I'm not in Kansas anymore...

Aarti bowl of flowers and oil votive I floated on the Ganga In typical Sophie style, my departure from Bangalore was dramatic. I had miscalculated the departure time of my train by two hours. Cue panic dash across the city on the back of a dodgy Indian guy's moped trailing cashew nut cookies, mobiles phones and yoga mats in my wake. But the universe was smiling on me - I made it onto the train with approximately 20 seconds to spare before it pulled out of the platform to wend it's slow chugging way from south to north India. The journey was an epic 45 hours: 2 x nights on one train, 9 x hours on local buses and 1 x rickshaw ride later, I arrived in Rishikesh. Despite being exhausted, I was elated to be there and at sunset I quietly celebrated my arrival with my own personal aarti, offering flowers and flames to the river as the sun set over the Holy Ganga. I had come home.  Devi music ashram where I studied harmonium & kirtan Rishikesh is dubbed the ‘yoga cap...

Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar With the project complete and my body healing from the latest round of illnesses, I was eager to move on. Auroville had been an incredible experience for me but the heat of south Indian summer was beginning to be unbearable. One of the most important lessons I had learned in Sadaha Forest was to understand and take care of my own needs. The other I learned at the Shiva temple: the importance of creating space, a gap for the universe to manifest. Up to this point I had committed to a plan to continue to travel north India with Liz. Post Sadhana, something was telling me to go it alone. So I took a deep breath, wrote her a long email setting out my intention to take a solo, unscheduled path up through India for the remaining time I had. I already knew that too much planning equated to too much ‘control’ over the situation - entirely in contrast to the ‘surrendering’ purpose of my trip. And it had already been proven to me that if I stepped back, released ...

Alex the Shiva devotee Other than to let the Universe decide my fate, I had no plan. And so I got a ride out of Sadhana Forest with two lovely volunteers  and went with them to the village of Kuilapalayam: a favourite hangout of forest-dwellers desperate for a sugar, chocolate or cold coffee fix to offset the vegan frugality. As we trundled along the dusty track through the Aurovillean villages we reminisced about Alex the Shiva devotee who had also decided to move on. I had met him one particularly despondent Sunday when, unsolicited, I plopped myself down next to him in the kitchen on the floor amongst the vegetable scraps and began a long soliloquy on loneliness and intimacy. Alex looked at me with his bright eyes and communed with me with such grace, tenderness and understanding. It was only after much later that I thought to ask him his name.  I remained very close to Alex for the rest of my time in Sadhana, feeling deeply connected to him and seeing him as a sort...

And so it was that I, completely unsure of what to expect, dropped my pack in the red earth outside of Sadhana Forest and walked into the main bamboo hut, curiously awaiting my new life in a sustainable community. Aerial view of Sadhana c/o Rashi Kalra Lawani  View of the pizza oven, dosa kitchen & washing area Free hugs happen every day at Morning Circle Sadhana Forest is an ecological project started by an Israeli family who moved to Tamil Nadu in 2003 with a vision to reforest the 70 acres of red, arid soil upon which once stood a great coastal forest. Now, despite having suffered damage from the recent cyclone, Sadhana is a 60-70 strong community situated on the outskirts of Auroville, made up of passing volunteers who sign up for a 4 week minimum stay and a handful of long term volunteers who live there for up to 3 years at a time. People live communally - cooking, cleaning, working, eating and sleeping together in bamboo huts around the 'main hut' an...