It was two years ago, I encounter a unique, future oriented small eco farm in suburb of Nara city named "Toyouke no Mori ".
I believe every thing is meant to be , nothing is by chance based on the Low of nature, the Law of universe. So, I have a good feeling that this small eco-farm is going to grow into a big foundation to spread a message of love and harmony from Yamato.. yet, it is still a very primitive stage.
Toyouke no Mori literally means, the forest of Toyouke. She is a Japanese Shinto Goddess of abundance. (Her big image by Mayumi Oda is..on our back! ) Original idea of building this beautiful eco farm and retreat center was by a few Japanese, including Mayumi Oda, who is an Japanese artist and social activist from US.
Mayumi Oda was born in Japan and spend her childhood during and after the World War II. Until recent years, she has been active in the US, and been putting her effort to visualize strong, merciful, beautiful, lively Goddess images from various cultures, as she believes our modern society is too male principle based, and acking the femininity. She is trying to visualize the divine feminine.
I totally agree with her idea!
Feminin features are:
Helping ,
supporting,
sharing,
nurturing
Forgiveness,
Healing
Acceptance (over the differences)
Kindness,
Beauty, etc.
Love, Harmony, and Peace cannot prevail on earth.. without feminin elements.
What we need is BALANCE.
We are living in a very unbalanced society.
Forgetting the simple law of nature, inter-connectednesss.
We cannot live alone. We are naturally inter-connected and sharing this only one precious mother Earth. This is a simple Conscious awareness that native people all knew. All babies and children knows.
But in this modern global society, people are stressed out and self-centered EGO (such as greed, pride, anger, hatred) have been made us blind.. I wonder how long can we continue to survive that way?
We are destroying our body, collectively this beautiful planet.
It is high time to remember a famous wisdom by Native Americans;
"Think and act what we can leave for the 7th generation a head".
It is clear, in Nara, with World Heritages over 1300 year-old, our ancestors were aware of this wisdom, so that they have passed down the heritages both tangible and intangible generation to generation.
Today, I know the individual shift is starting.
People are starting to realize the very crude fact that we cannot create peace if we don't have our internal peace.
Yoga,
Zen meditation
Organic farming
Healthy diet
are also base of Mayumi's daily life and work as an artist.
She now has a beautiful retreat center in Hawaii, called " Ginger Hill Farm".
Eat incredible food from our gardens.
Join us in our daily routine of Meditation, Yoga, Cooking, and Farming.
Luckily, she is currently visiting Toyouke no Mori so I could experience rice planting, eating, farming, good conversation with her.
She also believes that YAMATO has a lot to offer to the world in the near future!!
As Toyouke has been attracting very unique people with many briliant answers to the sustainable living for the future, I will keep an eye on what's going on there.
(Toyouke no mori official HP is under construction... updating)
More about Mayumi Oda:
