Lonny was the product of big energy and tiny town, where the limitations imposed by three square blocks of homes – an Alcatraz adrift on an ocean of unswimmable wheat – fueled the kind of incendiary pressure that could only come out wrong. Even back then, when I was eight and Lonny was nine, his combustion resulted in trouble; so years later, when I heard that he was in the pen for grand theft auto and some litany of other offenses, it was disappointingly no surprise: the wide world never succeeded in changing Lonny’s first impressions, nor would he be able to see it as anything but an endless, confining small town. A twitch in his heart was too large for his skin, a cruel itch, an irritation for which he found no balm. Maybe he didn’t look hard enough. Maybe he took off in the wrong direction, followed the wrong leader, and never got righted.

Recently someone asked me about the form of dance I practice – the form I aspire to, really; and like all good forms it is small enough for me to wrap my arms around, large enough to contain my curiosity, lean enough that an evening costs a few dollars and yields a fortune, full enough that I think I will never find the end of it.

I talked about the improvisational “jam”, the coalescence of a couple of dozen movement artists, with no talking, no music, only the sound of sliding or shuffling, running or slowing feet, deep breath… sometimes spontaneous laughter, sometimes spontaneous stillness, deeper because it is shared. My friend tried to imagine that space for a moment, as much as one can really imagine it, foreign as it is, and asked “How can you dance without music?”

When I was close to my daughter’s age, I would often stop in at the school library at lunch time, to take out books. There were a few favorites. One was Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein: the story of a boy (very close to my age, so I imagined) living in the colonies on Mars, with his pet, unlike any pet found on Earth. It was an adventure that could have, but did not, take place on Earth, and I was able to read and reread that tale without losing either my sense of wonder or my ability to live the story as I sat comfortably on our living room couch. If you were to find the card from the back of that book (we filled out our names and checkout date on cards, no computers in libraries back then), you would see my name scratched in ever improving cursive, over and over again, with few readers able to get their moniker in edgewise.

My daughter Isabela – less formally, more naturally Bela; though she is capable of carrying her more regal name, when called upon by the drama of the moment to do so – has traveled to Florida with her mother and brother, to be with her Brazilian grandparents and uncle and aunt for a few days. Ah, yes, and to meet the newest cousin, little Lucas, Luquinho perhaps, born a year ago in a country far from the familial home.

I received a gift from a student, Brian, who recently concluded our Moving Into Balance health and awareness program. Every participant brings such gifts to the group – each brings the gift of him or her Self, all the challenges they face, and all the victories they achieve; but here was a special gift, a book about the Prayer Flags of Tibet.

One passage struck me, that I wished to share: with a gentle pen it draws the line between structure and freedom, where the flow of grace is all-important, while the form through which we are accustomed to meeting that grace is perhaps less so:

Manny Muros:

On our last morning with the Tibetan family Mark and I tried to express our appreciation for all their warmth and hospitality given to us. Deep emotion and tears came to Sonam’s eyes as she wanted to express thru us the gratitude she has to the “American people” who have helped them so much…. There was so much love and gratitude for the Nobel Prize received by their “God” the Dalai Lama. For the temples and settlements supported by the many donations coming from America…. The three of us were holding tears back….. I get upset at our country’s foreign policy and by the rampant capitalization we create but it was so beautiful to also see how much good has been done in helping this nation of individuals create a new life on a foreign country.

Dressed in her hospital uniform, Sonam insisted on calling in an autorickshaw for us, arguing with the driver (who wanted to keep his price open – to anything, apparently), riding us all the way to the bus station, and seeing us safely onto the Mangalore bus before bidding us farewell… we were not outside of anyone’s arms for our whole stay in Bylakuppe.

The road west climbed up into the mountains, where the ruts and curves increased in step with the altitude; beautiful heights, wild and wide vistas high above the local eagle’s lofts, and cool temperatures were payment for our travel. We began among coffee plantation on the eastern slopes, where drier weather presumably makes for better flavor and yield. Small villages and houses tucked along the roadside doubtless fed the labor required for these expanses of cultivated land, and estate villas swelled where the best lands were found. 

Now I know how ginger grows.

When we lived on our little farm in Brazil, we had something called gangibre falsa, “false ginger”, which was apparently a relative of the real thing. The root, when I dug it up, had neither the appearance or the smell I was looking for, and somehow during our seven-plus years there, I never did run into a ginger plant. Here in the rolling fields of Bylakuppe, some miles off the Mysore road and Kushalnagar, acres of hand-fanning leaves, slightly lower than knee height and fading green to yellow, are the ginger fields. We pass by in our autorickshaw (the three-wheeled, covered motorcycle, with a bench and a smoky 2-stroke engine – the kind where you mix in the oil, and it runs forever, like a lawnmower motor) and there is a load of the harvested root by the roadside, being spray-washed and readied for market. The scent is strong and welcome, a little spice and memory of good meals.

Yesterday we began our ride from Mysore with a driver who spoke good English, but he traded out with another (who spoke no English whatsoever) when it became clear that we would be driving through the other’s home town of Honsur. Manny and I entertained ourselves during the three hour trip, over very rough roads which were under construction most of the way; we occasionally attempted a question, but the results were invariably unsuccessful, and we sank into silence. We even missed a few of the stops we had planned with the earlier driver, able only to communicate “Kushalnagar”… so off we flew, the driver turning his music higher and higher, on a high-decibel beeline west into the Karnataka countryside.

Most of the communities that exist in Auroville – as semi-autonomous communities, that is, with their own social structure and goals, texture and color – were founded by a few energetic people who wished to manifest the vision of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in a particular and personal way. Some are recent, some have existed since the beginning (in 1968). Some are small (Sadhana Forest is run by a family of three from Israel – with a lot of interns running about), and others larger (Aspiration currently has upwards of 50 participating members, and a number of other long-term “guests”). They all share a common goal, and that is unity of human spirit and human endeavor in a single, intentional city.