Dear friends,

Unfortunately the recent hope-giving flare-up on this forum died down again, and so I’ll just continue keeping the thread while always hoping that others come forward and blow some further life into it.

First some good news: we have had abundant rains these last weeks, finally catching up after this long long summer drought. Charlie, who keeps track of them from Aurogreen, writes today: So far this month we have had 183.6 mm rain which is 142.1% above the August average for these 40 years of records. In 1996 we had 236 mm and it looks like we may easily break that record this year. The lowest August rain I recorded was 15 mm in 2006. The average rainfall over 40 years, from Jan 1 till end of August 31, we have already exceeded by 20.45% today, on August 13.

And here are some other tidbits some of which some of you may like to peruse.

The latest interview in Fred Cebron’s ‘Meeting the Mother’ series is with Peter Anderschitz, one of Auroville’s architects known by many of you. You find it here.   

Suryamayi is an Auroville born and raised young woman (and daughter of long term Aurovilians Peter and Nicole Clarence-Smith) who, during her higher studies abroad felt to do a social science PhD on Auroville and hence observes our experiment with a remarkable sharp and analytical eye. She audaciously started a practicallyutopian.blog  via which she hopes to give insight in the faring of the community through a systematic field research ,  consisting of interviews and group discussions, attending meetings of Auroville’s working groups, and daily life observations and insights from living, working, and relating in Auroville.

On International Yoga day in June, the City of Dawn didn’t stay behind and hatha yoga performances took place at the Amphitheatre and other places. True to Auroville’s call, in Savitri Bhavan an informal sharing on our Integral Yoga took place, where some of our home grown pundits such as Shraddhavan, JeanYves and Deepti and others endeavoured to answer questions from the audience, under which an eager Mr Chunkath, the current Secretary of the Auroville Foundation. A 30-minute edited version of the afternoon is out and can be perused here.

As was already announced in Auroville Today, a new book  ‘Sri Aurobindo & the Revolution of India’  by Luc Venet is out and available via Amazon. It starts with the moment that Sri Aurobindo sets foot in India and ends with him arriving in Pondicherry. Written in a very direct, light and engaging style, with some grainy pictures scattered throughout, it carries the reader along, all the time supplying us with contextual info and cultural, political colouring of that particular historical period while giving deep insights in Sri A’s personal life and development, and maturing spiritual insights. The fairly small, 321 page book is available on Amazon for 15 Euros in French and well as in English.

The earlier mentioned plans of a live reading through internet of ‘Savitri around the World’ has sobered up a bit, and the new idea is to go live on YouTube with a film made up of recordings prepared in advance and supplied  by the participants (see the list of thus far participating countries below). From the various individual recordings a film of about 48 hours duration will be made to be broadcast on February 25-26, 2018 for viewing worldwide. The full text of Savitri has been divided up into 325 passages of more or less 2 pages (about 70 lines per reader). So, ideally 325 readers are needed. If you want to participate, write to [email protected]

Participating countries till date:
India:
Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Rajasthan
Asia:
Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Afghanistan, South Korea
Africa:
Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia
Europe:
Turkey, Moldavia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, UK, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia, Czech Republic,  Norway, Sweden
South America:
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia
Middle America:
Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Haiti
North America:
USA ( Atlanta, Colorado, California, Washington, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, New York City), Canada (Québec, Ontario, Alberta)
Oceania:
New Zealand, Australia ( Victoria, New South Wales), French Polynesia,(Tahiti)

That was it for today. Quite a few more new books and videos will be launched the coming pre-50^th days/months, – will keep you informed. New members of the Auroville Governing Board are in town and will meet the community at large tomorrow.

With best wishes and good energies from the CoD and wishing us all a good August 15^th,

-mauna