Dear family of the land at Yeri Karai (lake side),
We are writing a common letter to all our friends who share the vision of this land to request participation and support to build up the land as a workshop centre.
Many have been here in this land, bringing their gifts, allowing this place to unfold. Our family with our two children has grown and we feel as one family or community with all who have come and stayed with us and left their hearts in this magical space at the foot of the holy hill of Arunachala.
We started living here seven years back and our vision was to choose a simple and natural lifestyle and create a space for art, ecology and consciousness or in other words to combine creative and meditative being with farming. We understood that growing our own food is the most important political and spiritual act of our times.
After digging an open well in the land, the next step was to build huts from bamboo, coconut leaves, mud and stone. We also planted different varieties of local fruit trees, built a wood fire oven, a pottery kiln and composting toilets. We started natural or organic farming combining traditional agriculture with biodynamic agriculture and permaculture while going on with our art practices of painting, sculpture and poetry.
The land has been through floods and cyclones, droughts and fires…..Slowly it has grown and flowered and borne fruit. Now we have a vegetable garden and a veritable fruit forest of papayas, bananas, mangoes, guavas, moringa, custard apples, coconuts, chikkus, pomegranates, amla …
Nalini the cow, the two dogs, tulsi and aloe vera, bees, wasps and fire flies, peepul, neem, banyan, black plum trees and gliricidia (the composting tree), snake and mongoose and more live around with us.
Through these years we have had regular pottery workshops for the local children from the nearby village. Other workshops which have taken place include oil painting, theatre, photography, yoga, biodynamic agriculture and permaculture.
Recently, looking again at our core ideas we felt that we have to keep a clear focus on culture and permaculture.
We are inviting artists to the land for projects combining art and cultural practices with farming.
We are initiating ‘Yeri Karai School of Permaculture Studies‘, a space in South India to provide permaculture studies and ecological understanding. Stephanie Garvin (permaculture) and Biju Bhasker (Natural Architecture) will be leading courses and John Button and Dr. Margret Rueffler are our guest teachers and advisors.
Short workshops and long term courses in permaculture for small groups of up to seven participants are envisaged from this November onwards.
We invite volunteers from the Yeri Karai family to come here for the planting season from July to September and to participate directly in getting the place ready for the workshops. We are in the process of repairing structures affected by recent thunderstorms (many of the thatch roofs are in urgent need of being redone soon) and constructing new facilities including a mud hut and a cow shed.
We request your support by spreading the word and sending us participants for our projects and courses and request primarily your best wishes and good energies.
Ananda Surya and Gayatri Gamuz, Thiruvannamalai, May 9, 2015
We are writing a common letter to all our friends who share the vision of this land to request participation and support to build up the land as a workshop centre.
Many have been here in this land, bringing their gifts, allowing this place to unfold. Our family with our two children has grown and we feel as one family or community with all who have come and stayed with us and left their hearts in this magical space at the foot of the holy hill of Arunachala.
We started living here seven years back and our vision was to choose a simple and natural lifestyle and create a space for art, ecology and consciousness or in other words to combine creative and meditative being with farming. We understood that growing our own food is the most important political and spiritual act of our times.
After digging an open well in the land, the next step was to build huts from bamboo, coconut leaves, mud and stone. We also planted different varieties of local fruit trees, built a wood fire oven, a pottery kiln and composting toilets. We started natural or organic farming combining traditional agriculture with biodynamic agriculture and permaculture while going on with our art practices of painting, sculpture and poetry.
The land has been through floods and cyclones, droughts and fires…..Slowly it has grown and flowered and borne fruit. Now we have a vegetable garden and a veritable fruit forest of papayas, bananas, mangoes, guavas, moringa, custard apples, coconuts, chikkus, pomegranates, amla …
Nalini the cow, the two dogs, tulsi and aloe vera, bees, wasps and fire flies, peepul, neem, banyan, black plum trees and gliricidia (the composting tree), snake and mongoose and more live around with us.
Through these years we have had regular pottery workshops for the local children from the nearby village. Other workshops which have taken place include oil painting, theatre, photography, yoga, biodynamic agriculture and permaculture.
Recently, looking again at our core ideas we felt that we have to keep a clear focus on culture and permaculture.
We are inviting artists to the land for projects combining art and cultural practices with farming.
We are initiating ‘Yeri Karai School of Permaculture Studies‘, a space in South India to provide permaculture studies and ecological understanding. Stephanie Garvin (permaculture) and Biju Bhasker (Natural Architecture) will be leading courses and John Button and Dr. Margret Rueffler are our guest teachers and advisors.
Short workshops and long term courses in permaculture for small groups of up to seven participants are envisaged from this November onwards.
We invite volunteers from the Yeri Karai family to come here for the planting season from July to September and to participate directly in getting the place ready for the workshops. We are in the process of repairing structures affected by recent thunderstorms (many of the thatch roofs are in urgent need of being redone soon) and constructing new facilities including a mud hut and a cow shed.
We request your support by spreading the word and sending us participants for our projects and courses and request primarily your best wishes and good energies.
Ananda Surya and Gayatri Gamuz, Thiruvannamalai, May 9, 2015
