ARUNACHALA SIVA GREENING
After several years with the honour of reforesting Arunachala Mountain, now we are not planting on the mountain anymore, we finally realized that it was best to maintain our independence from the practices of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department.
Here you see some of us considering serious issues. Corruption wasn't the only one we faced these recent weeks. Other serious subjects will be outlined in the section called Social Ecology.
As you probably know it's easier to leave somewhere you love than somewhere you don't, because then you can say Farewell with all the affection at your command; that's what we did. We sorted, cleaned, dried and packed all our recently collected seeds, strengthened the thorn barricade around the plantation, deepened the top pond, put all our good composted soil in the remaining bags, watered and mulched all the seedlings on the slopes, then pumped water to fill the wonderful frog pond donated by the International Tree Foundation until it was almost overflowing, picked up all the last bits of plastic and buried them. Then we turned up early for breakfast on the last day to clear the nursery seedlings onto a tractor. We took them out to a farmer friend's land for temporary settlement. We went up on top of the rock above Swamy Kattu Siva's cave and surveyed the site, sorry to be leaving. Then we had our final puja at the Vediyappan Shrine.
Images from a recent puja at the Shrine for the god of wilderness can be seen by clicking here.
The cave of the Sadhu was empty when we left tand he little coconut leaf shelter looked all forlorn.
But the Etty tree gave us good cheer.
Now we embark on a brilliant new perspective, as you will see in our opening gambit.
When the final puja was over and we sitting under the tamarind eating prasadum, the monkeys moved in. . . . .
