Auroville's monthly news magazine since 1988
May 2022 (41 months ago) Download PDF (free download)
A deeper look — Story by Alan
Recently, the Dreamweaving the Crown exercise finished. Approximately 70 people – Dreamweaving architects, their peers, multidisciplinary experts, focus groups and randomly selected members of the Residents Assembly – took part at various stages of the exercise, which began with a Crown walk at the end of December and concluded with an exhibition and presentation to the larger community in early April process [see AV Today no.391 for full details of the programme]. The final report, which includes the outputs and feedback from various participating groups (experts, focus group, and randomly selected citizens), as well as links to all of the pool of ideas, research and presentations, will be made available to the whole community.
In discussion with Mona Doctor-Pingel, Dorle, Fabian, Shailaja, Tanja, Ganesh Bala and Neha — Interview by Alan
The Dreamweaving process recently ended with an exhibition of the concepts and a public presentation to the community. Afterwards, six of the architects involved came together to reflect upon the experience, along with Mona who helped hold the Dreamweaving process.
Over the years, the community has selected members to serve in its major working groups. In the early years, this was comparatively simple, as there were few residents and only one or two such groups, and everybody knew each other well.
A year ago, students from The Learning Community [TLC: see Auroville Today April 2022, no. 393] cycled to Cinema Paradiso to watch a movie on Summerhill School. Summerhill, which is located in the U.K., is a progressive school which has been experimenting with democratic education since 1922. In many ways it shares a common educational philosophy with TLC, so it wasn’t surprising that the TLC students were interested.
A deeper look — Story by Gita
On a recent Thursday morning, there were sharing by a number of Auroville farmers related to new and on-going initiatives on the lands they steward, along with the many immediate challenges they face. The event was organized by the small team of Fundraising Consultancy for Auroville Projects, a recently registered service unit. Attendees included stewards or representatives of a dozen Auroville Farms, food processing units, the Budget Coordination Committee, as well as other interested Aurovilians.
In discussion with Joel Koechlin — Interview by Peter
An interview with Joel Koechlin
Book review — Authored by Peter
In the growth and busyness of today’s Auroville we can forget the many small miracles that contributed to its formation, those men and women of goodwill mysteriously drawn here, via dreams, books, synchronicities and all that chance entails. In the footsteps they left and are still leaving is a legacy of dedication to the ideals of our community that they help start to build. Some of these stories of how the pioneers and subsequent followers ended up here, on the barren red soil of South India, are more outlandish than any fiction.
Book review — Authored by Chandra
For Claude Arpi, the Bangladesh Liberation War symbolises a promising uniting event. Claude is an Aurovilian, historian, and journalist, whose journey of historical discovery of Tibet, China, and the Subcontinent started with a visit to the Himalayas in 1972.
Reported by Helen
After many years of forward-thinking professional work and idealistic service, personal trials, and solo travels throughout rural Asia, English-born Helen chose to build the rest of her life in the City of Dawn, contributing her many skills and enthusiasm. She became an official Aurovilian in early 2021 and says “Auroville continues to fascinate me every single day.”
Governing Board meets On April 22nd, the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation held its 59th meeting...
MoU signed Through a Facebook post from the Central Public Works Department of the Government of India the community learned that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Auroville Foundation on March 15, 2022 for the execution of projects related to the making of the Auroville City...
Centenary of The Mother’s Return to Sri Aurobindo (1920-2020) A documentary slideshow recounting the Mother's journey in Her own words from childhood till Her final arrival in Pondicherry has been made by the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education and can be seen at the...
SAIEN courses The Sri Aurobindo Integral Education Network (SAIEN) is offering 11 courses...
Visit of Solanki’s solar bus Prof...
Auroville Tomorrow The 3rd issue of Auroville Tomorrow, the newsletter of Auroville Outreach Media now managed by the Auroville Foundation, is available from mediainterface-avf@auroville...
AV Council meets with the community The Auroville Council held its first meeting with the community on its work over the past 14 months on Monday 18th April at the Unity Pavilion...
In memoriam:
On February 14th, 2022, Axel Björnsson passed away in his home in Vilcabamba, Ecuador at the age of 59, after a long struggle due to a failed surgery. His body was cremated on the 19th of February in Loja, Ecuador, in the presence of his girlfriend, his sister, and oldest daughter. His funeral will take place in July, in the presence of his entire family in his home country, Iceland. Axel joined Auroville in 2005 and was not only an enthusiastic actor in the Auroville Theatre Group but also a math teacher at Transition School. He left Auroville in the beginning of 2013 for a new adventure in Ecuador, South America. This is where he built up his own business, a restaurant, which quickly became the place to be in town. Axel was always a joyful and happy person and there are many moments of laughter he will be remembered by.
On 19 March, Eric Ramanujam passed away at the age of 58 in PIMS, where he had been taken due to advanced jaundice. Many of us know his beautiful and educative wild life stone paintings placed in Pitchandikulam, at the visitors walk way to the Visitors’ Centre, as well as at the toll plaza of the East Coast Road. Eric had a background in the advertising industry, which he left because of the drudgery and deadlines which he, as junior staff, had to endure, and in 1997 took to autecological / behavioural studies of the Indian Eagle Owl and associated nocturnal predators and prey. He authored In Achilles’ Footstep – Adventures with The Indian Eagle Owl with brilliant illustrations showing his in-depth knowledge of the owls of India. He came to Auroville’s Aranya wildlife resort in 2000, where he studied, drew and wrote about the Indian Horned Eagle for several years. Since 2002 he has undertaken field studies of the Kaliveli wetland complex near Pondicherry, the Adyar wetland complex in Chennai and the Sheavroy Hills of the Eastern Ghats. He later moved to Pitchandikulam where he was employed as a wildlife biologist. In Pitchandikulam he created an ‘Art Collective’ – a group of wildlife nature artists and illustrators working together to manifest outputs on a commercial scale. The collective has been successfully working with various government departments (such as the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust on the Adyar Eco Park and the Gulf of Mannar Biodiversity Reserve Trust), corporates like WIPRO Technologies and many NGOs. His detailed, gentle drawings, combining black and white ink with colour, are found in scientific articles, books and papers all over India. His contributions to nature art, science and his love for owls will live on.
