my hands

from farming i can see changes all over. my feet are missing skin, my toenails have permadirt, my ankles are ant-bitten. my arms are scratched and my neck sports a burn mark. i even have a cliche farmer's tan. all just little things. but my hands, the change in my hands seems to hold the greatest significance. i have always had elegant hands. long fingers, soft skin, hands that betray an affluent lifestyle. now they sport healing blisters, scabby cuts on the fingers, jagged cuticles, scuffed skin. i no longer have nails, and what is left is brown. the beginnings of working hands.

now that pongal is done and finished, school is back in session. yesterday i met my class of tamil village children. they are lovely and smart. i am helping them with their already amazing english skills. also with their self confidence. it is intense. you can see the influence of the caste system, you can see the influence of the western world, you can see the influence of ingrained traditions. i will have to work hard in a new way now.

undoubtedly my hands will turn back into affluent hands. the scabs will fall off and the nails will grow back, and i won't even have a scar to show for my work. but they will remember. for later, when i want to be a farmer again.

Have you ever

Have you ever
climbed a holy mountain?
climbed a mountain at 4 a.m.?
climbed a mountain in the dark?
climbed a mountain in complete silence?
climbed a mountain barefoot?
climbed a mountain among crazy monkeys?
climbed a mountain to see the sunrise like heaven and the underworld have met in an explosion of red but green but blue over a sea of cloud that stretches in every direction so that no matter which way you turn you feel more awake than before?

I have.

Neener neener.

Beebs,

Happy Pongal.


For those who are hard core, here is a site that we take it in turns to update day by day:

http://auroville07.greatestjournal.com

This site is not for the faint of heart. Some of us are rather long winded. I do miss you.

Julia

do you ever

Do you ever feel like you can see into the past? I feel this when I stand under the ancient banyan tree in the center of Auroville. It is a forest in and of itself, this tree. And looking out through its many trunks, I fancy that I can see this flat land as it used to look, a desert of red dust for miles and miles. Only the tree stood here then. The contrast between this vision and the jungle that now surrounds the banyan tree for miles and miles is startling. I can feel all the hours and days and people and work it took to make this place. And it humbles me.

Do you ever feel like the earth is alive even more vividly than you are? I look at the ground here and it is in constant motion. Ants of all sizes and colors, three distinct kinds of centipede, four types of scorpion, crickets, grasshoppers, frogs, geckos, and the wind in the scrubby grass. I look at the air, and it too is alive. More varieties of butterfly than I can count, flies, mosquitoes, brightly coloured birds, and the energy of the red dust dancing in the sunlight. It makes the ground and the air of home seem sterilized and dead. There is wisdom in the earth here.

Do you ever wake up and not know where you are? I seem to do it all of the time now. Not just from sleep, but from waking life. I will suddenly come to the profound realization that I am not at home, but rather in India. So profound will that fact seem to me that I will feel the need to tell someone. I am learning to accept the incredulous reactions of others that inevitably result from such an exchange.

Do you ever have flashes of consciousness? Where you realize that the moment you are experiencing is happening right now? This seems to happen to me more frequently lately. Tonight I climbed the water tower where the monsoon rainwater is stored through the dry season to watch the sunset, and the whole sky turned to water and fire. It occurred to me that I was alive, and more importantly it occurred to me that I was living.

socks

dearest parents,

i forgot to tell you. do you remember how in the airport you were worried that i hadn't packed any socks? well, please let lay all your worries to rest. they gave me some green fuzzy socks on the airplane. so everything is alright.

love,

julia



Guess what. I'm a farmer. This is interesting because affluent people do not farm. Less than 1 percent of the American population is involved in agriculture in the US of A. 100 years ago it was 70 percent. If I had not come here, I never would have experienced how good it feels to get up early in the morning and get really dirty doing something constructive. It is true however that I am not a conventional sort of farmer. Today I mixed termite dirt and cow poopie with water with my bare feet. This made a sticky mud stuff that I used to plaster bricks together to make an oven for bread. It was beautiful to build something. I also weeded the tomatoes. Yesterday I made peanut butter with a bicycle. Figure that one out.
I think the most interesting thing about this place is that it is contained. Perhaps that's not the right word, but it's the one I can think of. What I mean is that when I turn on the tap for water I know where it came from and how it was purified. When I get lunch at the Solar Kitchen I can ask the cooks where the curd or the squash came from and they can tell me which farm. And then I can go visit the farm. And help plant more squash or feed the cows or whatever. No one ever really wonders where their food comes from in the states. If you ask the cashier at the grocery store they can't tell you. And there's no way you can go lend a hand to those who supply you with food.
But. This is not the real India. So.

The info

This is an address where I might be for a while:

My name
American pavilion
Auroville
Tamil Nadu, India 605101

If anyone should need a number to reach me in case of emergency my parents have one. You can call them.

I am overwhelmed and cannot write coherently as of yet. This bothers me. I will try again at another time. Life is dynamic for those who can afford it, no?

Arrival

I didn't get blown up on New Years for those of you who were worried. I made it to India, without hassle and without sickness and with a lot of really nifty and intriguing people. It's amazing here; cows and dogs wander all around and I saw five different kinds of butterfly just this morning and my bedspread is tie dye and everything moves more slowly and I drink and shower with monsoon water and we found a snake in the bug moat around my house and the composting toilets aren't gross at all and the food is exciting and the colors are everywhere and I think I'll love it here. People wait for the internet, so I must go, and there will be more when I've been here a bit longer and know what I'm talking about.