Krishna Mackenzie, an Englishman transplanted to India, married to a beautiful Tamil and father of two children, has been carrying out a tropical permaculture experience (for which he is considered an authority) called Solitude Farm for over ten years.
Here is the interview where he tells his experience.
Where does all this come from?
(Showing us a personal dedication by hand to Fukuoka answers us this way) This radical experience stems from the impact that two great masters had on my life.
The first is Masanobu Fukuoka, met in person, from whom I took the secret of my relationship with the soil and therefore with plant life. Seeing his example I understood what my mission was and I decided to dedicate myself body and soul to it, because it is not something you can do, but you can only be it, incarnate it.
Secondly, the impact with the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo was fundamental, removing yoga from the hands of the solitary holy men in their caves and delivering it to a collective and active approach, represented by the city of Auroville.
So permaculture in Auroville was a practical way for me to embody the inspiration drawn from my two masters.
So integral yoga and permaculture. How are the two things integrated into everyday life?
Integral yoga is a process that unites the action of the individual with that of the community, but a community must have a basis that guarantees its existence, and the basis of everything is the soil . A healthy, rich, rich and fertile soil will produce plants with the same characteristics, which will offer food with the same characteristics, which will nourish a being with the same characteristics.
Nowadays we have lost the direct relationship with the ground, with its smell, we do not perceive when a land is alive or dying, healthy or sick, if it is productive or is asking for help.
Permaculture must teach us to have a direct relationship with the ground, the rest goes without saying ... and even the fruits of yoga improve if the community feeds on healthy food to be shared with joy.
Discover the 12 principles of permaculture
But it's not just about permaculture and integral yoga: in your Solitude Farm there are also ayurveda and lots of good music!
Exact! Today you could taste one of our special salads with the juice of a flower from a local leguminous plant called " Radha's consciousness" . People come here from all over the world to learn something, as if it were enough to talk to get the secret.
Instead there is nothing that can be studied or learned, there is a force that can be transmitted in other ways, a bond to be strengthened, and music is a perfect vehicle to do this : people work together in nature, they eat healthy and local food together, listen to quality music (the bassist also played with Ray Charles). These people will reproduce in their own way something that is irreproducible, a seed that can grow anywhere, not just in the tropics.
Ayurveda is an Indian science that teaches us how to relate to our body, respecting it with a correct way to use it, in work, in rest, and even in food.
Thanks to expert friends we have started to reuse fallen plants, or to discover different uses of common plants. Many farmers only plant what gives them profit, but joy and health are the real profit.
I know there is a small but wonderful revolution taking place in local villages thanks to your example. Do you want to tell us something?
You Giacomo come from Italy, I've been there too and I know your reality. It is much better than in many high "modern" countries where the average man has totally broken the link with food and soil. From you people still have grandma's recipes, still spend time in the gardens and take pleasure in seeing good fruits grow. But the tendency is to get worse.
The first step is when one thinks of massively producing food for profit, taking advantage of the land until one dies to move elsewhere; in this way a true community cannot be born, a true understanding, a true union. Thus people are divided.
We need to start from the ground, rediscover old local plants together. I try to make it clear, especially to local women, that real profit is health, food for the community, and the health of a land that you will not have to abandon because it is sterile or infested with pesticides and fertilizers.
Many of the young people who come to volunteer here spread this vision and for me this is everything: I work my little world but there is a large-scale action. And thanks to music and shared food it is very easy to overcome language barriers!
You know, I can bring back your words by recording them and the beauty of Solitude Farm with photos, but I can't testify how good this food is and how adorable the smell of this land is, that before your work it was dry and almost desert. How do you want to greet Krishna?
I'd like to do it with a song! Those who pass here should leave joyfully and with something new. Something that cannot be revealed but only put into practice. It is a small revolution that we must renew every day with a drop of love. Each in its own way. The model is replicable because it doesn't exist ... it's up to you to do it.
