December is always a busy time for Auroville in general and Untiy Pavilion in particular. The still active monsoon cannot dampen the Christmas spirits. We have already started planning for Christmas celebrations and issued a call in the News & Notes for participation from the community. The response is good too.

But before the festive mood sets in there are important business to be completed…. It is selection time for the Working committees. So we are in for some high-energy activity at the Unity hall during 4-6 December. And there are many other events scheduled for this week such as Eco Service meeting, AV consultants meeting on sustainable habitats and community meeting on Entry Service Policy.

Work on Hall of Peace garden also is set to take off this week itself.

Hi,

Another quiet week at the Unity Pavilion. But outside it is rains rains and more rains. There are plenty of things one can do in rains. If you are tied up inside your office with nothing much to do clean up your desk, make your office space beautiful, clear unwanted files from your computer, bring some order into the filing system…the list can go on.

And this could be interesting to anyone who has visited or been associated with the Peace Table for Asia, in the Hall of Peace of Unity Pavilion. Have you ever wondered how a craftsman, a wood worker, like George Nakashima could have come up with such a lofty ideal of World Peace? Of course we read that he believed in giving a second life to trees and all his wood works were a dedication to the Nature, which grows such beautiful and mighty trees. And he felt that ” A symbol is needed—something tangible, like the toe of St. Peter’s statue in the Vatican. This symbol might be the object of a transcontinental or trans-world Peace March. There is little chance that peace can be achieved politically. There is, at best, a balance of terror; a balance of egos; a balance of demands. Enthusiastic contagion would be useful, as peace the world over is uppermost in our consciousness. It must be a joyous peace, not a fear or absence of war. It is a question of surrender. A surrender to the Divine Consciousness to end in a most beautiful aura of love.“ This idea points to some higher level of consciousness, definitely.

But George Nakashima himself had to go through some unpleasant experiences early in his life. He and his family were sent to Japanese Internment Camp for just being Japanese by origin. Mark Tully throws some light on how Mira Nakashima recounts those days.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34872962

And here is a link to Zackaria Moursi’s Anthology from the Mother in Arabic.
http://www.sriaurobindo-inarabic.com/en-originals/en-Anthology-Mother.pdf

The author writes: Readers who know both English and Arabic will find it more convenient to read the book in the “Two Page View” of their Adobe Acrobat reader. This View enables them to see the English text on one side and its Arabic translation on the opposite.