Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

After not checking the internet for more than a week, there is more to update than I can even begin to type (especially on this keyboard. ugh) As planned, for the past week I have been living on the Bija Vidyapeeth/Navdanya organic farm [check it out! www.navdanya.org] and sitting for a class entitled Gandhi and Globalization. This experience has been so far one of the richest and most educational weeks i have spent in my life, hands down!

I will begin with the daily schedule:
7:00 am Tea
7:15-8:15 Yoga in the outdoor circular gazebo-esque structure
8;15-8:30 Circle meeting where one of the members of the group shares a poem, song, reading, quotation, etc and we discuss the days events
8:30-9 Breakfast - most of the food that we eat is grown here on the farm... and if not then it is all local, nonGMO, organic and COMPLETELY VEGAN [not to mention delicious!]
9-10 Shramdaan - this means the "gift of work" and we spend one hour with our group [the group names are compassion, beauty, love, and truth] working on the campus. we are either assigned to clean the dining room area or bathroom area or work in the kitchen or the field. The funniest part of this is that the group jobs are announced at circle meeting and sound something like "today we weill have compassion in the kitchen, truth in the fields, beauty in the toilets, and love in the dining room." haha. sometimes field work means that you get to take a huge bamboo stick and beat dried plants so that the lentils (9 different colors) come out of their pods! this is super fun!
10-11 rest time and time for bathing. this means taking a "splash" with a bucket and some solar-heated warm water. hair was impractical and annoying. i shaved my head!
11-1:30 class on the grass! more about class after the schedule
1;30-2:30 lunch... yummo!
2:30-3;30 chill out
3:30-5 walk or relax
5-5:30 tea time (its a high time for some CHAI TIME!)
5:30-7 class again
7-8 dinner and sit around a fire. where i am right now is quite far north and gets super dee duper cold at night> i am not prepared for this at all... i have no close toed shoes, only grey fleece as warmth but we huddle around fire and drink tea and eat spicy food and keep each other warm
8-? evening session --> this may be a documentary about ghandi or biodynamic farming or soya in brasil, it may be other folks talking about their travels or gardens (there is an english couple here who have recently retired and are probably in their mid sixties and have traveled here OVER LAND from england! their story is amazing! the other night we had a MASSIVE bonfire and all sang and drummed and told jokes and stories for hours in the cold starry night. wow
...and then we go to bed early! the sun goes down, it gets cold, and we are all tired and ready for sleep.

so that is the daily schedule with some changes along the way. it seems quite rigid but in reality is very flexible. anything u dont want to go to or do you dont have to! the campus is gorgeous! there is farm of about 20 acres and a ginormous mango orchard (unfortunately the mangoes are not in season...) the rooms are dorm-style and very simple, the meals are held in a big semi-enclosed dining room, the toilets are sometimes european, sometimes squat, and i walk around with no shoes all the time! my feet are so happy in contact with the earth. Since coming here i have had some bad luck with health but im okay. i got some bites that i was REALLY allergic to all ovre my legs and arms... we think that they were either fleas from the dogs or bedbugs but they made these gross huge red welts all over my body that were unbearably itchy. now about a million milligrams of clarinex and lots of cortisone cream later that has thankfully gone! also the climate change gave me a racking chest cold but im using some ayurvedic medicine and trying to get rid of that too!

I am here with about 30 other participants of all ages (im one of the youngest) from all parts of the world! its an amazing group with great energy, a TON of knowledge, lots of love and stories to share, and much more. I could not have hoped for a more fun and diverse group of interests and fields of wisdom. I am learning so much about organic farming, biodiversity, gandhi, nonviolence, history, green movements all over the world and more that i can hardly encapsulate it in a blog post!

probably the most important part of this experience so far has been the absolutely amazing teacher we have had for the first week. His name is satish kumar and he is truly indescribable. He is the most wise, caring, giving, warm, person i have ever met. his presence alone inspires you to be a better person. he has taught me so much about myself and life and more. he spent one evening session telling us the story of his journey when he was walking for peace (as a peace pilgrim when lord bertrand russell was imprisoned). he went with another jain monk friend on a pilgrimage to the nuclear cities (moscow, paris, london, washington) WALKING and starting in India. They walked the entire way (except for boat passage from london to new york) with no luggage, one change of clothes, and NO MONEY AT ALL. they relied on the hospitality of people along the way for food, shelter, warm clothing, footwear, etc. even in warring and hostile countries. it took them 2.5 years. he has taught us about trusting others, nonviolent lifestyle, gandhian principle, feeding the soil, taking care of the earth, making changes, love, and his lessons are so eloquent that its hard to believe that he is speaking without notes or outlines or anything but his own mind as the source. i absolutely cannot do justice to this man with just this paragraph but I will come back with some cD and maybe dvd recordings of his lectures that i would love to share with anyone who is interested!

For the next week, we have two other teachers... the prime minister of tibet (in exile) Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche and Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of this incredible organization! I am really excited for the week to come

Besides the logistics and day to day, the energy here is totally different than anywhere I have been before. it is a community of acceptance and learning and just such a powerful feeling of love... even between people who hardly know each other. it will be hard to leave but i am so fortunate to have this as part of my adventure and i STRONGLY recommend to ANYONE that you should come here to understand and experience it for yourself!

My internet time is out but i love you all and miss you tons and enjoy ur emails sooo much! keep writing!