On the 5th of November Sadhana Forest was all light and beauty with lamps lined all along the path and beautiful deepam(oil lamp) mandalas made to mark the celebration of Diwali, the festival of light.
Diwali, which is one of the most important festivals in India is celebrated on the kartika amavasya or no moon every year, usually in October or November. The festival is celebrated to mark the return of the victorious Gods after the destruction of evil. Usually all households leave the doors of their homes open on this auspicious day and decorate their houses with flowers and lights to invite the Gods to all homes to mark the victory of good over evil.

Over 20 young friends of Sadhana forest from Pondichery, invited by long term volunteer Raja and Vikram spent presence with us on this beautiful occasion and arranged for a lovely diwali puja. The beautiful lights, people shining with energy, the pretty mandalas, the special puja, the delicious vegan meal cooked by Raja and friends, the special diwali apple dessert prepared by Jamey made for a perfect start for the bright, noise and smoke free, diwali celebrations. Everyone present, the volunteers and the guests, participated in the puja which led to a magically musical time where everyone opened their voices and chanted and built beautiful harmonies in togetherness.

After a magical toning the gathering moved into the main hut where after dinner everyone present danced to some Indian dance numbers and to some drumming and ethnic music prepared by friends in Sadhana. Towards the end of the evening the main hut was thumping with the rythms and moves of energetic flushed happy sweaty faces.
The full moon that follows Diwali, the Karthika paurnami or Deepam that is considered a very auspicious day is also being marked and celebrated here in the forest by gathering around a big sacred fire, magical voices coming together to chant and some dancing to celebrate the moon and light.
We wish everyone a Happy Diwali and Happy Deepam. We hope to carry this light with us all through the year and hope that many of you will bring your light to join us here in the forest to light some lamps of love, peace and laughter.
Spread Love, Spread Light, Spread smiles,
Niki.

We have now begun to create the garden! After many planning meetings between Sadhana long-term volunteers, the Chidren”s Land Team and the Garden Team, a design for the garden was drawn up. The objectives of this garden are to create a space for the children to play outside, to grow fruits and vegetables for the children to eat and learn about growing food, and to grow medicinal herbs for the teachers to use with the children. The teachers at the Kindergarten Saguna and Mala expressed their wish for banana, papaya and drumstick trees. We have also considered which plants have multiple functions, for example medicinal and sensory. Chicken Spinach has pretty flowers and is highly nutritious. Beans look and smell amazing, are edible and can climb a frame to provide shade.

This week Rebecca, Ana, Tiago, Fabian, Sangara, Yasmin, Elles and Corine took tools and materials to the kindergarten twice to begin building the beds. We decided to build the walls of the beds out of bamboo, a tough natural material which looks fun. The next stage is to improve the soil for the beds by alternately putting down 24 layers of the existing soil and organic material soaked in water and pee. We almost completed one of the beds. We have several more to go! The kids were fascinated by what we were doing, and we have some fun activities planned for next week to engage them in building the soil and planting beans for nitrogen. Log in next week for an update!

We would like to express our gratitude to Guillemont Junior School in the UK for their support in this project, and for being the Sister School of Thiruchitrambaram Kindergarten!

We selected an area for planting and decided the first trees would be planted with our friends from the working group ‘One Week in June’, who generously provided the funding for purchasing our 1,000 seedlings this year. The seedlings are from the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest, which is the indigenous forest we are replanting here. See the previous blog ‘Tree Nursery for this Year’s Planting’ to read about collecting the seedlings.

We selected some hardy tree species which like to be planted in full sun for example Memecylon umbellatum, Walsura trifoliata  and Bauhinia racemosa. We also chose a Banyan Tree seedling which has been propagated from the Matrimandir Banyan Tree in Auroville. This tree is considered the spiritual centre of Auroville.

We have introduced a new planting technique to Sadhana Forest in the last year. This technique is an attempt to replicate natural systems. After selecting the area to be planted, a circle with a radius of 50cm is marked. A trench is dug along this circle in a way that the depth of this trench is even at all points. With the soil that is dug out to make the trench, a circular mound with a hollow centre is created in the circle. The empty centre is left for the tree to be planted in. 

After the mound is shaped it is filled with water up to the top. As a result of this the moisture content in the soil increases and the water goes into the soil to create a conical shaped water trough under ground to keep the roots hydrated as they make their way into the earth. In this way the trees don’t need much post planting care and attention. The conical water trough serves the tree until the roots get strong enough and is able to fend for itself. 

After the water is absorbed fully by the mound, then compost is mixed into the soil. The proportion of compost should be 30%, to 70% soil. The compost we use is from our dry compost toilets! We produce 10-12 tonnes of it per year. Our gift back to the forest!

Our Sadhana Forest volunteers worked hard to prepare the mounds for our guests, and it was with great excitement and high spirits the first trees were planted. Only another 990 left to plant!

Thanks to Adam, Nicole and Rebecca for their pictures.

To help our Sunday Community Meetings run with a little more fun and joviality, it was decided we would introduce a new twist. Although we embrace the forest and community work here at Sadhana Forest, the sharing of this out at the meetings wasn’t the most exciting process, so we thought a bit of FANCY DRESS would help spice it up!

We’ve so far had Fancy Hats, Forest Fairies, Crazy Hair themes, and this next weekend will be Super Heroes! Get your banana-leaf leggings and grass capes ready!!

Check out the photographic evidence!

The recent arrival of the 1,000 new Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest tree seedlings at Sadhana Forest was a cause for great excitement! This year we have decided to plant fewer seedlings, (we planted over 2,000 last year) and the seedlings are 2 years old, a year older than the seedlings we planted last year. This way we have stronger seedlings, and we will have time to plant the trees with real care and quality.

After three trips to collect all the seedlings from Ravena nursery in Auroville, the small trees of 50 species were assembled under our large Neem Tree. In order to prevent the trees in their bags from leaning against one another, three of our volunteers Adam, Michael and Rebecca constructed a bamboo frame to support them.

The trees will be planted over the next few months throughout the monsoon season, so the seedlings will be supported with enough of a water supply. We are very excited about the up coming planting season!

As the work on the land at Omkareshwar, Madhya Pradesh, takes pace, the children from the ashram school (that faces the ‘soon-to-be-forest’ ) have started showing more and more interest in the tree planting. Every evening, after school big groups of children gather on the land with tools, compost and saplings, all set to make a forest. As more and more trees are being planted, the children understand better and better about the tree planting technique and the logic behind it. While the older kids get busy with the tools, the younger children run around collecting mulch for the trees. The children are full of motivation and work with energy that is highly contagious.

 It is very inspiring to see the dedication of these children. After a Sunday break last weekend, as we returned to the land on Monday we were inspired to see that some of the children from the hostel had spared their Sunday evening to do some voluntary tree planting.

Yesterday Sarabjeet Bharaj the secretary of the ashram, gathered all the staff, teachers, and devotees of the hostel, as well as all the boys of all ages lodging in the hostel here, for a big push in the tree planting effort. We gathered at least 70 people in total and we all gathered for some motivational yogic breathing with Swami-ji Guru Sharanand. 10 teams were divided up, with some of the older boys and staff with tree planting experience heading each team. Guru Sharanand declared it a competition for each team to make the most mounds, which created a very energetic atmosphere, and Niki and I could hardly keep up! By the end of the day we had created 35 new mounds, pushing the total number of mounds up to 50 now. We also planted at least 15 trees. The rest we will plant during the week.

 This week we are also working on putting together some tree identification sheets with photos and cuttings of leaves on them. We have also painted tree labels on rocks to put under the trees near the school.

 As we continue to absorb all the beautiful energy, excitement, motivation, music and love that comes along with these tree planting sessions we hope that the weeks ahead will continue to grow more forests and more people.

After the selection of the tree, we introduced to our friends here the tree planting technique that we presently use in Sadhana Forest. This technique is an attempt to replicate natural systems. After selecting the area to be planted, a circle with a radius of a meter is marked. A trench is dug along this circle in a way that the depth of this trench is even at all points.

With the soil that is dug out to make the trench, a circular mound with a hollow centre is created in the circle. The empty centre is left for the tree to be planted in.

After the mound is shaped it is filled with water up to the top. As a result of this the moisture content in the soil increases and the water goes into the soil to create a conical shaped water trough under ground to keep the roots hydrated as they make their way into the earth. In this way the trees don’t need much post planting care and attention. The conical water trough serves the tree until the roots get strong enough and is able to fend for itself.

Our tree planting friends from Omkareshwar who were earlier following a different technique of digging holes and planting in one to two feet deep holes were very open to this idea.

The first tree was planted in the presence of several children from the school, Sarabjeet Bharaj, the director of the organisation, and several other members from the ashram and the school.

A surveyor was called in to produce a detailed map with a contour line marked every 0.5m above sea level. The ashram had ordered in 350 seedlings of around 15 local species and they were already sat in the nursery when we arrived. But before we can think about planting them, the most important factor to consider is water. The land here is quite rocky, and although the soil is generally good quality, it is dry and eroded. Run-off is a problem with the ascent of the sloping land, so we must work to retain water and prevent further loss of top-soil. We planned two swales on the land along two contour lines.

Swales are permaculture water conservation features. They consist of a sloping trench followed by a smooth hump of loose soil. The surface run-off collects in the trench and moves into the hump travelling underground laterally, and not over the surface. This way, top-soil is protected and a high-productivity zone is created on the hump and below it. The surveyor accurately marked the location for two swales along two level contours for us. Now while work begins on digging the swales, we can think about getting some trees in the ground!

Volunteers from Sadhana Forest are in Madhya Pradesh this week, in Central India, about to begin a new forestation project. Tom, Becky and Niki have travelled up with Aviram and the Rozin family to take a look at the 10-acre piece of land belonging to the Mata Anandamayi Peeth ashram at Omkareshwar. Following a presentation by Aviram in March, the ashram has decided they want to turn this land into a lush native forest.

Not only do they believe in the importance of planting trees as a way of building a healthy ecosystem and breathing life back into this barren, eroded land, but it is also a gift to the children of the school which sits on the site.

The 550-pupil school was built 10 years ago and offers free education for children of families local, and from afar.  The tree-planting will be an activity the children can get involved in, and as the forest grows, this will be a lush  spot for the children to play in. The 10 acres can serve as a model for sustainable forest development for other lands in the area.

So we have arrived with ideas for tree planting and water conservation, and plenty of enthusiasm. Omkareshwar is a really beautiful island whose shape resembles an Om symbol, in the middle of the Narmada River. The ashram sits on the rocky south face of the island. We look forward to spending the next few weeks working here!

Becky

 The surrounding area in this new area of land will be a high intensity growing zone with wateremelons and beans already growing near the base of the huts!

 Work on the new Sadhana Forest Amphitheatre will begin this year, enabling us to host even bigger and better Eco-Film Club Nights and other events with a capacity of over 400. Watch this space!