Due to current travels through India, Parts 3 – 5 of the Thailand Permaculture series have been put on hold for the time being. I look forward to finishing up this series in April and May as I settle back into life in the U.S.

Thank you for your patience and stay tuned for more permaculture adventures and many more exciting updates to this website in the coming months! In the mean time, enjoy some of my journal from my travels through India,

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On stone footing I sit, filling my lungs with soft awareness. The waters of life move through me like gentle flow of a wandering river – touching sanding banks and curling over rocks – my mind passes over the shapes and forms of my being, caressing every little piece as if it were the sensitive skin of a new born.

And why not? Why, as we age, do we allow ourselves to become so callused? Willfully blinding our eyes , deafening our ears and causing all our senses to become numb and full of dross.

Fear of suffering has caused us to dam up the waters of life behind great stone walls. Fear of the times when the waters flow rapid and turbulence cuts away at our soft banks. But it is at this turbulent hour when the hardness of our hearts can erode – it is at these sacred moments when we have the opportunity to again become like babes – gentle, pliant and full of wonder.

For the world is constantly new, renewed and reborn – so shall we be ever reborn – casting off the blinders, pulling the plugs from our ears and scraping away the callused layers of dross that have accumulated in the vain attempt to prevent our souls from being touched by unwieldy tides – so shall we be reborn.

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Awaking from the granite floor of a 14th century hindu temple to watch the sun rise in orange lavender over wide meandering river and stone ruins; locals daily bathe in the shadow of such towering history.

As if rehearsed a thousand times, the bathing throngs gather their things and leave just as a gaggle of backpack toting tourists are met by the mornings first river ferry. The beauty and serenity of the early morning orchestration passes away, completely unknown to the chattering new arrivals.

And now, a new dawn as arisen. Locals shift their attention to tour touting and rickshaw driving – bombarding the wide-eyed before they’ve had proper opportunity to digest their new surroundings. The dawn of this new energy ripples out from the waterfront until not a single corner of this temple city is left untouched.

What might have this morning looked like 600 years ago, before temples erected? And how will it look 600 years ahead, when all the temples have fallen?