RETURN TO SUNDARI
Thirty one years on from when I’d left it ‘for a year perhaps’ to coordinate a project in south India, I’ve finally returned to my beloved land in sub-tropical northern New South Wales in Australia. I’d had no wish to leave this paradise, but the invitation to be involved in the reforestation of the barren sacred mountain Arunachala, was too tempting to pass up.
Can any of us ‘return’ to anywhere? After a long lapse of time, the place we originally left from, might sometimes have the same physical appearance, but with passing decades, we’re all changed by the events and experiences that colour the intervening years, and with them our perspectives and opinions. The person who returns is quite different from the one who left. And in this case, of the place which I’ve ‘returned’ to ; it’s changed so much in the intervening years as to be barely recognizable from the desolate land I’d first come across.
Not that I stayed in India for those three decades, but love intervened after eight years, and spirited me off to Europe and all over; it had never been on my dream horizon as a long-term destination, but who ever knows? No regrets, to live so long in the varied cultures of that old continent, yet all the while the draw of this land had been a distraction I could never shake off. Hardly surprising, since it is truly among the most wonderful regions my long travels has offered.
The dream to be here though, has always been alive. Even when our family in Germany was financially stretched with Sybille’s Lymes Disease, and I offered to sell my share of Sundari. With one voice, Sybille and the girls declared “No way!” I would not make such an offer again. After all, it was here as a young man in the early eighties that I definitively recognized my life’s path and passions, learnt to laugh at all my incapacities, and at the same time overcame so much of my proven impracticality. No wonder my nostalgia has clung on so long.
It’s a bit different of course, second time round, hopefully with some wisdom accumulated through the years, from all the follies gone lop-sided, and lessons learnt in consequence. And more certainty of the passions that inspire and nourish me now. Less need for experimentation, more time for reflection. How I love the aging process, whatever its physical limits.
Forty years ago when I began here, the situation was very different. I was in my mid twenties, a passionate idealist with naïve notions of self-sufficiency, based on nothing except dreams and ideas, and virtually zero experience, in life matters or anything more tangible, such as farming and building. The land was badly degraded pasture, heavily compacted clay and some forest dominated by eucalyptus that had been ‘control’ burnt periodically. Having searched intensely for the previous 14 months for land, up and down the New South Wales coast and inland without success, when I finally found this land I simply ‘knew’ it was THE place that had called me. That sense was far more intuitive than rational. I’ve never doubted it since then.
How many confirmations I had then, during the first months – years even – of my long-held conviction that I was innately impractical. Being young and foolish/determined though, I persevered long enough to recognize that practicality can definitely be acquired through many trials and equally many errors. That process taught me repeatedly to laugh at my follies, to enjoy the mistakes more than to be frustrated by them. Ah, youth and arrogance has its heroic place.
And quite apart from those shortcomings in my capacity, the land was truly very degraded; pasture no longer fit for more than very marginal cattle-grazing, the vegetation hampered by zero topsoil, heavily compacted pure clay that supported minimal soil life. If I unearthed a single earthworm in 10 tree holes I dug for planting, that was something to celebrate. I uttered little prayers of apologies to the ill-fated seedlings and grafts that I condemned to living in such harsh conditions. However much energy I applied to preparing the hole, to fertilizing and mulching, and creating micro-catchments, still, it was bound to be a struggle to survive for each plant which I interred.
The land when we purchased in 1978; degraded bare cattle land
And now I’ve faced it again; the reality of my incompetence and the loss of so much dexterity and manuality these past three decades while I’ve not been implementing my own projects, but instead designing and inspiring the dreams and projects of others. Still re-learning the skills and capacities learnt so long ago, has been a much faster process than the first time around. Re-remembering.
How this land that’s Sundari has changed from when we purchased it way back in 1978, when I was long-haired and bushy-tailed, with muscles on my muscles and often more vigour than good sense. Certainly little hair now, and certainly no bushy tail; the muscles are a frail shadow by comparison, but oh how I’ve learned along the way, and the work happens so much easier now, for the enthusiasm is tempered by experience, and the awareness that it’s not the end result that’s most important; it’s the journey along the way.
What a glorious challenge and ecstatic time, to feel such a connection rekindled, with the place where I learnt so much about myself, and where my life’s path really found such inspiration and meaning. And to apply all that I’ve added to the learning over the past forty years to expand the old dream, and create new ones. And, of course, to make new mistakes and learn from them, all over again. Time, and Life, which both cast their diverse spells over us.
Ha, in spite of all that experience, how much I’d forgotten in the ‘tween times, that I had to learn all over again, to recalibrate my mind to building mode. To living back in the intense wet sub-tropical rainforest, so far removed from the gentle temperate climates, from the hot, dry, harsh inland tropics of south India, and all the varied situations life has taken me along the way. This place pulses, throbs, with such an ever-changing intensity. It’s not easy though! Still, step by step, and with help from my dear friends as always, I’ve found my feet again, building, planting and creating this paradise-dream I’ve always kept alive during those long years away. And the old memory and dexterity returned much faster than I’d have dared hope.
In honouring the experience and knowledge I’ve accumulated during that time, co-ordinating, consulting, teaching, and all else on diverse projects spread over all continents except North America, I realized that my relationship to this deeply personal project is necessarily different. Of course it must be: I’m 70 now, and this body has been through so much, and my mind and spirit along with it.
Although practicing yoga daily for the past 49 years has helped maintain a very healthy body, my wellness is truly remarkable considering the extraordinary events of the past 13 years, including a liver transplant with such complications that every doctor who reads my long, complex medical history invariably shakes her or his head with a perplexed expression, and incredulity that I have survived at all, much less to arrive in such a robust condition.
But hey, as I said, I’m no spring chicken now, and there’s no way I can run up and down this hilly land any more, nor lift great logs of wood that I did back then, nor work from dawn to dusk without pause except to replenish my belly. Nor do I want or need to, as if I ever did! No no, this old dog MUST learn new tricks.
I can – and am – putting those passing years to good purpose by using my accumulations to harness the energy needed to realise my dreams, and without working myself to death in the process. I don’t need to repeat all of my old mistakes.
The harvest of dreams and works in decades past are coming to fruition now, in abundance. The once clapped-out cattle land is transformed into an exquisite rainforest-dominated paradise. My wonderful old hippy house is long-passed habitable – for now; someday the time may even come for its restoration as a delightful guesthouse, but that will have to wait for guests to inspire it. In any case, the fact that it’s actually still standing after over 40 years mouldering in the muggy humidity of a now dense rainforest, is testament to a wee hippy house that, although certainly not the work of a master builder, was certainly constructed to last the passing years and climatic extremes.
I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’ve worked solo to recreate my dream; far from it – what can we do in life without the support of friends and dear ones? Why would we want to anyway; community is surely one of the most powerful resources we have in these times that often seem increasingly dystopian. Since coming back, those dear ones and welcomed guests along the way, have been an extra energy source to drive my dreams’, activating them, powering them into reality together; they’re inspired by the extraordinary beauty and vitality of this land, and joyfully participate in offering muscle-power and their youthful energy and creativity to put legs on my long-nurtured fantasies.
My own legs, and the rest of my body – of course – aren’t what they used to be more than 40 years ago, when we first began transforming this land. With Rob, my dear friend and co-madman-in-planting such an arboretum, we planted and planted, tens of thousands of seedlings, and laid out the paths that meander beautifully all through this magnificent forest. Now, from all the projects I’ve designed and co-ordinated all over the planet since that time, I’ve a pretty fair idea of what can be done here, and moreorless how to go about it. The opportunity to participate in this project, is an attractive one.
What a boon for me. Just when I was having doubts about how I was going to manifest those dreams, having had months in isolation to consider it, and experienced how hard it was to be to do it all alone with this aging and wobbling body blighted by shocking – even if amusing – balance issues. The issue was really beginning to trouble me, especially since my attempts to publicise it through social media by registering for wwoofers, HelpX and WorkAway had so far been fruitless.
As usual with me though, my connections always come up trumps when I need it most. I seem to have more guardian angels taking care of me than I could possibly have merited. Enter Amrit and Lémy, sons of an old friend and Himalayan neighbor of 35 years ago, arriving on my un-doorstep right then: beautiful young men, strong in mind and body, enthusiastic, with joy in their hearts to match. Both in their mid-twenties, they’ve been exploring their dual citizenship, having spent the rest of their lives in France, where they were born. Half a world away, and different by more than distance. I’ve known them in France since they were wee nippers of two and four, stayed with them and their parents, and they with me and mine in Italy. Virtually family.
There’d been no question of moving back into my old house, the wood and mudbrick octagonal classic hippy house I crafted all those years ago. It’s a sad affair now, with the white ants and all manner of other critters having occupied it for decades. After several contentious human tenant situations which ruffled the feathers of my land co-custodian, I decided that the minimal rent I was earning from the tenants couldn’t justify the risk to my closest friendship. I abandoned the house I’d so lovingly cobbled together. After all, though I hadn’t lived in it anywhere long enough to justify the mountain of work ploughed into constructing it, what I learnt in the process was the gold that could never be valued.
My first house in its prime, nestled amongst mango, lichee, papaya, banana, mandarin, and exquisite nature
Hey, I’d almost convinced myself that I was utterly impractical before I started, yet I learnt to wield hammer and saw, plumbers gloves and electrician’s pliers, split a roof-ful of shingles with an axe and froe, made mudbricks with mattock and bare feet, felled towering trees where I’d wanted them to fall, then hauled, split and adzed them smooth, become a rough bush carpenter and gardener and tree planter.
And so much more. I also learnt to laugh at myself, to love me with all my foibles and follies. I understood that I could never learn anywhere near enough; that there were always layers and layers of understanding just to realise that there was an infinity more of them, with everything. I felt the humility of my smallness in the extraordinary theatre of nature and life, yet also the power of my capacity to have an influence, to kill or cure, heal or destroy, to make a difference for better or worse.
Each day, literally, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of where I lived (I still am, almost fifty years later; perhaps even moreso!) in awe of the simple complexity of everything relating to everything else, helping and hindering, resisting and benefiting, that it’s the whole system of the vegetation and soil, the animals and birds, insects and reptiles, moulds and funghi, macroorganisms and microorganisms. No part more, nor less. The seen and unseen, all part of each other. Nothing apart, myriad lifeforms all interacting to make the whole, the supreme reality. Nature, breathtakingly beautiful and mysterious, always inviting awe and wonder, the total understanding of its magnificence beyond full understanding, always.
I stood on my verandah one cool winter’s moony evening, stars out, not a breath of wind. One of those magical moments when there seems (though of course it’s never possible) to be a suspension of activity, as if the world is holding its breath in awe of itself. Captivated by its magnificence, I hollered out a loud pure cooooo-eeeee into the night. And one by one, from nearby and distant, from here and there, the echoes returned, at least five times, replying to my single exaltation. Cooee, cooee, cooee, cooee, cooee. Maybe more. Who knows, they may still be going on. The world responding to itself. An epiphany. Life-changing.
In that moment, beyond thoughts or words, I was part of that perfect evening. And it a part of me. Tomorrow, with one mighty crack of noise, a great branch from one of those towering flooded gums (Eucalyptus grandis), might hurtle to earth and impale me, dead in an instant, finished for ever. No, not finished, ever. Still a part of that great forest, albeit a composting part, adding to the whole nutrient cycle, the soup that is continuously reformed, reheated, broken down, used up, again and again, ad infinitum.
I could create havoc or human ‘order’ with chainsaw or bulldozer, destroying and gouging, changing and transforming according to my will. Or I could try to tread more softly, seek to find harmonies with Place, try to be part of the enriching, nurturing, expanding Nature that doesn’t exploit but observes, tries to understand, responds, to act with due consciousness, to minimize destruction and hope to maximise the abundance for all, including myself, but not at the expense of the rest. Beauty, plenty, harmony, expansion.
I made the choice in the process of building and growing, to try to be an activist for a better world, and to accept that I could always do better, that we all always do our best, that I would make mistakes along the way, and learn from them, even if I still repeated them. I understood the depth of my parents wisdom when they had gifted me on one early teenage birthday, the most precious gift in a single piece of paper, inscribed with Kipling’s ‘If’.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1943)
Their pure understanding embodied in that poem; just go for it, son, and we’ll always love you, with your mistakes, your follies, your wild tangents. Go for it, fall on your face, make your errors, learn from them; the freedom to go for it, to fail and go again. With their blessings, trust that all will be just as it will. How grateful I am for that wisdom, that freedom.
Over 30 years of absence, unoccupied, plus the take-over of the rainforest
And I have gone for it, so far beyond my beloved Sundari. For over three decades, with only brief whistle stops back here along the way, reminding myself without any questioning needed, where I would one day make my home again, after the adventures which other callings demanded.
So now, with Amrit and Lémy’s help, and no doubt the help of many others who I’ve not yet met, who’ll come along, I start again. No, not start, but continue where I paused so long ago, to play out my dreams, now modified and refined, but essentially the same: to be a part of this sanctuary, of sharing and learning and loving. And sometime, even the old original house will rise again to be a dwelling of laughter and joy, as it always was. Maybe?
One of the fundamental lessons I learnt in constructing that lovely house; to never build anger or resentment, or other negativities into my sanctuary, where I would live. After all, there are always more than enough other things to do to exorcise such moods and madness: to go pull out some weeds, to chop some firewood, rake the kilometres of paths, plant a tree. Or just go for a walk, sit by the creek, read a good book, talk with dear friends. There a plenty enough of them. So when the old house is resuscitated again, by enthusiastic wwoofers no doubt, it will definitely be in that spirit, that it will be born again. Already some have declared themselves available when that happens.
After all, I didn’t do it all alone, not by a very long shot. Each of us who arrived in this spectacular ancient rainforested caldera, was short on experience, or capacity, or awareness in so much of what we were dreaming into reality. But together we pulled together, cobbled together our collective strengths and knowing and capacities, and supported each other in furnishing our needs. And what fun we had in the process; what intimacy we grew into together. And now, so many years later, the friendships endure, and we each still have a share of each other in the paradises we have created, and continue to evolve.
Our ‘Green Machine’, c. 1987, working and playing together, learning and teaching and helping each other.
Now my time of running everywhere, not being in a rush, but simply oozing so much energy and vigour that I could not slow down; that time has past. And as for the strength to lift great weights, ha, that’s also very long gone too. But it’s just fine, and now I can let the young do the running, and tossing great logs around, while I take time to consider and suggest where they might be tossed!
And keep on doing all that I can physically, keeping my eye in, retraining as I re-find old capacities and discover new ones, all the while being aware now that I have limits and do myself well to recognize them and not exceed them. After, this old body has been through so much more than most people have experienced, and not only survived, but recovered to a remarkable extent. So it deserves respect, to be honoured for all that it continues to offer me, without any cause for excess. That way, it will likely continue to serve me way beyond the call of my whims and fancies.
Where would I have been without the 44 years of daily yoga to keep body and mind so generously in shape? Your guess is as good as mind, but I’ve seen without exception the response of every doctor who peruses my medical history for the first time: the furrowing brow as his or her reading of my patient’s chronology, the shaking of head and bemused glances at me increasing right to the end. ‘What are you doing here,’ is a common question, or similar sentiment. I really have defied the odds, so outstandingly cared for by heroic medical excellence, by my very active participation to the extent that I could exert my body from the moment there was any possibility of doing so beyond coma, or repeated death-defying surgery, or so many complications that seemed bent on finishing me. Did I mention the squadron of guardian angels that must surely have been constantly accompanying me, and certainly the outpourings of love, and the prayers of hope that were lavished on me from all over. What benediction has come my way.
Ah, the glorious strength and vigour of youth; what would I have done without them?
All through my years-long melodramas I kept alive the dream of Sundari, that some day I would return and take up the thread of it and breathe life into its fruition again. It even sabotaged my need to live fully in the day-to-day, in so many other places, cultures, diverse languages , and challenges.
But if that’s what it took to bring me back to where I am now, how worthwhile and beyond it’s all been, in the ecstasy that I feel daily, just to be here. As it’s always been, from so long ago when I first started living here, in the old army tent nestled under two great mango trees, in that summer that produced the most prolific fruiting before or since, to the tune of the current hit then, Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ as the ripe fruit rained down constantly on the tent roof. The air intoxicating with the perfume of fermenting mangoes; I proved to have no limit in the quantity of the golden flesh I could consume each day. Even if my skin was probably hepatically golden too, from my excess.
Back then I was so high just from being in such an exquisite place, the wonder unfolding constantly as my sensitivity to absorbing all the miracles of nature evolved, and first inklings of understanding that miraculous complexity of all the beings interrelating to form the whole gorgeous system. Until I finally accepted that. I was so high each day that the excessive quantity of high quality ganja I was smoking could only serve to smother and dull the awe and immersion in such a wonderland. Not to mention the clarity.
And so I finally stopped, on all but the most exceptional social occasions when I sensed there could be a real pleasure in the sharing. Only rarely though, as it’s been ever since. And now, the high is even more intense.
So, what did I learn then, and what has changed since? Well, as the saying goes, there are only two certainties in life: Death, and Change. I’ve failed in the first until now, having skated many times so close to the edge, and so of course in the process, I’ve changed too. Yet the approach I’m taking is not so different in essence as the one I used 40 years ago. In detail though, there’ve definitely been modifications, as befits 66 years old compared with 26 years young. There’s no sense of ‘battling the elements now, as there was then, when I threw myself into the seemingly infinite number of tasks to be done, like a madman. The number has hardly reduced, but my perception of their urgency has been transformed drastically. I don’t have any sense of urgency now, knowing full well that I’ll never get them ‘all’ done anyway.
So what’s changed since I started work-playing here so long ago – 40 years now? Well, apart from me, the land of course has evolved, healing itself way beyond any contributions we have made. Back then, the constant trampling of hooved animals had compressed the heavy clay soil so intensely that little more than the hardiest grasses and weeds could penetrate the surface to open it up for water and soften it for other seeds.
The topography, so steep, combined with wet season intense rainfall events, ensured that there was little chance of any topsoil developing and staying on the impoverished land, being swept downstream towards the ocean with every torrential downpour, along with any accumulating organic material that may otherwise have aided soil regeneration.
On the site that I chose to develop, at least I could start to slow down that departure of fertility, by hand-digging swales – contour trenches, so that the water could be slowed and absorbed, and the topsoil and fine organic material halted in its downhill movement, deposited to feed the next generations of plants.
Those barriers were insignificant in size, using only a mattock and spade to create them, but so effective in function. As were the green manure seeds that helped to further open up the soil, and transform the vegetation from sharp, dry blady grass into a rich carpet mixture of diverse soft-leaved plants to support the fruit trees we planted.
Within a few brief years those two interventions – the swales and the cover-crops – had already made a huge impact on the dense clay; a topsoil developed over the almost impenetrable dense clay, and into that more welcoming environment, worms and a host of other soil-builders. The soil had been so lifeless simply because the clay had no organic material for any soil organisms to survive on, so why would any self-respecting worm have cause to be there? The constant loss of soil and biomass in the heavy rains was slowed by the swales and tree smiles, and complete diverse groundcovers.
How many trees we planted; at one stage we had accounted for at least two thousand completely different species, and many of those species we planted in vast multiples of individual plants. Wherever we planted on our land, we tended to plant in significant groups, having confirmed that plants in groups responded far more vigorously than isolated individual plants. Don’t plant trees; plant forests!
As if they were too lonely to access the energy needed for growth, while those planted in clusters found strength and encouragement in company. Of course, later in their lives the element of competition became a determinant factor in their life’s vigour or weakness. But in the meantime too, when they were planted as a community, their diversity of species ensured a multiple of other organisms and creatures were attracted, for nothing lives in isolation, after all. So one plant species drew insects, birds, reptiles, animals, and no doubt an infinity of other beings in the form of micro and macro-organisms, bacteria, enzymes, moulds, fungi. And the list goes on, of seen and unseen helpers in the strength and resilience of the whole system.
And anyway, we were so passionately immersed in our project, to create a sanctuary of abundance. Only the long-faded light of the day would insist on us stopping our work-play, driven by the vision of times ahead, and little glimpses of the paradise of what would emerge from our passion. Us and all the other creatures, plant and animal, that made up Sundari (the feminine word for beauty in Hindi), now and way into the future, long after we became no more than specks of decomposing material for it’s ongoing growth and evolution.
So the result of all those intricate relationships is a remarkably rich polyculture of plants and creatures, and goodness knows what else. Coming back more than thirty years later was bound to be a breathtakingly wonderful experience. And it is that, and so much more. All my emotional bonds with this place expand my personal connection with it, in measures beyond a richness I may have dared imagine.
I find myself a driven man again, but a gentle kind of driven now, sleeping short and constantly immersed in designing, of cottage or additions, or plantings or ……and on it goes. Walking today, just walking and taking the time to be here, reminded me of other important reasons for being here. Like NOT doing, breathing and taking it all in, without more than appreciation and gratitude to be here, a part of the place. Able to have such an impact though.
We’re here, as part of the place, including the directions it will go, the form it will take. Humbly, consciously, creatively. Dreaming up a reality of harmonic abundance. I know now that the dreams for Sundari and growing old here are perfectly feasible and attainable. How others love to discover this place, be here, grow it, with my/our input. And it is precious, glorious, empowering for all. What grace and privilege. As it’s always been. Magical.
More than returning to Sundari, I realise that I’ve returned to me, to where I really recognized myself, accepted me, laughed at me. And from where my journey in life really grew legs, that took me fully to me.
It’s been so long since I posted , that it probably seems that we’ve disappeared off the planet. Far from it, but we’re actually on the other side of the planet, Downunder , from where all my journeying with Permaculture and regenerating our poor beleaguered world began more than three decades ago.
So firstly, an update on some of the projects that we’ve worked with in the interim:
Jordan: establishment of Permaculture Demonstration for the Jordanian Government and two agricultural research stations in the valley of the Dead Sea.
Ecosystem Restoration Camps
Return to my land in sub-tropical northern New South Wales, Australia, where we’ve had almost 4 metres of rain so far this year. With a couple of friends, I bought the 33 hectares of very degraded ex-cattle scrub (having previously had enough fertility to grow vegetables, then bananas almost 45 years ago. The tired land had suffered the procession of downward spiral due to inappropriate landuse common the world over.
Designing and overseeing the implementation of an integrated productive landscape
Various consultancies and teaching presentations
Building my new house, entirely from timber planted 45 years. or so ago, and creating gardens and a forest fruit garden
The skies are spectacular, as are most things about this place, nestled in an ancient volcano which includes a World Heritage National Park, and the only remnants of the old Gondwana supercontinent rainforest not touched by the disastrous bushfires of three years ago.
naturedesigns john and franci 