India, within the Kaliveli Bioregion. They have planted gardens and built environmental education centers at some of the poorest schools in the area.
I chose Pitchandikulam Forest for one reason but became committed to it for quite another. My original idea was that I could learn about and work with indigenous plant remedies. It became apparent to me that the learning I would be doing would have little application for me at home and, because of the language barrier, I would have very limited contact with villagers themselves.
At this point I became highly invested in doing something for the many women’s groups Pitchandikulam holds. I researched to do a comparison of environmental footprints between four homes. Two in the United States that could, together, represent the “average”, and two in India, one from a Tamil village and a middle class home in Pondicherry. This information was then to be passed on to the women’s educational groups to help illustrate the differences in practices between the United States and India, and how certain practices are more sustainable than others.
Alexa
More...
Discipline Farm
Auroville is an intentional community in southern India. People from all over the world come to live here with the notion of realizing human unity. Auroville has also become a place for people to develop innovative ways to live sustainably in a holistic sense (spiritually, ecologically, personally). The working units that have sprouted up in this community reflectively promote different aspects of sustainability. Living Routes is a study abroad program that has for the last ten years been bringing groups of students to immerse themselves into this life and these practices for a few months. Service-learning is the most integrative part of our program here; it is basically a morning internship chosen by each individual student where we are given the chance to work with an Auroville based project or business.
We both chose to go to Discipline Farm for our service learning. Discipline Farm is a mostly fruit-producing organic farm that was established about 35 years ago. It is currently run by Jeff (originally form Australia) with help from Morugan (India) and Gino (Italy). We were drawn there by a desire to learn more about organic farming and the friendly, informal atmosphere of the farm. During our time at Discipline, we were presented with a myriad of different tasks that brought us all around the farm. We learned about and partook in some of the more alternative practices of the farm such as the process of vermi-compost and trying to manipulate some tomatoes into growing hydroponically. We also partook in the more mundane tasks required to run a farm, such as weeding basil, transplanting papaya and passion fruit seedlings and feeding the cows. We both learned a lot about agriculture in southern India and about methods to make farming much more ecologically friendly.
(Alex and Kelly)
More...
My Work as A Pale Male at WomenPower
Throughout this semester I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with Auroville Village Action Group, specifically the WomenPower program. WomenPower uses microlending clubs as a basis for economically empowering Tamil women. With over 700 clubs and nearly 3,500 women in all of the clubs, WomenPower has built a strong reputation and becaome a powerful social force around Auroville. WomenPower also hosts many seminars, workshops, and Women's Days to introduce health issues, breaking caste barriers, and to inform the women about important topics that directly affect them.
I originally came to WomenPower thinking I would get the opportunity to test out what I learned in Econ 101 and 102 by working with microlending in action. I soon discovered that Anbu (the WomenPower Coordinator) and destiny (whoever she is) had other plans. I was mentioning one day to Anbu at the very begining of my work about what my background in Sustainable Development consisted of. When I mentioned I hoped to learn more about solar energy in Auroville she pulled out her cell phone (which I'm pretty sure has everyone in Auroville in it) and she said "We should get a solar cooker from CSR!" Now I was surprised when she already had a contact and an interest to build the cooker and even more shocked when she gave me 10,000 Rs to carry it out!
Now 6 weeks later the cooker is still under construction at CSR but hopefully it will be done soon. However questions around the solar cooker inspired another project that consumed most of my time with AVAG. While I was pondering how to introduce a solar cooker to Tamil village women I began to talk with various people around Auroville and eventually came up with a plan to implement Global Warming Awareness seminars for AVAG groups. These seminars took place on the 27th and 31st of March during two of the monthly meetings with over 100 club representatives at each meeting. For the seminars I asked Lourdes at Botanical Garden to give a global warming powerpoint in Tamil, Ganesh with his fuel efficient wood burning stoves, and Minh from CSR to present alternative energy potential at the seminar. The seminars both turned out really well with everyone showing up, the power going out for just a minimal amount of time, and the women all stayed attentive and engaged. It was interesting to discover that none of the women had ever heard of Global Warming before but when we explained it in terms that linked up with the changes around this area, they seemed to understand the basics. I could write many more stories of inspiration from the 3,500 women I worked with this semester but this gives you readers a general idea of what I did there. I know that despite the incredibly long out to AVAG headquarters everyday I will miss it terribly especially when there is no substitute for that atmosphere of inspiration and potential.
Martuvam Healing Forest
Martuvam Healing Forest began in 2002 by a man named Sivaraj, with help from the Netherlands based Isaimayam Trust, along with the Pitchandikulam bio-resource center. The healing forest was planted with herbs, bushes and trees that are used in the Siddha-system of medicine, a traditional form of south-Indian healing that is similar to Ayurvedic herbal healing. According to Sivaraj, his intent in creating the healing forest was to revive traditional healing practices by providing healing services to the surrounding villages, as well as to restore and protect the land contained within the forest. In addition to the herbal aspect of the forest, Sivaraj is engaged in several other outreach programs, including the energy blanket project, where profits earned from the blankets made at Martuvam support the community art school he is constructing. Also, every week a group of handicapped children and orphans from Pondicherry come to Martuvam to escape the city and experience nature.
A typical day of work at Martuvam consisted of working with local Tamil villagers on the ongoing projects happening at the healing forest. We helped to build a community kitchen, from start to finish, that will be used for supporting the various outreach projects Sivaraj intends to hold at Martuvam. While working on the kitchen, we learned the specific methods of Tamil construction, including digging holes with small hand shovels and metal rods (used to loosen the clay soil), carrying sand and rocks in metal bowls on top of our heads, mixing cement, and layering bricks using a string as a level. Not only was this a physical challenge, it was a social difficulty as well because the people we worked alongside spoke little to no English. .. and would sometimes shout at us in Tamil as if we understood.
Mungai, Sheila, Sukumar and Mono, the Tamil workers, were apprehensive about us at first, but gradually warmed up to us, even to the point of renaming us Pepsi and Miranda after two of India's soft drinks. They enjoyed asking us about our lives in America (through our regular game of conversation charades) and often found humor in poking fun at American culture. They also enjoyed pointing out our social faux-paus, such as wearing toe rings (which in Tamil culture is a symbol of marriage. Aside from the physical experience of working at Martuvam, learning how to cultivate relationships that overcame both cultural and language barriers was the most valuable lesson we learned at this service project (as well as learning not to take ourselves too seriously...).
More...
Pete's Solitude Entry
This is Pete Wackernagel's blog entry.
Solitude is a farm who's primary vision is centered on self-sufficiency. This is vastly important to our studies of sustainability because self-sufficiency is effectively the apex of the pyramid of sustainability. They do not talk about sutainability at Solitude as a goal or as something that they are working toward, because this is irrelevant. Self-sufficiency lies beyond sustainability, and thus it is not even an issue. Sustainabilty is something for governments to discuss and to show minimal progress toward. It is something for corporations to seize on because they think that their coopting of this buzzword will increase their profits. Sustainability surely is necessary, but its usage is now so mainstream and tame that it begins to lose meaning. Sustainability can be discussed and even moved toward in a cursory manner within the realm of the market, under the gaze of the greatest deity of today, the dollar. Self-sufficiency is the truly radical expression of sustainabilty, and it is at this end of the spectrum of sustainability that Solitude stands. Self-sufficiency is the only way that any farm, institution, or organization of any sort can truly remove itself from the inextricably thick, binding web of the international economic system, and it is this total amputation that is necessary for sustainability to be attained in a real manner. Solitude is moving in the right direction.
Yo Mind, Body, Spirit...Yeah Baby!
The most important thing this program taught me was awareness. I gained an awareness of myself, my body, my mind and some more options for the different spiritual paths that could save my soul. I've found some peace of mind. I've found some more of my authentic self. I've found out and saw and experienced for myself how wide the world really is and how much is actually going on. I've also realized that what Mother Teresa said was very right - "There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those." Whatever you do that is right for you than you will feel it with your being and there can be no way to take on the entire world only the world you create and live in can you have the greatest impact. Unless you're so awesome you are Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King or Gandhi for Christ's sake.
Have Fun and Peace Out!
Designing the Future through Devotion
When I choose to work at Upasana Design Studio I was thinking in terms of the future. But the most important thing I learned at the studio, and on this program, in general is to think in terms of the present.
Upasana means "devotion." To design devotion is a task we partake in whether we realize it or not. We all choose to be devoted to something whether it be the Divine, money, freedom, academics, our family, friends, work, peanut butter and jelly. We choose to use more time/thoughts/actions on these things than on others and the way in which we utilize our being in this way is how we design our devotion to it. I am in the process of designing my devotion. I am actually in a fight with my devotion at the moment because I cannot decide which direction to go with it.
For my service learning project I decided to give some of my devotional time to Upasana. This design studio creates clothing and socially conscious projects. There are two big projects going on at Upasana right now – Tsunamika and Small Steps. Tsunamika is a tsunami rehabilitation project that provides income and self-fulfillment for some of the village women in the surrounding area. Tsunamika is a doll made of scrap material by these women and given out to people as a symbol of hope, peace, and love. This little doll has touched people all over the world and has generated enough donations to pay the women a decent income. Small Steps is a project dedicated to the elimination of plastic bag usage in India, and then hopefully the world. It is a compactable shopping bag that is stylish and can be carried anywhere and given out to those who would like them.
Both of these projects run on the principle of the gift economy, which tries to eliminate the calculating factor that money adds to the exchange of goods and services and instead focuses on the person to person interaction and the emotions involved in giving. The motivation for all our interactions comes under the category of giver, receiver, or trader. We are either giving something without the expectation of receiving or we are receiving something without the pressure of reciprocation or, most often, we are trading which means we are either giving with the explicit motivation of reciprocation or we are receiving with the known obligation of payment. Our world economy functions in a system based on trading and that system is not limited to money or good and services. It permeates into our psyche and affects the way we approach our interactions with everything. Most of the time we are functioning as traders, even when we smile at someone walking past we are usually not smiling just to be smiling at them but we expect them to smile back at us. If you start to analyze all your actions in these terms I'm sure you will find yourself functioning in this mode of exchange more than you think you are. It takes conscious awareness of ourselves in order to find out how we truly act and think and what our true motivations and intentions are. From looking at the way Tsunamika has progressed to spreading the message of hope and peace through over a million dolls without selling a single one, but relying on the giving nature of some for donations to keep the project going. Their intention were pure from the get go, which was to spread the message that even in the crisis of a tsunami there is still hope and there is still life to be lived. The village women who made these dolls gave them to the world even though most would have thought they had nothing to give and that is why the world gave back to them.
Giving is not something to just be done on birthdays and Christmas, but something to be practiced everyday with a conscious awareness of your intentions.
Ecological Design
For the Sustainability in Practice Paper I wrote about ecological design and my thesis was: One of the most environementally sustainable methods is the ecological aproach to the design of our infrastructure in which design attempts to integrate into the natural environment's processes.
Here are some sources for that: Rocky Mountain Institute http://www.rmi.org/
Ecological Design Institute http://www.ecodesign.org/
Ecotecture http://www.ecotecture.com/
Thesis: Water Scarcity
Most people turn on the tap, the shower, the washing machine or the hose with a steady stream of fresh, readily available water. Some never think twice about where the water comes from, or how lucky they are to have this wonderful amenity. Many do not understand how much water gets over-used. Globally, humans have used far too much water without thinking, and our most vital resource is quickly depleting. Due to inadequate water distribution to countries in need, poor policies and water subsidies, and little to no incentive to conserve water, the world is facing a serious predicament. This paper will illustrate the global water scarcity problem as it relates to over consumption and climate change, as well as the water problem in Tamil Nadu, India, and more specifically in Auroville, which also lies in Tamil Nadu. After touching on these places and the water problem in general, this paper will describe an effective way of sustainable gardening through xeriscaping, which is landscaping with little to no impact on the land, as well as describing some plants that can be used in a xeriscape such as Plumeria and Hibiscus.
The UN recommends that the average person needs only 50 litres of water a day for drinking, cooking and washing. However, many people throughout the world, such as in India and Africa, receive little to no water. Rapid population growth, overuse and increasing consumption of water per capita is, “projected to increase by at least 50% by 2025 compared to 1995” (http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu:2048/ehost/...). (See chart 1 and 2). Aside from over consumption as an increasing problem, climate change is also a main player in the scarcity of water. Certain studies conducted by several scientists using climate-hydrology models have shown a great amount of decreasing streamflow due to climate change.
Even in developing countries, higher living standards and population growth have increased the amount of water usage. Reasearchers have discovered a six fold increase in water usage with only a two fold increase in population growth in the United States. Consumption of water will rise even higher as people around the world acquire more western diets. The greatest amount of available water is in Latin America and North America. Africa, Asia and Europe have far less. Whether the water problem is due to physical or social means, it is here and will not dissipate. Tom Demassa who writes for earthtrends, reports that, specifically,
"In the Middle East and North Africa, small amounts of annual rainfall create a physical water scarcity. As a result, the region is largely dependent upon unsustainable groundwater abstractions. In the United States, the destruction of wetlands and continued strains on rivers caused by pollution and excessive use (for example, The Colorado River) limit the ability of these ecosystems to provide other important goods and services. In sub-Saharan Africa, a high degree of precipitation variability coupled with a severe lack of necessary infrastructure have led to extreme water scarcity in many places” ( http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/73)
Dwindling water supplies will ultimatly lower agriculture production, cause more water related health problems, and damage the environment.
www.auroville.org/environment/harvest/harvest.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3747724.stm
http://www.indiaresource.org/issues/water/2003/waterfacts.html
NEXT page |
