Refrigeration-  The main dish in Nepal is Dahl Bhatt , which is rice and lentils with a few curried vegetables.  Where we were staying in a monastery in the small town of Besisahar, if they were eating meat, they butchered and ate a rabbit on the same day.  There is no need for a large fridge because they just harvest the vegetables as needed or buy them from the local vender a 10-15 min walk away.  Fridges are luxury items for the well off or the street vendors selling cold drinks.  Dairy is not  a big portion of their diet.

Lights – There is usually electricity available at night but if it goes out, we just lit a candle.  At the monastery we went to bed a nine pm and woke up with the sun and Tibetan chant music at 5am, getting good use of natural light!

TV – The monks loved watching wrestling on TV!  Dave and I were usually very thankful if the power went out while a particularly bad drama was blaring at the kids sitting too close to the screen.  We had much more fun when we played music from their IPODs and showed off our dance moves, traditional Nepalese and modern and don’t forget air guitar!

Hot water – It’s a hot climate and we didn’t have hot running water, just a gravity fed tank feeding from a river.  I preferred to wash in the afternoon when the sun was warm.

Cooking – meals were prepared on wood fired stove.  It took at least an hour to prepare any meal.  They had some gas for cooking as well but used it mostly for making tea.

If there is a global oil crunch as the International Energy Agency predicts could happen by 2014, (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090629/business/cbusiness_us_iea) these rural poor people will be in a fairly good position, mostly because they have so little to lose.  The rural Nepalese people don’t have much money but they live a slower more relaxed lifestyle.  They were smiling and friendly and very healthy from so much mountainside trekking!

But if the climate continues to get drier for them as it has in the last decade, they will have everything to lose because their agricultural and living water flows directly from the great mountain rivers.

It really makes me think about how much water and energy I waste and how my carbon emissions effect people on the other side of the world.

Dave and I were a little weary about going to Bangladesh. The travel blogs we read had nothing good to say about Dhaka and we just didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into by signing up to go visit a tribal village in Sirmangal.

But for me, the visit in Bangladesh has been the highlight of the trip so far! Boniface, the director of the NGO Bangladesh Association for Sustainable Development (BASD), greeted us and got us set up in a nice hotel. We had a great discussion on the bus ride to the village. Boniface has been a freedom fighter and has a Masters in Divinity. A curious combo! He is devoted to his country and the betterment of the local people. Boniface started the NGO with the help of family and friends supporting him. Together they have created successful microcredit programs and skills training workshops, where staff work very standard of living. Progress is made slowly and deliberately through talking, sharing and education programs. The local people are given the responsibility to take on decisions for themselves and in time, learn to run the programs without the support of BASD. This is truly noble work!

The bus ride was a harrowing experience on the nerves, weaving and honking wildly down the road. Then we transferred to a jeep to take us up to the tea gardens and really tested the torque on steep and rough inclines up to the tribal village. The view is of tall hills of short green bushes in neat rows. Along the road are white adobe houses with cows and chickens wandering around.

Father James has a grey beard and kind eyes. He and Boniface joke with each other. We walk down the path to his house past small signs that say peace, unity, love in Bangla. Father James left the city life to live in the forest and build his own homestead. He built a fine adobe house with a tin roof and solar panels for light. The washroom is outdoor and washing and drinking water are carried from the bottom of the hill. The weather is hot 35 or more at midday. He has studies permaculture principles and is planting lots of fruit trees and vegetables around his property and digging ponds to try to keep the monsoon waters around to do good for the soil. He is a bit of a witch doctor concocting eco insect repellents and fertilizers from the locally available plant life. While we were visiting, we got to cut the ribbon on the new composting toilet! He is working to make the construction affordable for the people. He also took us down to the tea garden village where people were participating in a microloan program. We saw two girls get loans for 2000 takka to buy goats. When the goat has a kid, it can be sold to generate income for the family. The loans are paid back a little each week and the interest rate is a little better than the Bank. If someone cannot repay for a little while, the property is not taken from them. Instead they work out arrangements to pay in the future or take it out of their savings. We also visited the home where a village girl is teaching others how to sew using foot operated sewing machines. This helps the girls have an income generating skill and helps them attract a good husband.

These programs make a big difference in the lives of the poorest people in the world’s poorest country. These men may be living lightly. But they are making a big impact!!

The city was founded 40 years ago, with a vision to become a place of human unity, where 50,000 people could live together peacefully, beyond religion and caste structures, where people and relationships would be valued over money and competition.

Currently 2,000 people call Auroville home. Its central structures are in place like the town hall, visitors centre, and the amazing community Solar Kitchen- built to cook up to 1,000 lunches a day just using the power of the sun. They have forward thinking ‘Stiener’ schools for the children, lots of ecological research and development projects and businesses.

Dave and Natasha were drawn to Auroville because Dave wanted to live ecologically and Natasha wanted to live in community. They found some friends who were replanting the tropical evergreen forest, and started up a consultancy called Convergence. http://www.thepointofconvergence.org/index.html. Dave and I were touched as we participated in one of their conferences in deep ecology with inspiration from the academic approach of Arne Naess and the emotional sharing of Joanna Macy’s work that reconnects. Dave and Natasha have built a beautiful home of local materials, their power is solar generated and their two children love school. As Aurovillians, they don’t own their land, but are stewarts for the next generation. The City of Auroville gives Dave and Natasha a small monthly stipend and health care benefits. They belong to a food co-op supporting locally grown organic farming and a linens co-op.

Natasha and Dave also expressed some frustrations with the way Auroville is progressing. Auroville is made up of many very small communities of 10-20 people and they can find it difficult to productively resolve conflicts and make decisions. Once, Dave and Natasha considered leaving, but decided on principle to stay and make it work. The transport system is lagging and the roads are unsafe at night, the distance between daily necessities is far and everyone drives a moped or a motorcycle. The plan for the future is to have all solar charged electric bicycles, no motor vehicles in the centre of the city and clean public transportation. An aspect of Auroville that we found disturbing was the division of labour. Only the local Tamil people were doing the physical labour, and not for the same pay as the Aurovillians. The city is certainly in progress and it is ascending the steep and rocky cliffs of growth and human development.

Dave and Natasha wake up every day knowing that the work they are doing is good for the Earth and good for people, and that keeps them going through 40 degree weather and cyclone storms. They live in a community where they can share childcare with their neighbours, their children can run free in the forest they are replanting and they belong to a city with a vision for the future of a peaceful world. Dave and Natasha we salute you as everyday heroes!!

The roads got narrower and twistier the closer we got to Erraid, with a lot of single track roads, especially once on Mull. Eventually we changed busses, and were taken by Paul a bit further… until the bus could go no further, at which point we put our heavy bags into a trailer pulled by a tractor! On the flat parts we hitched a ride on the tractor too, but walked over the bumpy bits. Usually people get to Erraid by boat, but the sea was too rough that day, so we had to do it “the hard way” – though the walk was welcome after 4 hours or so in the first bus.

The settlement on Erraid consists of one street of 9 houses, actually 5 buildings; a few other buildings; a lighthouse observatory; and not a lot else. They have mains electricity and a couple of telephone lines; dialup internet is available, but only at one house at a time, so there is a connection schedule. They harvest rainwater for drinking and have a well for other water, burn wood for heat, grow a good amount of their own food (though now, through the Hungry Gap they are buying food in). They have only composting toilets, set away from the houses, and with no electric lighting – you can feel the wind on your cheeks! But also look at the stars, clear and bright in the sky with no light pollution…

On Sunday we went on a walk around the island, led by Val, Chris and Britta; we saw sheep, birds and seals. There is no unnatural noise here – no motorways, no aeroplanes. Kara and I made leaps to get onto the Wishing Stone, which is surrounded by water – they say, be careful what you wish for!

Of the 30+ of us that partook of Ecovillage Training, only six went to Erraid for this optional-but-recommended digestive week. I felt bad for those of EVT who had to return to jobs in the “real world” on Monday – what a blessing to be unfettered and free! Of course, I was thinking of the next few months and years – planning and plotting, scheming and wondering. In Canada, can I grow everything we’ll need? How much wood will I need to heat us for a year? Where will I be able to get a cheap woodburner? What are zone planning regulations like? Where can I get 5-10-15-100 acres of land that is cheap, has the right location with respect to attracting visitors yet not being too close to a city, and has good soil, water, solar… Wow!

So we spent the week helping in the garden, cooking, and chopping wood; I helped baking bread (I love baking – and the results tasted wonderful!); Kara made beautiful Erraid Rainbow candles, and milked a cow. On Wednesday we had a day trip to the holy isle of Iona, walking up to the top of what I think used to be a hill fort, Dun I, and then back down to the Abbey. It is a very sacred, peaceful place.

I spent a lot of the week recovering from the intensity of EVT, actually – thinking and relaxing, spending time alone, singing a little taize. The idea of voluntary simplicity might be a hard one for many to grasp, and even harder to accomplish in an urban setting; but I found the opportunity to visit somewhere that has all this in place, and working well, a real blessing as well as an eye opener – what do I actually need to live a happy, contented life? Not much, compared to what I had just a few months ago!

The following morning, I went for a jog followed by meditation – leaving me in a very calm, steady place. Inside the sweat lodge was intensely hot, incredibly potent and very revealing, though I must admit the awareness I gained there, and outside lying on the cool grass, faded away quickly. Many participants, including me, felt a loss of ego during the process, emerging from the lodge disoriented and dizzy. Kara and others felt a very deep connection with the Earth and the other participants.

On Monday we used Open Space to form our groups for our design projects. If you have not heard of it, Open Space is a fantastic organisational tool that allows any participant with an idea to hold a space devoted to that idea, while the remaining participants circulate, talk, listen and contribute to the spaces they feel drawn to. It is very organic and flowing, and trusts that people will end up where they should be, and is designed around the understanding that, at conferences, people often get most from the coffee breaks!

Anyway, it was a chaotic process, but everyone ended up in a design project of interest to them. In order to gain a Permaculture Design Certificate, which is the most formal qualification of EVT, one must both learn Permaculture basics, then apply them in a design project, and finally present that project to the group. Kara and I filmed a short video about the Ethics and Attitudes of Permaculture as our project, starring our EVT group, a chicken hand puppet, and a very cute toy rabbit!

We began by designing, storyboarding and brainstorming on Monday afternoon; we filmed on Tuesday morning (being at our work departments on Tuesday afternoon!); we did two final pieces of filming and all the editing on Wednesday; and finally presented the film on Wednesday night! Talk about a crash course in video editing – I have never done it before. The film turned out well (though needing much polish before we release it to a wider audience), and we both got our PDCs.

Other groups designed permaculture gardens, whole ecovillages and settlements on areas of land they already owned or had an interest in; one group made a beautiful stone mosaic from local beach stones, and one group designed a new banking fund that would be much more holistic, geared towards investing in sustainable, transition (as in Transition Towns: see http://www.transitionculture.org/ for more info) projects – while still generating a return for the investors. All very positive stuff, and great to see people using their strengths to create amazing ideas.

While we were filming we went back out to our cob cookstove – I think it turned out really well! We ended our time at Findhorn with some Homecare (that is, cleaning up the spaces we had lived in for the past four weeks), some sharing, and some very silly games that worked so well because of the closeness of our group after all the time we’d shared together.

Thank you to Craig, Gabrielle, and Biz for their care and support of us during our time with you; thank you to the other EVTers for their openness, willingness to participate, and passion; and thank you to Findhorn for the space where all of the magic we experienced could take place. Now we can see how Peoplecare, Fairshare and Earthcare are all equally important in building community, and we are already putting these principles into action in our own lives!

The session leaders were able to give us rules of thumb and key factors they had discovered throughout their lives. For example, that wind generation becomes viable if the average wind speed is above 7 m/s. It gave us a clear sense of what to think about when planning projects in the future.

During the second part of the week, we spent a couple of days in Glen Affric, a couple of hours west of Findhorn. The charity “Trees for Life” (http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/) works there to restore part of the Caledonian Forest – which now stands at ~1% of it’s original area. They are working with the Forestry Commission (the British government arm that is responsible for forestry and timber) to link all the way from the east coast of Scotland to the Isle of Skye in the west.

Alan Watson Featherstone, who founded the charity, gave us two slide presentations which were devastating yet inspiring. He showed us how forests the world over have been reduced to single digit percentages of the area they once covered. Reduced habitat causes the extinction crisis – we are losing perhaps 150 species per day. The time to act is now…

Yet, Alan speaks softly and with so much love. He is living out his calling to restore the Earth where ever he can. “I’m just a normal guy” he tells us, but I was not very convinced of that, as he laid out his vision of the Global Century of Earth’s restoration and told us how he had received a £25 000 cheque in the mail that morning. All he has is passion and a global vision. The rest follows.

Our visit out in the Glen was wonderful. We collected pinecones from native Scots Pines, the seeds of which will be grown and planted out in about two years time. There was snow on the ground so we were unable to plant any trees, but the group had a great time throwing snowballs and enjoying the scenery. Best of all, we could see how quickly Mother Earth can heal herself when we allow her to.
Our final week will consist of a design project, working in small groups… It’s bound to be an interesting process!

The theme of this week has been “Fair Share” and so we have focussed on alternative currencies, community projects, community supported agriculture, and local food production. The whole group visited Cullerne Garden for a tour on Monday afternoon, and returned for our work placements on Tuesday afternoon. Dave spent the whole afternoon shovelling horse dung. A truly grounding experience!

We got to see permaculture in action at Craig’s house. His property looks untidy, but it is really a beautiful self seeding edible landscape. His chickens scratch up the dirt and Craig hardly ever digs or weeds because he uses mulching instead. And in the morning when we wants eggs and vegetables, he just steps outside, steps over the chicken poo, and picks a fresh egg and what ever greens are in season.

Cullerne is an organic garden, and the whole of Findhorn Village and the Park are built on sand dunes. Much compost and manure spreading is done, to keep life in the soil. They call Cullerne a market garden, and grow most of the Foundation’s leafy greens there. Most of the other vegetables are grown by EarthShare, which we visited on Wednesday.

EarthShare is a community supported agriculture project. Once part of the Foundation, it is now a separate organisation. They grow food for roughly two hundred boxes of food (to feed 3-4 people each) per week; about two thirds of this food is bought by the Foundation to feed the members.

So the group potted up chives, “riddled” potatoes, dug jerusalem artichokes, and lugged 25Kg bags of seed potatoes around! After that, the owners of the next farm over gave us tea, some of their delicious cheese, and a wonderful talk on the difficulties of being organic farmers. Thank you so much, Pam and Nick of Wester Lawrenceton Farm – you were a huge inspiration to the group.

Perhaps the highlight of the week was Thursday afternoon, where the entire group cooked dinner for the community at large – 32 of us in a kitchen generally used by 8. It was an afternoon of chaos, creativity, a couple of burned fingers, lots of flavour… and lots and lots of love. The outcome was fantastic – in this “hungry gap” before the spring produce is available, the community loves the diverse meal laid on by EVT every year. My bulging belly was a testament to how good the food was. Though, of course, it did raise issues – how lucky and blessed we are to have such plenty when others go without.

Every meal here is blessed before it is eaten, and it isn’t just a token gesture – the people blessing the food really were thinking of those with less than ourselves. It is so sad to know that world food production could feed the human population, but that due to… well, let’s just call it “the system,” many are hungry.

As well as all of the above, we have had two birthdays in the group this week – many happy returns, Diego and Biz! Diego is leaving the group too, which is very sad – safe trip back to Brazil!

Although all the angels we pick for the week are positive, we acknowledge the shadow side as well.   My angel of play might have a shadow of boredom, sorrow or being too serious.  

We spent one morning session thinking about the state of the world.  We did this using a model created by the International Forum for the Future.  It helps us look at the world from a systems perspective by looking at the relationships between 12 factors like , climate, water, trade, governance, ect.   We looked at how a crisis in one or two areas can lead to catastrophes in waves in the whole system.   An example is what we have been seeing in the world in the last year, as trade increases with emerging countries, the demand for energy is more than the supply, so energy prices rise.   To compensate, the government encouraged food land to be converted to fuel crops, this caused a large increase in the price of food.  When energy and food prices rose, people could not afford their large mortgages and increasing defaults caused the financial sector to implode.   It is all more complicated than this of course, but the trends and interactions are there. 

To help us deal with the powerlessness we can sometimes feel in the world, Hanna took us through some Deep Ecology rituals which are part of Joanna’s Macy’s “Work that Reconnects”.   http://www.joannamacy.net/
  
The activities follow a spiral path starting with gratitude, honoring our pain, seeing with new eyes and then going forth.   We made gratitude mandalas by drawing images that represent parts of our lives like a special place that I loved when I was young – going for a picnic with Eric in Old Orchard, the people who inspired me – my parents, things I like to do and what I love most about being alive- gratitude and the simple joy of living.    It is so important to start everyday with gratitude.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Growing up in a country that is in peace, having all the food and clean water I need, education and love.  
It also means I have a lot to loose if the challenges of peak oil, climate change and food and water equality are not addressed with wisdom and long term thinking.    We moved into the “Truth Mandala” ritual to honour our emotions of anger, fear, sadness, emptiness, and the unspeakable.  We sat around a fire in the wood and said a prayer and then people entered to the centre to express the emotions to which the group replied, “We have heard you”.   People shared very openly about their lives as well as their fears and anger about issues in environment and justice.   To be free to express these negative emotions without judgment and to be simple heard and honoured for them is a healing exercise.     By honouring the pain, it can dissipate and we can become more clear in our vision and see the world afresh.   That evening we held a meditation of seeing the human body with respect to how it has come from nature through the ages as we explored the hands and legs as our partners.   Then we can go forth into the world with a mindset that will make a better world.  We said a poem together listing joyful activities on earth with the group replying “May it Continue!”

The next day several group member were still feeling depressed about the day before.  They were able to express this in the morning check in and ask for the support that was needed.  The group happily gave them the love and attention if it was asked for.  So often in life, the space is not made to share feelings and nobody knows why the other is angry or what to do about.  By making a safe space, it helps the issues come out with honesty instead of coming up later in more destructive ways. 

The light and the dark are two sides of the same coin.  To shine the brightest light possible, we must lovingly honour the dark.  This may be the most important lesson of my life.  Thank you Findhorn.

To begin the program, we met our new family for the month in a large circle.  There was a candle in the center as the focal point of the group, representing light, hope and spirit.  We started with an energizing song with pounding on the floor and singing African lyrics.  “Aye Tikki tikki, aye eh!!!  Thump! Thump! Pat! Pat!, Clap! Clap!    We even clapped on the legs of the people beside us.  It was a clear contrast to the HANDS OFF culture of an office.  There is something so uplifting about such a simple game.  Everyone was laughing and getting out the new group jitters.

The people running the course are called ‘focalizers’ because they help to hold the space but are not put above the group in the psychological hierarchy.  Craig has lived and breathed Findhorn for 40 years.  He has a calm and affirmative personality that puts me at ease.  He exudes passion and youthfulness and calls himself Findhorn’s ‘feral elder’. Gabrielle is a young woman who was born into the Findhorn Foundation Community. She was a bit nervous but still has the presence of a good group facilitator.  

The first two days of the course were devoted to building group trust. We danced together in a circle to traditional Mediterranean folk music. Then we danced a spiral dance where Dave stood still in the middle and we slowly wound the group around him like a ball of thread.   All these exercises break down our barriers and help us to mix together and come in contact with one another.  The next day we played group discovery games which work with non-verbal communication and giving compassionate caring to others.  At the end, we had a group sharing sitting in a circle by a crackling fire.  It felt so close and open as if we had known each other for years or grown up together.  And that is what these games have been developed to do.

The program is an intense one, running for six days of the week, and usually three sessions per day each three hours. One stalwart of the community is that “Work is Love in Action”; meaning, everyone does KP (“Kitchen Party”) once a week – that is, washing up! We also have one session of work within the community, and for this Dave is working in Cullerne Garden, a market garden a few minutes walk from the Park campus. Kara is helping with the cooking and cleaning over at the Cluny campus.

Further into the week, we discussed the state of the world and delved into all the emotions that arose as we looked at the fragility of the system of our civilization. We came up with a new expression for when several related crises cause a catastrophe in the system; “Peak Shit”. We also looked at our definition of success in group work. We were challenged in groups of six to frame a window. Dave’s group finished very fast but some of the group members felt excluded and they all ended up feeling sad. Kara’ s group were the last to finish but the group felt happy at the end because they got along and had fun during the process. Another group got it done on time and were happy with each other as well. Success can be evaluated in terms of the task, the process and the relationships.

Eco-village training is an intense program that is about so much more than windmills. We are really learning about ourselves and how we fit into community and how that affects the state of the world.

Wow!