A Month at Sadhana Forest!

Eye Candy: Left to Right top to bottom.
Our composting toilets
with bum wash and water buckets; me at the washing station with my gloves to keep from spreading the infection; Sadhana from the water tower; solar panels and the water tower; a beautiful and plump lipped volunteer at Sadhana


Hello everybody
Wow! It's hard for me to believe that I've been at Sadhana for more than a month now. The time seems to have gone by so fast. I've recovered from the Staph infection but I had to take antibiotics in the end. I got some of the infection on my lip and it swelled up really big. It was quite painful for about two days and the fact that it really distorted the way I usually look had a bigger effect than I would have expected. It was emotionally straining. Now I'm better from that, for good I hope, but I've started to have rather low energy in the last week or so. Annoying and uninspiring but I'm learning with it too. How I can start looking at things in a negative light and how I can fail to take the opportunities to learn with out really noticing.
Sadhana forest is a really dynamic place. People are coming and going all the time. It's hard to make friends and watch them go so often but it's also neat to have new people and ideas coming through all the time too. Some issues arose amongst the volunteers in Sadhana concerning different groups forming, people not working hard enough, and people not being treated with respect. It was really interesting to work through these problems and I found that lack of understanding amongst the group was a key thing. One group thought the other group didn't care and that their efforts weren't being appreciated and the other group felt exactly the same. Having a meeting to discuss and share this relieved a lot of the tension. I learned a lot (and only a little) about composting toilets, compost, yoga, alternative types of healing, the benefits of taking responsibility for my duties, Non-Violent Communication, and appreciating my surroundings. I've also made some good friends too.
I'm planning to head back out into India again this week. While living at Sadhana I really felt somewhere else. An alternative bubble in India. Spending the day in Pondicherry today has given me new excitement to go out traveling again. I'd like to explore more of the communities in Auroville but I am more itching to see more of southern India. I've only got two months and a week left in India and that seems so short.
I hope to travel freely in southern India (ie. not have much of a plan and see where my intuition takes me) but I'm not sure if I want to go back to Northern India and volunteer in Ladhak. We'll see.

I hope everyone is enjoying reading this blog and that you are finding the adventures and learning opportunities in your own lives.
Peace from the east,
Kelly