Author Archives: Christine

The Return to Earth, and the Body as Wholly Holy

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For She So Loved the World
 
For g-d so loved the world 
She breathed you into being
She dreamt your lovers awake
and blessed you with
daughters and sons
 
She devised warm kisses
Hot springs
New moon nights
Mountain Vistas
The Milky Way
 
She imagined slipper orchids
Toucans
Pink lace agate
Black sea urchins
Tigers and cobras
 
She placed food and medicine
all around you 
on bushes in fields
in oceans
on trees
and gave you fresh water to drink
and green pastures to lie in
 
She also gave you spring 
This hyacinth remembering 
That life wants itself
That resilience is in your core code
That the sun always rises
That no matter what humans do to each other
There is no death
Just now and always 
A return to the light

She so loved the world
that she simply LOVED the world.

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Coffee Plants and Other Farm Updates

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Earth Provides the Mocha

In a moment of silliness, we joked about having a “mocha garden” on the land: coffee, cacao, vanilla, miracle berry or stevia, cane sugar. So fast forward..there are a few 3-foot tall coffee plants, and last year we saw the first beans. AND now, there are 55 new seedlings which will eventually be translated to the sunny slope under lotus. This is part of the 5-year plan!

The crew started coffee in the nursery, and this week we began putting the plants into the sunny terraces below lotus house. Beck is getting masterful with the little tractor,

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The Inner Equinox

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Happy Fall Equinox!

The seasonal shift is a great time to check in with yourself- what’s working, what’s not, what’s your desire, where do your skills and desire meet what the world needs now?

In our community, we are working on the inner equinox: staying even-keeled in storms and change. For example, we practice tracing our response to external triggers. We notice what happens in our bodies when someone says something unpleasant or we witness a climate disaster or read a barbed headline. We see how that hits our nervous system, we examine what beliefs underlie the trigger,

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Being in the Gardens as Mind Medicine

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During this pause to guests and events, here’s some beautiful observations from the beloved Craig Stone on being in the gardens.

“Gardening, for me, allows space—and that that space has allowed me to find some presence, and to practice mindfulness on a daily basis. I’ve always meditated. But when I used to meditate, it didn’t matter how long the sit was; but as soon as that chime went, my mind clicked back on again. I could find peace and some presence on the mat, but as soon as that time went it would be, “Okay, let’s go.” Mental noise and mental traffic.

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Meet Anthurium, One of Our Specialties

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Meet Anthurium: An architectural beauty, a NASA clean air plant, hermaphroditic – but toxic to mammals if eaten.

Anthurium is a genus of flowering herb, with more than 1000 varietals and cultivars. At Sundari, we’re cultivating a wide variety of Anthurium, mostly derived from anthurium andraeanum, and they are little easter egg surprises of color in wide swaths of tropical greens. Anthurium is loved as a houseplant because it likes warm, humid, shade- and it cleans the air- and for cut flower arrangements.

The Spathe
This is the vibrant lance or heart-shaped, waxy, brightly colored part of the plant….

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Welcome Back, and Thanksgiving

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Last night Kaliloa sounded the conch and blessed the land, with more than a hundred people standing in the circle. We called in the oversoul, and the ancestors and gave thanks.

As many of you know, the 6.9 quake was epicentered on the land, and many of our neighbors and friends lost ther homes this summer. We celebrate the resilience of this community and these people!  Philip (who planned for 50!), fed everyone, with Lau-Laus and Ulus and Kale and Turmeric Rice and Sweet Potato Pie and Mamaki Tea. David and Noah and Isaac and Sunni and Kalama and Craig and David shared their art and stories.

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Tutu Pele Speaks: Lava Erupts in the Neighborhood

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In late April, 2018, the long time lava flow from Kilauea, viewed by millions of visitors from a distance, suddenly dried up. Then, the lava lake in the crater summit began to drop. The lava was on the move, but where to?

Seismic monitors began to detect her path: hundreds of tiny quakes appeared in clusters along the East Rift zone of Kilauea, in our neighborhood of lower Puna.  On May 2nd, fissures began to appear in a subdivision called Leilani Estates, down the hill from us. Larger quakes followed. We had a 6.9 quake centered b elow us at New Earth that cause minor damage.

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Introducing Jun, Prana Stone Carving

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Along a busy road outside of Ubud, on the Island of Bali in Indonesia, a young boisterous muscular man meets us with a huge smile. He’s been expecting us. Jun is the friend of the artist David Lawell, and they have collaborated together to turn David’s painting of Pele, the Hawai’ian goddess of the Volcano, into a stone carving. As we walk through Jun’s studio, which is more of a corrugated tin roof over rough posts, we get the chance to see some more of his work.  It’s soft interpretations of female figures: Gaia, Mermaids, Saraswatis. He puts a sweetness in the faces,

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