Monthly Report - October 2012

7/30/2019 Monthly Report - October 2012

1/5

Echoes of EcoOne Grand Organic Whole In this issue:

One Grand Organic Whole

The Happenings I

The Happenings-II

Our Publication: Excerpt

Visions of Wisdom: Eco-Wisdom

Food is a manifestation of thePrimeval Being. Food is the sourceof creation. Food is suffused with

all creation; and all living beings aresuffused with food. Food is life. It isthrough food that the living beingsare born. The whole world is basedupon food. And, therefore, food isregarded as the highest. Because

life is sustained by food and food islife, to give food to others is likegiving life to them. And whoevergives food is known verily as the

giver of life.

-Mahabharatha

Giver of Life

October, 2012 Vivekananda Kendra- nardep Newsletter Vol:4 No:8

In 1876 Alfred Russel Wallace, co-progenitor with Charles Darwin of thetheory of evolution by natural selection,wrote in his classic book, TheGeographical Distribution of Animals,that those naturalists, who aredisposed to turn aside from the beatentrack of research may find . . . a study

which will surely lead them to anincreased appreciation of the complexrelations and mutual interdependence.These, he continued, link togetherevery animal and vegetable form, withthe ever-changing Earth whichsupports them, into one grand organicwhole.

One could hardly find a more succinctdescription of Gaia than one grandorganic whole. It submits that biotaand their environments have been

integral since the early eons of ourancient water world. It provides forfeedback on multiple scalesfromglobal processes like climate changeand biogeochemical cycles to theminutiae of local environments. Ithighlights the primary impact of livingbeings and processes on thephysiognomy of that world that evenobservers from the outer reaches of thegalaxy would recognize as a life-bearing planet.

It describes Gaia in a language ofconsilience that both scientists andreligious thinkers can understand.

It underscores the unity and grandeur ofthe Earth by choosing the capital Espelling over the lowercase alternativethat, regrettably, is still in extensive use.

Gaia theory honors systems thinking ona planetary scale. James Lovelock andLynn Margulis established the

foundations of the paradigm decadesago, working assiduously andcollaborating since those founding daysto show its applicability acrossdisciplines and even in everyday society.

The Gaian perspective emerged fromthe observation that physical andchemical conditions on Earth areinseparable from lifes ubiquitouspresence.Powerful influences crisscrossliving and nonliving domains bindingthem inextricably. With the birth of Gaian

science some forty years ago, thisintuitively grasped integration becamethe empirical subject matter of an ever-burgeoning body of researchers.

At a theoretical level, the integration ofliving and nonliving domains wasconceptualized as an amalgamation soprofound as to form a biogeochemicalentity that behaves as a self-regulatingsystem.

[Excerpt from an article titled One GrandOrganic Whole by Eileen Crist and H.Bruce Rinker in the anthology 'Gaia inTurmoil' edited by them, MIT Press,2010]

Service to humanity is the highest form of worship Swami Vivekananda


2/5

This Month This month

Green Health Home atVivekanandapuram functioned for 8days and treated 141 patients.

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, October 2012, Vol. 4 No: 8

Only through the extremity of the weather are we brought to notice the uncanny power andpresence of the unseen medium, and so compelled to remember our thorough immersion

within the life of this breathing planet. David Abram

Workshop on Azolla cultivation wasconducted at the TechnologyResource Center (TRC) ofVivekananda Kendra NARDEP, on20

th. Dr. Kamalasannan Pillai and

sister Premalatha were the resourcepersons. 4 farmers attended andbenefitted,

Pudiya Thalaimurai TV telecastedprogramme on Azolla technology on2

nd,3

rdand 5

thof this month. It featured

Dr.P.Kamalasanan Pillai and farmers

of Andarkulam.

[Right] Dr.Pillai being awarded theSocietal Innovation Award for theBackyard Azolla Technology by NRDCat the function held at Mumbai a fewmonths ago.

Done with DST core support

Water was tested from 14 wells inKanyakumari Dist programme of

Central Ground Water Board, Chennai.

Exposure visit and Training programmewere organized by Agricultural

Engineering Department, Madurai. Thetraining was held at Gramodaya Park,Vivekanandapuram on 12

thof this

month, for 100 beneficiaries. Theresource persons wereSis.V.Saraswathy,S.Rajamony, andS.Premalatha.

This Month

Networking

Activities

Exposure visit to Gramodaya Parkwas organized by the District

Watershed Development Agency,Virudhunagar on 4th

of this month.

80 members of SHGs attended theexposure programme of various eco-technologies at the Gramodaya Park.Sis.V.Saraswathy was the resourceperson.

Programme regarding the release of theNewsletter by the Department of Botanyof the Vivekananda College,Agasteeswaram was held on 10

thOct.

50 students participated in theprogramme. Sri.Vasudeo andDr.Kamalasannan Pillai were guests atthe function. Dr.Pillai gave valuable

inputs to the students on the subject.

Participants of exposure programme in an open-airsession with sister. Saraswathi.

Have you done the Online Tour of Gramodaya? Park

Dear Friends, Do not forget to log on to www.vkgramodaya.org and

experience online the different eco-technologies and principles behindthem which can usher in Sustainable development. This is a greatlearning experience.

Networking

Activities

Newsletter Release


3/5

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, October 2012 Vol. 4 No: 8

Because the Earth system in the wider context in which our social, political, and economicsystems operate, and because our actions now have planetary consequences, we areincreasingly compelled to develop forms of governance that are compatible with the largersystem that environs and sustains us. Karen Litfin

A Workshop on Herbal Garden Development was held bySouthern Railway, Chennai on 9

thof this month and 45 officials

attended. Dr.V.Ganapathy was the resource person. He gave alecture on herbal gardens and how common ailments can betreated effectively through a home herbal garden and how tointegrate that with daily life.

Happenings: This month


Traditional bone-fracture treatment in practice at Green

Health Home of VK-nardep. Dr.Ganapathi is applyingbandage for the 5th

meta-torsal bone fracture for a

patient.

National Seminar on Sustainable Resource Management wasconducted at St. Marys College, Thoothukudi on 4

thof this

month. 300 students and staff attended the lecture andpresentation by Shri.V.Ramakrishnan titled Waste to Wealthin which he introduced the Bio-Methanation plant, ShakthiSurabhi.


Villagers of Perumselvavillai, Kanyakumari dist. underwenttraining in Poultry Management at Central Poultry ResearchInstitute, Bangalore. The training was part of the VillageDevelopment Plan of NABARD from 1

stto 5

thof this month.

30 villagers participated in the programmed.Dr. Kamalasanan pillai co-ordainated the visit.

Participants of Bio-Methanation plant training

programme listening to a multimedia session andundergoing a hands-on exposure to bio-methanationplant assembling.

One day Workshop on Kitchen Waste based Bio-MethanationPlant (Shakti Surabhi) was conducted at Technology ResourceCenter, Kalluvillai on 20

thof this month. The programme was

supported by DST Core support. 25 persons attended theprogramme and benefitted. Shri.V.Ramakrishnan was the

resource person.

Commissioning of Biogas Plants this month:

Two portable Bio-methanation plants of 4 cum and 0.5 cum

capacity were sent to Bangalore for commissioning.

From a Gaian perspective our blue planet functionsmuch like an organisma self-contained living systemembedded in the larger solar system, with internal

metabolic systems of temperature and chemicalmodulation and an atmospheric membrane thatseparates it from outer space. Karen Letfin


4/5

ips

Ture and

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, October 2012 Vol. 4 No: 8

[I]t is at least not impossible to regard the earths partssoils, mountains, rivers,atmosphere, etc.as organs or parts of organs, of a coordinated whole, each

part with a definite function. Leopold

From our

Publications


5/5

vv

Life is a fundamentally imbricatingphenomenon, an elaborate edifice ofnestings that stabilize for extendedperiods into complex, in-fluxequilibrated states (e.g., ofatmospheric composition, climateregimes, life-forms, or ecosystems).The intricate webbing of life hashappened, and continues to occur,from the most intimate dimension ofendo-symbioses that created andsustain complex life, to the exchangeof nutrients via the trading zones of air,water, and soil. Gaia is thisinterconnected flux, what Darwincalled the entangled bank. Strictly

speaking, there is no selfishness orcooperation in lifes activities within thebiosphereonly a whirl of obligateinter-connectedness. For some, theabsence of selfishness andcooperation may be testimony to amorally indifferent natural world, oneneutral to direction, outcome, andrelationship. And yet, the obligateinterconnectedness of life, from whichmutual benefit is constantly flowing toall, can also be interpreted asevidence that goodness is profoundly

rooted in a pri-mordial and objectivecondition of being.Goodness, in otherwords, can be understood as thedistilled concept and consciouspractice of what life does simply as amatter of fact. In this light, humanethics (for which service andbenevolence are universal ideals) arecontinuous with, not extrinsic orepiphenomenal to, Natures ways.

The UN Millennium Development Goalsof halving poverty, hunger, and childmortality by 2015 cannot be met unless

ecosystems are nurtured andprotected, since it is the poor who aremost directly dependent on theirservices, particularly for freshwater andprotein from wild fish and game.Furthermore it has become clear from ahandful of successful projects that theway forward lies with encouraging localpeople to become involved in protectingtheir own ecosystems. It is verymuch in our own interest to maintain asmuch of our planets biodiversity aspossible. At the same time utilitarian

arguments for protecting biodiversitymay not prevent it from being seriouslydegraded, for ultimately we may not beable to save what we do not love. If weare to develop a worldview that has anychance of achieving genuine ecologicalsustainability, we will need to moveaway from valuing everything aroundus only in terms of what we can get outof it, recognizing instead that all life hasintrinsic value regardless of its use tous.Scientific and economic argumentssuch as those we have been exploringfor protecting biodiversity can help agreat deal, but on their own they arenot enough. We need, as a matter ofthe utmost urgency, to recover theancient view of Gaia as a fullyintegrated, living being consisting of allher life-forms, air, rocks, soil, oceans,lakes, and rivers if we are ever to haltthe latest, and possibly greatest, massextinction.

Satyam Impersonal

TruthSivam Primoridal

Goodness

Sundaram-Intrinsic

Beauty

-Eileen CeistEco-Sociologist

To me God is Truth and Love; God isethics and morality; God is fearlessness.God is the source of Light and Life and yet

He is above and beyond all these. God isconscience. He is even the atheism of theatheist. For in His boundless love Godpermits the atheist to live. He is thesearcher of hearts. He transcends speechand reason. He knows us and our heartsbetter than we do ourselves. He does nottake us at our word, for He knows that weoften do not mean it, some knowingly andothers unknowingly. I would say withthose who say God is Love, God is Love.But deep down in me I used to say thatthough God may be Love, God is Truth,

above all. If it is possible for the humantongue to give the fullest description ofGod, I have come to the conclusion that,for myself, God is Truth. I went a stepfurther and said that Truth is God. You willsee the fine distinction between the twostatements, viz., that God is Truth andTruth is God. And I came to theconclusion after a continuous andrelentless search after Truth which begannearly fifty years ago.I then found that thenearest approach to Truth was throughlove. I found too that love in the sense

of ahimsa had only a limited number ofvotaries in the world. But I never found adouble meaning in connection with truthand not even atheists had demurred to thenecessity or power of truth. In theirpassion for discovering truth, the atheistshave not hesitated to deny the veryexistence of God-from their own point ofview, rightly. Because of this reasoningthat I saw that, rather than say that God isTruth, I should say that Truth is God.

-Stephen HardingEcologist

-Mahatma Gandhi

God is Truth, but God is many other things also. That is why I say Truth is God. Truth is not one of themany qualities that we name. It is the living embodiment of God, it is the only Life, and I identify Truth with

the fullest life, and that is how it becomes a concrete thing, for God is His whole creation, the whole

Existence, and service of all that exists-Truth-is service of God.-Mahatma Gandhi

Vivekananda Kendra nardep, Kanyakumari-629702 Phone:91-4652-246296www.vknardep.org

Monthly Report - October 2012

Documents

Transcript of Monthly Report - October 2012