Published: July 2019 (6 years ago) in issue Nº 359-360

“Sesame Open Panne”

Reflection — Reported by Bhakti, Suryamayi and Aditi

“You wanted to be born in Auroville, you made that clear,” our mothers told us. I told my therapist I wasn’t clear and she told me she couldn’t understand, because I was so clear. I remember, at four years old, being clear that my parents should divorce. “The relationship I am questioning the most is my relationship with The Mother,” one of us opened the conversation one evening. “So many people have extraordinary relationships with her, I don’t feel like I do.” She’s with you in the most ordinary of moments, one of our mothers said, “Talk to her when you are brushing your teeth. Ask her things. She always said one had to ask her things.”

I felt like she asked me things. And I don’t always want to do them.

It was only when I surrendered to Mother Nature that she saved me, and brought me back to shore, he said. She was in the water in the middle of two currents, one hot and one cold, struggling between the two, when she realised it was a metaphor of her life at that moment. One thing that’s still a mystery is the man I saw with a friend, when I was 7, a man on the other side of the canyon who was all in white, with a white beard, holding a rifle and pointing towards us on the other side of the canyon.

I’m also wondering about the spider who returned the dead fly I tried to give her.

“What’s your advice for us, as mothers of Auroville?” You do things differently already, they say. You have so much less baggage than we did.

“Sesame Open Panne” is an experimental, informal forum for sharing light-hearted, low-pressure, deep conversations about meaningful experiences of ordinary and extraordinary life situations. We don’t talk about the weather, or who is dating who. We choose a theme to reflect on and share about. Not a topic of contention in Auroville – we don’t debate, expect outcomes, or make decisions. We want to have more intimate collective exchanges. We laugh, we cry, we hold our breaths, we pause in silence, and we leave feeling moved.

We have talked about how we make major life decisions, though.

One of us relies on owls, and when she decided to move back to Auroville, it was such a confirmation to find out that they lived in the Banyan tree.

We have talked about ordinary and extraordinary relationships, and mostly spoke about how we each relate to The Mother. And other animals, like the spider, and praying mantis – and a yoga teacher who looks like a heron. We have reflected on the role of magic in our lives, and how it’s interwoven with crossing thresholds, from the Berlin Wall to marriages. And of course, the Free Store came up in our conversations – the women’s section is more colorful and fun for everyone.