Monday 20th April to Monday 4th May – Krishna Village (Part II): facing daemons

Back in the gardening team from the next day and I’m becoming a dab hand at weeding, planting, mulching, fertilising and watering. I’m also getting the hang of layering up for the cold early mornings and warmer late mornings. On Thursday, Henrike, one of the village managers, a follower of Hare Krishna and also claiming the title of neurolinguistic processing (NLP) practitioner, offers a weekly group NLP session. Whilst I think it is quite unlikely that I will seek an NLP qualification for my own professional development and practice, I could not critically evaluate the approach without giving it a much closer look than I have done so far, so I’m curious to experience this class.

Monday 20th April to Monday 4th May – Krishna Village (Part I): semi-WWOOFing

On my first day, I miss the morning yoga. I’m used to early, from waking at 5:30am at Alstonville, but I don’t manage the necessary 5am rise for 5:15am class the first time: I blame the dark and the cold – it is cold in the morning! After yoga, the community is assembled by Madraya’s loud call of “Hareeeeeeeboooh!” – it seems, perhaps, that it was a Krishna word before it was a variety of sweets that “kids and grownups love it so”. We are split into teams to work from 6:15-8:00am, when we break for breakfast. I join the Gardening Team: I’m more interested in the farming side of things, I know I can clean and prepare food, so I have no interest at all in doing either of those things, the juicing team is small and popular, so opportunities to work there are few, and I don’t have a production degree, so I can’t join the film crew. We, the Gardening Team, jump in the back of a truck to go to one of the fields. Today we are weeding. Most days we are weeding. As we settle into the monotonous task, it’s interesting to listen to the volunteers chat about their observations of Hare Krishna – farm life is typically the main topic of gardening chat. It seems that a few people recently attended one of the Krishna open study sessions, which sounds like the equivalent of a Christian bible study; volunteers are welcome to attend these sessions. I have no observations yet, so I’m happy to just listen and learn the names of my new fellow volunteers.

Monday 20th April to Monday 4th May – Krishna Community Eco Village

The blue man himself adorning the wall of the lounge/wifi area along with other things that are important to him – cows and peacocks – both of which lived on the farm.

So, why have I come here? Given the effort and cost to be here. I could have surely found somewhere easier to get to and for free. Krishna Village stood out to me for the yoga and for the potential opportunity to read around and explore meditation and spiritual ideas; I’m not looking for a faith to subscribe to but I am persuaded that humans have a natural spiritual penchant and I find it interesting to explore mine and how I might wish to express it. I also feel that it is relevant to me as a therapist to have a basic understanding of the variety of religions; England is an increasingly multicultural and multi-faith country. As it happens, this place is purely about Hare Krishna. I didn’t know anything about it before I came here and, in short, I learn that it is not something that I can personally get behind. The yoga, on the other hand, is really great. There are four teachers, three fellow volunteers and one devotee (I think). Each have their own style but are also variations on the theme of sun salutations; this aspect of consistency helps me to become more familiar with what it’s like to have a regular yoga practice and gives me confidence to practice sun salutation routines in my own time. After attending twice a day, within a week I can, not only touch my toes, but get all my fingers over the ends of them: Wow! I can’t remember the last time I could do that, maybe when I was 10.