The U.N. Millennium Development Goals have 2015 as their target of fulfillment, less than three years away. Three of the goals are of concern at Yayasan Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) in Indonesia, where I am a midwife. Goals 4 through 6 are to reduce child mortality rates, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Unfortunately, the world is not nearly close enough to reaching these goals; goals which advocate for the basic human right to decent healthcare. May 5th is International Day of the Midwife and I find myself in General Santos City, Mindanao, Philippine Islands, where over 800 midwives are assembled for the Philippine League of Midwives National Congress, a gathering of women passionate about achieving real solutions to the problem of maternal and child mortality.

According to the World Health Organization 981 women die everyday from pregnancy and birth related complications. These statistics are higher than if two 747 jets fell from the sky, killing a total of 832 passengers every single day. If airplanes fell from the sky daily, this would make front-page news. And for sure people would not fly until the problem was solved. However, nearly 1,000 women are dying daily in the prime of their lives, they are not elderly; not sick; they are pregnant and birthing women.

These maternal deaths are driven by poverty, causing malnutrition and inadequate access to reproductive health services. They are mostly preventable. Even more discouraging: according to Amnesty International, the number of maternal deaths is significantly understated because of a lack of effective data collection in the U.S., and, may I add, in the world.

The mothers most at risk are African and Asian, minorities, those living in poverty, indigenous, immigrant or displaced women and those who speak little or no English. Many of the women who come to midwives for reproductive health services, are in these categories.

As a midwife, I have devoted a lifetime to hands-on helping, while thinking and working out the reasons for this tragedy. It is humbling. We must continue to ask, how can we work towards real solutions to this problem.

On my blog in the Huffington Post, one person posted this comment: “This is why we have hospitals. While it’s a romantic idea, midwifing is a relic of the past and needs to be outlawed.”

When they are needed, hospitals and the specialists who staff them are a miracle. That being said, I am convinced that the Midwife-to-Mother model of care is the best way to determine if the risks for mother and baby are high. In the care of midwives, mothers have the best possible chance for better birth outcomes, with less use of technology and much less cost. In the experience of the Bumi Sehat childbirth clinics in Bali and Aceh, where over 4,000 babies have been born, midwives are the care providers who take the time needed to prevent tragedy.

The comment above may be expected from someone coming from a Western mentality such as the US or some countries in Europe. Possibly thousands more people in Indonesia, the place I live and teach midwifery skills, think the same. But I am grateful that the Indonesian government, through the Ministry of Health, does not view the issue in this way.

The Indonesian Ministry of Health has shown a growing support through initiating programs that improve the role of midwives, especially in remote villages where the residents may have never even seen a car. It is an unavoidable fact that midwives are the gateway to providing reproductive health care to rural residents in many areas.

If you believe that hospital based childbirth, attended exclusively by doctors of obstetrics and gynecology, is the answer, consider that although the U.S. spends more than any other country on childbirth technology; statistics released in September 2010 by the U.N. place the United States far behind other developed countries in the world for maternal mortality. Women in the U.S. have a higher risk of dying from pregnancy-related complications than women in 40 other countries.

The heart of how we care for our mothers, babies and families is the care we show for the dispossessed and the disenfranchised. While I dotted that last sentence, another woman died in childbirth. This is intolerable, every mother counts. You can clap your hands and say, “I do believe in technology,” but it won’t change anything. If you personally wish to see significant reduction in the numbers of mothers and babies dying, clap your hands and say, “I do believe in Midwives!”

Today, I am spending International Day of the Midwife in the Philippines with midwives from my own mother’s homeland. My Lola (grandmother) was a Filipino hilot, a traditional midwife, before there were hospitals to fall back on. She practiced respect for nature and for the culture of women. Today, midwives have excellent training in the science of medicine.

Midwives stand on three strong feet: respect for nature, honoring culture and sound science. To all my sister midwives out there: if some view us as too romantic or a relic of the past, don’t let this refrain you from saving lives with the loving touch of mothers. Happy Day of the Midwife.

Main photo by Verginie Noel.

Nafka – 2nd chance to be Better
Talks and responsible lifestyle products presentation

Sunday 22 April 2012 | 2-4pm
at Little Tree Green Building Center
Jl. Sunset Road No. 112x, Kuta – Bali

Presentation and discussion sessions:
1. Responsible lifestyle product ideas by NAFKA | Ayip
2. Financing creative and good projects by Patungan.net | Enrico Halim
3. The making of Wisnu Open Space | Made Suarnatha

A designer’s job is to make sure that the model can be converted into a working prototype – a blue print for the manufacturer. However, it is in our nature to measure individuality. Since the 1980s designers have been injecting unique identity “chromosomes” into their products on an industry scale.

High-income earners – which are the industry target – fill the empty space of boredom in their lives by shopping. But possessing the exact same product as everyone else only creates a new kind of boredom. The era of uniform consumerism has ended. Mass products are now being challenged by truly individual designs. Yes, it’s pseudo individualism.

During the 1980s, the concern for environmental damage was no longer exclusive to environmentalists. The call to stop deforestation, environmental pollution, and the green house effect entered into popular culture. Terms such as Eco, Green, and Global Warming were often used, while at the same time the importance of the 3Rs (Reuse – Reduce – Recycle) became ever more apparent.

Recycling can sometimes be too expensive and requires a lot of energy. Which is why some people turn to upcycling, which means converting waste or unused materials into something useful, like the products developed by Freitag. In Bali, Nafka initiated a laboratory for creative designers focused on developing responsible lifestyle products. In June 2011, Nafka showed their first exhibit in Denpasar titled Wonderground. Nafka will once again be showing the creations of their designers at the Ecologically Sustainable Solutions Week on April 16–22, 2012 at Little Tree in Kuta, Bali.

To create designs out of used materials, Nafka designers focus on planning the shapes. Through the process, the used materials can offer unexpected visual surprises. It’s as if looking at a montage or photo collage by artists from the Dadaism era on products such as bags, sofas, room partitions and lamp shades, all made from reclaimed waste or used plastic wrappers. Cut up images, numbers or letters, a build up of colors.

Nafka products seem to fuse the line between art and craft in the shape of everyday accessories. Visually they are attractive. Nafka products are a refreshing surprise in the droll of everyday standard mass-produced products. Nafka products are truly one-of-a-kind.

The products may represent individual expression. But the production process is fueled by a passion for community movement and empowerment. Nafka outsources its production to local handicraft community groups. Handicraft producers, much like other traditional production workers, are marginalized in today’s modern economic distribution routes.

In modern sales systems, the middleman marketing the products can be a necessity. When the producer and consumer are too far apart and there is no access between them, the role of the marketer grows ever larger. The role of the middleman in sales is to dictate the price to maximize profits. The producer has little power to sell at a higher, or more profitable price.

This inequality in the marketing stage is only beneficial to the seller and too often exploits the producer. In Bali, these symptoms have long been visible in the industry, for example in the sales of art or crafts. Art shops in Bali have a very high profit margin, sometimes as high as 60 percent on the handicraft products they sell. By the time they are sold, these handicrafts can be expensive, but the amount the producers receive is too far below the selling price.

The partnerships Nafka builds with local handicraft producers follow fair trade standards. In this way they are supporting sustainability, not only the environmental aspects, but also the social aspects.

It takes hard work to follow the principles of fair trade while also successfully conducting business. To make sure the products are not just salable because they are “fair trade” and pulling on heart strings, but because they are of high quality.

If upcycling has it’s own attraction for consumers, could upcycle product hold special economic value? Anyone can take unused material around them and transform it into something new and useful. So, is there still a market for Nafka products? Here the idea of branding comes into play. A product will not just be valued in a utilitarian perspective or at face-value use. Urban residents want to communicate and declare their individuality in the midst of their lonely disoriented lives. Brands provide this.

Brands become a tool for interaction, a celebration of togetherness, even without having to communicate it. A brand is a message in itself.

The fifth BaliSpirit festival has concluded last week. Five days packed with offerings ranging from yoga and dance, to music and holistic medicine workshops, this year’s festival attracted the largest crowds yet in its history. Susan, yoga practitioner from the United States, sums up her experience of the festival: “There is a huge number of workshops, and so many amazing new things to try. But for me, the most important part was to meet so many like-minded people and to connect with the community.”

The international audience that flocked to Ubud to experience the BaliSpirit festival is part of an ever-growing international community of health- and environment-conscious yogis, musicians, and dancers. This year, BaliSpirit attracted more than 1,000 participants from the United States, India, South America, Australia, China, Japan, Western and Eastern Europe, and Africa. John Ogilvie, yoga presenter, festival sponsor and founder of Australia’s Byron Yoga Center, recognizes the galvanizing power of the festival: “There is an international community present at this festival. All of them will take ideas and inspiration from this festival back to their own communities.” In this way, global awareness relating to health and environmental issues grows. Spirituality, as Ogilvie points out, has to be practical. By building an international community, the maxim ‘Think Global, Act Local’ can become a reality.

The general atmosphere of the festival encouraged sharing and community, and presenters as much as the audience enjoyed the many new connections and shared experiences during the festival.  “To me, as a presenter, the festival felt playful and free and because we all join each other’s classes, Michael Hallock, Watsu teacher, explains. “Normally, as a presenter, I would be a ‘special’ person at an event, but here I was one of many. It was really humbling because I saw so much greatness around me, so much talent and creativity. I saw many people in the fullness of their expression. It was very inspiring and humbling.” Presenter John Ogilvie, who says he enjoyed the experience of switching roles from teacher to student when he joined workshops led by his world-renowned peers, shared this feeling.

Bali is an ideal location for the festival – the Balinese are natural yogis, who live their form of yoga on a daily basis. As devout Hindus, they perform offerings and ceremonies on a daily basis, and service to the community is the norm rather than the exception. Kadek Gunarta, co-founder of the festival, asserts, “We Balinese do yoga our whole lives. We do yoga every time we make an offering and every time we go to a temple. We are always trying to lift our consciousness.” It is this constant effort to maintain a connection to the unseen world that makes Bali such a magical and inspiring place for Western visitors. This atmosphere is amplified during the festival, as many workshops encourage participants to look inside, become more conscious, and open their hearts.  Or as self-proclaimed ‘badass’ yoga instructor Cheri Rae, from Peace and Love Yoga, Los Angeles, puts it: “You do yoga to become a better person. If you don’t – get out of my class and go do aerobics!”

In an effort to promote and include local presenters and audiences, this year, several Indonesian presenters added more local flavor to the festival. While the vast majority of yoga presenters were white Westerners, Indonesian presenters such as Jane Chen, Indrawati Widjanarko and Dewi Asmarani were welcome additions to this all-white line-up.  There is still some way to go, however, to make a truly inclusive festival, especially regarding the Indonesian audience. As a positive gesture, the festival offers one day with free access for everyone, and especially Balinese families, with special workshops organized for children, and yoga classes with Balinese village elders, amongst others. There is, however, no adjusted ticket price for Indonesian participants, which is reflected in the under-representation of Indonesians in the audience during the other four days of the festival.

Giving back to the community, as a yogic principle, is a major theme running through the festival, and is inspiring to Westerners who might be craving a deeper sense of community and connection in the materialistic and individualistic West. BaliSpirit festival might just be a small part of the growing movement of people seeking community and holistic lifestyles around the world, but its ripple effect through the inspiration it provides is larger than the festival. According to John Ogilvie, “If we can get enough people doing yoga around the world, it will be a better place” – a simple formula, which recognizes the capacity of the festival to inspire proactive change among its international guests.

One such ripple effect of the festival has been the inspiration it has provided for similar yoga and holistic health festivals that have developed around the world – such as the Namaste Spirit Festival held in Jakarta, the Byron Bay Spirit Festival in Australia and the Hawaii Spirit Festival. Founder and Chairwoman of Namaste Festival in Jakarta, Anita Boentarman, says that she was “inspired by the BaliSpirit Festival.” She further commented, “Yoga is not about competition, it’s about union and working together. We want to work more closely with the BaliSpirit Festival.”

One important aspect of the festival’s mission relates to the environment. BaliSpirit prides itself in its partnership with green organizations such as Bali Cantik Tanpa Plastik, Bali ReGreen and the Environmental Bamboo Foundation. It is also linked to the East Bali Poverty Project and donations collected on Hari Cinta Keluarga day are donated to Ayo! Kita Bicara HIV/AIDS, an NGO created by BaliSpirit to engage the local community in conversations and education about HIV & AIDS.

Pau Castellsague, yoga presenter and founder of the Barcelona Yoga Conference, insisted on the urgency for people to take positive action: “I feel a strong connection to nature here in Bali, it is very inspiring. But what we humans have done to nature is very sad. We suck! It is time to change. And I don’t mean it’s time for the intention to change. It’s too late for intentions. We need to make change happen, now.”

While the festival does take its responsibility for the environment seriously, as is exemplified in their waste recycling program and support of environmental organizations, it isn’t perfect. The presence of plastic spoons, chopsticks made from tropical forest wood, and a huge number of paper cups still mar the image of a fully environmentally friendly festival. The consciousness and will to limit the impact of the festival on the environment, however, is well present, and efforts to manage waste have constantly improved since the festival’s inception five years ago.

Overall, this year’s BaliSpirit festival was a successful and positive event, galvanizing an ever-growing community of people who crave positive change in the world. And besides this grand aspiration, it was also, simply, a lot of fun. With workshops ranging from many different styles of yoga, such as Hatha, Anusara, Yin, Vinyasa Flow, Ashtanga, Acro and Kundalini, and lots of dynamic dance workshops, including Nia, 5 Rhythms, and the hugely popular West African Dance, there were plenty of opportunities for both for self-reflection and growth, as well as for good, plain fun, exhilaration, and booty-shakes! And while the Festival united some of the world’s most experienced yoga instructors, the festival welcomed beginners and the simply curious too.

Yoga is for everyone, and yoga should be fun, as Cheri Rae’s words bring it to the point: “Yoga should feel good.” And this is what this festival was about, most of all – feel good, do good.

The project “Illustration around the world” is Ientile’s mission to travel, while documenting through illustrations and sketches, and meeting other artists and designers in the countries and places he visits. He plans to release his travel art in the form of a book later this year.

This project has inspired him and Bali has become one of his favorite destinations during his travels. Before returning to Germany this weekend, Ientile would like to meet Bali’s creatives to share experiences and stories.

Join the discussion on 15 March 2012
Location: Danes Art Veranda, Jl Hayam Wuruk no 159 Denpasar
Time: 7pm

People have a natural desire to master information faster than other creatures. This desire is influenced by the information industry, including the mass media. Hence the battlefield of information technology media is also a race to share a story.

Why do people want to know more and know it before anyone else? Perhaps because, in this way, they feel more powerful than people who are still in the dark. This power does not necessarily achieve inherent and authoritative domination of the subjects of a territory or a country. Power can be achieved within many domains, and it is not always repressive. Knowledge is power.

One form of claiming power over knowledge is by exploring, or at least travelling to foreign places. Recently in Indonesia travel writing has exploded. Recent publications of travel books have lead to a new category on bookstore shelves.

Air travel is no longer an expensive form of transportation in Indonesia—that is what the slogan ‘now everyone can fly’ from one popular budget airline implies. Globally, tourism also continues to develop as an industry. Today, 8 percent of global gross domestic product comes from the travel industry. Where in this world have we not yet explored? Images of remote corners of the earth find their way into mass media and may in time become the most sought-after tourism destinations.

Commercialization of the travel lifestyle creates hyper-realities about new places as treasures as yet to be discovered. However, the impacts of such travel, including environmental degradation, cultural change, and sociological shifts within local communities are often the consequences of the arrival of tourism.

Lately, the concept of responsible travel has been given a lot of attention: Every traveler must be aware of the impacts of his or her visit to a place—both the cultural and ecological impacts. The most responsible travel may, in fact, be to not travel at all; the arrival of a new person in a new place, isn’t just economically beneficial; it can also create larger problems.

The desire to travel and share travel stories has found a modern medium in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, two days ago, an Indonesian traveler shared photos and stories about her trip to Tibet through her Twitter account.

Her short stories, limited to 140 characters, shared general information about Tibet; but there were errors in the information. She posted that Dalai Lama has not lived in Tibet since 1995. In fact the correct date is 1959, and this spiritual leader has not only “not lived in Tibet” but was forced to flee Tibet and take refuge in Dharamsala, India.

She also shared posts about Potala and Norbulingka palace, along with visually pleasing panoramic photographs. But she forgot to mention how the few remaining monks of Potala are forced to hold positions of cleaners in uniform (not the traditional monk garments). Finally, she reminded followers that the best time to visit Tibet is in August, September, April and May, even though she was there in January.

@tibettruth responded to the posts and stated that the account was a tourist who is spreading the illusion created by Chinese propaganda of a colonized Tibet. @tibettruth is an account for the international movement  which supports the reinsitution of Tibet’s independence. The Indonesian tourist replied that her intention was not to spread propaganda, but merely to share what she saw and felt to her friends. This response showed her failure to capture the naked reality about Tibet as a colonized nation. She overlooked the fact that in Lhasa a Chinese military post can be found every 100 meters and miliatary are constantly patrolling the area.

Sometime last year, the photographer Timur Angin also shared his experiences of Tibet through Twitter. Moments after he left Tibet, Timur promoted his plan to form a group tour of Tibet during the country’s best travel season, organized through a photography magazine. His plans were overturned, however, because in 2011 China denied all permits to foreigners to visit the annexed area now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Social networks are designed to allow us to share knowledge; but without indiscrimination. For some travelers, these media are used to propagate a damaging myth of a far-off place.

I visited Tibet for 15 days. I experienced Tibet as China’s backyard, used as a location for picnics for Chinese residents, who are enjoying the biggest surge in economic growth in the world. I noted the lines so visible on the faces of exhausted monks at temples or monasteries, whose movements are limited following their rebellion of 2008 against the repressive Chinese military.

I witnessed that the economic sector of Tibet is dominated by people from Mainland China: Almost all souvenir shops and tourist attractions in Lhasa are owned by Chinese. The people of Tibet, who often speak English more fluently than many Chinese, must be content to sell souvenirs from mobile stands in Barkhor. The stand sellers are honest and point out which souvenirs are made by Tibetans and which souvenirs are made in China; not surprisingly, most items are Chinese-made.

I witnessed the train routes, which China claims are part of the infrastructure for the development of Tibet; in actuality they are primarily used as transportation for Chinese going to Tibet. I saw the economic control of China, binding the Tibetan people to poverty. Residents are “mobilized” to an area of annexation—merely a repetition of what China has done previously in Uyghur. In Uyghur, an area with primarily Muslim residents, conditions were extremely repressive, to the point of ethnic cleansing.

I witnessed Chinese military confiscate a Lonely Planet book on Tibet from the backpack of a tourist at the military post along the Nepal border. China banned Lonely Planet books from entering Tibet because their guidebooks include a map showing Tibet in a different color than China and include a photograph of the Dalai Lama, who is exiled in India.

Even though I made an effort at the beginning of my journey to ensure my own local impact benefited Tibetans (for example, by using a travel agency owned by Tibetans, not a Chinese company), I realized that my trip to Tibet was a mistake. Vacationing in an occupied region is the same as offering foreign exchange to the colonists.

My one pride from Tibet is a t-shirt sporting a Tibetan flag and the inscription “Free Tibet”. This shirt I bought in Kathmandu, Nepal, after convincing the seller to embroider those legendary symbols. “Free Tibet” flags are popular in Nepal, but not one seller is brave enough stock them in their stores. Rather, they are available on order so that store owners avoid the risk of being caught during the Nepalese government sweepings—in this way, the government likes to demonstrate its friendship with China.

During my visit, I wrote a few stories, took thousands of photos and dozens of videos in Tibet. But I did not share these in any portfolio. I don’t want to share my experiences in Tibet to the wider public to encourage other people to visit Tibet.

But I do offer this story I wrote about Tibet, as an appendix to this article.

A prison on the roof of the world

In the plane as we prepared to land, the Tibetan natural landscape transfixed all eyes, and no one blinked. Everest, surrounded by the satellites of lower peaks, appeared like an island in clouds, towering over a cobalt blue sky. The snow blew in gusts, like a flag from a distance.

It was a view you can find in no other country. This country truly is the roof of the world. This land, so grand in its history, is covered by a rich blanket of spiritual practice, devotion to Buddha, invasion, subjugation and oppression. The land is a traveler’s dream. But most travelers must abide by strict rules evening order to enter. Only Chinese tourists enter with ease; they come by the thousands every summer. Tibet is like a playground in China’s backyard.

Accompanied by a tour guide, who contextualizes China’s control over Tibet, the Chinese tourists come to fill the temples and monasteries. They are amazed by what they see, Imagine how much more amazed they would be, if only the Chinese military had not destroyed around 6,000 monasteries during the occupation, beginning in 1951. The religious identity of Tibet was brutally disarmed, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed.

In 1959, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama, the living Buddha, left Lhasa in exile to settle in India and continue his struggle to free his homeland.

In some monasteries there are paintings or photographs of all of the Dalai Lamas, with the exception of the 14^th. It is forbidden to speak of him or hang his photograph in Tibet. Even tour guides are forbidden to mention him.

In Potala Palace, traditionally the Dalai Lama’s official residence, monks are forbidden to wear their classic red robes. Instead they wear uniforms like maintenance workers and are assigned tasks similar to the care of a museum. Since the monk protest of 2008, which ended in military violence, being a monk is increasingly difficult. The number of monks has decreased dramatically. Before 2008, there were around 600 monks at Potala Palace; now there remain only 200.

Proceeds from the fairly expensive tickets to enter a temple or monastery go to the Chinese government. The temples and monasteries are funded by charitable donations from the people. Not surprising, then that inside the temples we must pay to take photographs, as a way to bring much-needed income to the monastery. In Jokhang Temple, the monks opened a small shop selling “blessed souvenir.” Outside of the monastery, in Bakhor Square, tourists can get almost the exact keepsakes for a much cheaper price.

In Lhasa, tourists are intercepted by Chinese military or police for photographing beggars. China is concerned that images of poverty could ruin their idyllic image of Tibet development. The tallest train rail in the world, running from Qinghai to Lhasa, has been in operation since 2007 and the government boasts it has propelled development in Tibet. But in reality this train rail only makes it easier to transport products from China and mobilize the Chinese military, which have 3 nuclear missile sites and uranium mines in Tibet.

As in Uyghur, China clutches the area through control of the population’s composition. The Han Chinese population continues to increase, and many control business there. To smooth assimilation, Tibetans are forced to study Mandarin in school. No Han is forced to learn the Tibetan language.

Today, no Tibetan can leave the country because they cannot obtain a passport. Until three years ago, many Tibetans fled to Nepal through the Himalayan mountains. Today, however, the Chinese police and military strictly guard these mountains.

While tourists flock to Tibet as a mystical far-off land, the region’s own citizens are prisoners within its borders.

“Tibet under lockdown” photo by Ryan Gauvin via Freetibet.org

Founder of Yayasan Tri Hita Karana (THK) Bali, Chakra Widia, promotes how beekeeping benefits the growth of vegetables, fruits and flowers. “Bees are one of nature’s most productive pollinators and can have a dramatic beneficial effect on yields in terms of seed yield and fruit yield in many crops,” says Chakra. “And best of all you get the honey. In fact, we’d say beekeeping is a honey of a hobby.”

Using Permaculture principles, THK Foundation educates, advocates and acts to bring about more environmentally and economically sustainable practices in all fields of human activity in Bali. On March 24-25 THK will hold a beekeeping workshop at their learning center in Pengosekan, Ubud. The theme of the workshop is “BEE the change” a playful spin on the famous Gandhi quote “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

According to Chakra, beekeeping is not something you just do on a whim. “It’s a responsibility and to undertake it, you need to have a basic understanding of bees, especially the wild bees we have here in Bali,” says Chakra.

Workshop participants will be learning from I Gede Panca, an expert honey beekeeper in Bali. With a lifelong involvement in beekeeping, Panca is not only an expert but also a passionate advocate for the island’s wild bee population.

Panca was the inaugural winner of Indonesia’s best beekeeping title in 1998. Panca has founded three local beekeeping organizations in Payangan, Tegallalang and Petak and they meet together twice a year.

The bilingual weekend workshop is designed for novice beekeepers who want to learn beekeeping and start a colony of their own. During the workshop, participants will learn about Bali’s native bees, as well as an aggressive new kid on the block that may ultimately upset the island’s bee biodiversity.

Participants will also learn about flowers and their influence on the taste of honey, with plenty of honey tasting to sweeten the session.

Each participant will construct a modest bee box best suited to house the island’s native bees. This bee box may be taken home afterward or donated to the THK Permaculture demonstrations farm.

Much of the workshop will take place at the THK learning center – constructed from bamboo in a light and airy design. There will also be a field trip to explore a bee colony that has inhabited a neighbor’s family temple, quite a common occurrence in Bali.

Panca will show participants how to locate the queen in the colony and move the bees from the temple into a bee box.

Participants will also learn where to place bee boxes to attract bees, moving the bees to new food sources, and methods of identifying and dealing with predators. Panca will demonstrate how to harvest honey and how much to take from a colony so that enough food remains to sustain the bees and their larvae. He will also demonstrate his beesting “treatment” to reduce the risk of blood clots.

Assisting Panca during the workshop will be THK’s medicinal herb expert, Tri Suda Pala. Tri will lead a workshop session on the medicinal qualities of honey and the importance of pollination for medicinal herbs. Those attending can order bees, honey, or extra boxes from Panca, as well as medicinal herbs from Tri.

Chakra hopes that the workshop will be a springboard for helping to expand the knowledge base of bees and beekeeping in Bali and provide a network of sentinels to warn of any changes in the island’s bee population. “We hope we can foster the establishment of an umbrella organization of Bali beekeepers to work in cooperation with local beekeepers to ensure that our island’s native bee colonies continue to flourish,” he says.

Visiting beekeeper Steve Black from the Isle of Man, between England and Ireland, says ongoing support for novice beekeepers is vital and endorsed the formation of a group that meets regularly to continue the learning process.

“Nobody can hope to learn all that there is to know about beekeeping in a weekend workshop,” he says. “When situations arise with your bees, it’s important to be able to network with other more experienced beekeepers for advice.”

Places are limited and bookings close on March 19^th. Booking inquiries can be made by email to: thkbalicommunications@gmail.com or by phone: 087 861 463 406 or 081 338 794 571 (Chakra).

Participants should bring their own lunch or, for Rp. 15,000 each day they can have lunch provided. They should also bring a hat, sunscreen and, if they are allergic to beestings, it goes without saying that they should bring an EpiPen.

These days it seems like everyone is doing yoga. A large yoga scene has developed in Bali in the last few years, attracting more and more foreigners and locals to practice this ancient art on the Island of the Gods. Practitioners rave about its physical, mental, and spiritual benefits. But might there be other benefits to it that are not so often discussed? Yoga’s aim is to re-establish union between the human body, mind and spirit. Could it be, however, that it also enhances the union between humans? In other words – can it improve your sex-life?

Read on… because it can.

A consistent Yoga practice will improve your physical well-being, fitness, and looks. But besides giving you that sexy “Yoga-butt”, it can do a lot more for your sex life than you might at first imagine.

And it’s scientifically proven. A recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that yoga improves women’s sex lives significantly. Moreover, the results were even more pronounced in women aged over 45. For the study, women aged between 22-55 participated in a 12-week yoga course. After the course, all of them reported an improvement in their sex lives, including improvement in desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain reduction.

On the masculine side, the results are just as positive.  Among men aged 24-60, yoga improved desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.

So, how does it work? Exactly how yoga affects your sex life is not always clear, but here are some clues.

It makes you fit, strong and flexible
On the physical side, you will gain greater fitness, muscle tone and endurance from a regular Yoga practice. More energy, strength and better health all contribute to a better and more fulfilling sex life. Feeling good in your body may translate into feeling sexier when you enjoy your body in bed with someone else. Being fit can also make you feel more attractive and confident in your relationships with the opposite sex.

Increased flexibility and longer muscles give you greater freedom of movement, which invites creative experimentation in the realm of bedroom acrobatics. You might even want to try out some of the more adventurous positions transmitted in the ancient Indian art of lovemaking, the Kama-Sutra.

The practice of engaging the sacred energy locks of mula bandha and uddhiyana bandha in Yoga simultaneously toning the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles and increases their strength. A strong pelvic floor means stronger orgasms for both sexes, as these are partly the muscles that contract during orgasm. A strong core will give both sexes strength and endurance in all areas of life, and for women, as an added bonus, it will maintain their sexual fitness even into an advanced age.

Strong pelvic muscles can also help men develop greater self-control and endurance, thus giving them more time to please their partners. This aspect is crucial in love-making, as women usually need a longer time than men to get aroused to the point of orgasm. Therefore, a patient and self-controlled lover can translate into more orgasms for the woman. “Yoga really affected my sex life,” says Sascha, a yoga practitioner from Canada. “I’ve gained greater body awareness, partner awareness, endurance, stamina, and control. The biggest change for me is my awareness and control in engaging the mula bandha (pelvic floor) area, as well as a greater sensitivity to the female energy.”

A study conducted by researchers at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India, concluded that yoga can help combat premature ejaculation and promote sexual satisfaction, and this even to a greater extend than the usual drugs prescribed for these problems – 100 percent of the yoga group showed improvement in premature ejaculation and sexual satisfaction, compared to 82 percent of the drug group.

More presence, more sensations
The relaxation practices within yoga allow practitioners to access a relaxed state more easily. Deeper relaxation allows for greater blood flow to the sexual organs, increasing sensitivity and responsiveness to stimulation.

With time, Yoga will develop physical self-awareness and sensitivity. “Your whole physiology will be optimized, your nervous system re-conditioned and so you’d be able to feel more sensations in your body. But Yoga will also develop the ability to integrate these enhanced feelings within every aspect of your life”, claims Uma Inder, Ayurveda consultant and yoga teacher of more than 20 years. “Yoga brings you right back into your body.”

Coming back into your body translates into a more focused and present mind. A distracted mind is no use during lovemaking – if you want to make it worthwhile. As researchers from the University of British Columbia found out, yoga meditation and mindfulness can help treat women’s sexual problems. In their study, researchers found that mindfulness practice significantly enhanced women’s sexual arousal and response.

A relaxed mind is more open to enjoy and be present during those intimate moments with your partner.

Beyond the physical
Yoga’s effects, however, transcend the physical. Increased self-confidence and a better knowledge of oneself are natural by-products of Yoga. During the practice of yoga, you learn to stay with the sensations and emotions that come up in various postures instead of ‘running away’ instantly. Learning to stay where you are, in a scary headstand for example, develops self-knowledge and confidence. You learn that fear, for example, is just an emotion, and that you don’t necessarily need to give in to it. So you’ll gradually become more comfortable in vulnerable positions, whether it’s in that headstand during class or while communicating your wishes to your partner.

Your relationships will naturally improve as you become more aware and respectful of yourself and others. According to Uma, “on a basic level, Yoga develops physical freedom and emotional maturity. Conscious acceptance of your own self empowers your capacity to relate truthfully with others.” And who says better relationships, says, well, better sex.

Moreover, Yoga might, over time, help you to undo some of the cultural and social conditioning that demonizes sex, and specifically keeps women from enjoying it. According to Margot Anand, senior Tantra Yoga teacher and founder of Skydancing Tantra, “If we want to be good lovers, on the spiritual level, as well as on the physical level, we have to look at the beliefs we were raised with, and whether we agree with these beliefs. You should realize that a belief is just something that is given to you from the outside – it is not your truth, your experience.” Regarding sex, “the first belief to let go of is that sex is “taboo”. It is not, for it is sacred. The second belief is that women should not be allowed to have as much pleasure, or as many lovers, as men. The third belief is that the Goddess is a stone effigy that resides in temples, but at home, the woman is just a worker and a mother. This is not so. If you can see the divine in your partner and make love to that transcendence – as you pray, so you love – then you experience true bliss because you are beyond the ego.”

From the lower realms… to the highest

By integrating all levels of the human experience – the physical, mental, and spiritual – Yoga may not just improve your orgasms; it could potentially lead you to ‘enlightening’ orgasms, too.

“In the Kundalini Tantra system, the sexual center, the second chakra (swadisthana), can be experienced as the center in which the individual self is established and supported”, says Uma Inder. “Within this tradition, the sexual center may be used as the platform, the basis from where spiritual experience is generated and amplified.”

Kundalini and Tantra yoga will develop more awareness in the lower centers, and open these up. “This is the doorway, the beginning of the spiritual journey, in the basis of existence,” according to Uma Inder. “All spiritual experiences are generated from the lower chakras, and this has been scientifically proven.” The challenge is to develop these lower centers without getting stuck there, as “there is a higher purpose to sexual intercourse, that is, to conceive another human being or higher consciousness. The highest sexuality is the union of energy and consciousness in every aspect of our bodies and our lives.”

At a still more advanced level, yogis can develop the capacity of experiencing a full-fledged orgasmic experience in the body, without having to go through sexual intercourse. As Margot Anand states, “When you enter that bliss, you don’t even think about sex anymore, because it’s so much better than sex!”

…are you still reading, or are you on your yoga mat already?

A cooperative in Switzerland is developing a consumer-supported agriculture system to which consumers pay a periodic fee. Consumers are also required to farm the land for a number of hours per year.

There isn’t much growing on the two and a half hectares of land in Ziplo, Geneva, save for small plots of lettuce here and there and a few herbal plants. As Switzerland  transitions from winter to spring, the activities of the Jardin du Chorroton cooperative are quiet as the farmers wait for prime growing season.

“This land actually doesn’t belong to the farmers or consumers,” says Irene (29). “Four years ago we claimed this land because it was abandoned.” She explains that in the past the land was used for conventional farming, using pesticides and other chemicals. “The farm next to us still uses these conventional techniques (pointing to the border of the two lands); the difference is like life and death.”

The land adjacent to Jardin du Chorroton is owned by immigrant workers from Portugal. The visual difference between this land and the property cared for by Irene is striking; it appears dry and barren.

There are 140 family members of the cooperative under the umbrella organization of Uniterra, a member of the small farmer organization La Via Campesina (International Peasant Movement). In 2007 La Via Campesina formed the cooperative with farmers to cultivate the land through consumer-supported agriculture.

The unique aspect of this system is that consumers must pay in advance a sum of 1,400 Swiss Francs (around US$ 1,475) per year. This capital is used to plant on the land, and the variety of crops to be planted is pre-approved by cooperative members. In this way, the farmers who work the land—there are around six people, Irene among them—receive a secure monthly salary.

The cooperative collective bears the burden of any risk to the harvest. Ipso facto if a surplus of produce is harvested, consumers receive more, and if output declines, as in the winter season, consumers will receive less. All the harvested produce is packaged in baskets and distributed by the cooperative each week to drop points around the city of Geneva.

Individual consumers retrieve their own baskets of produce. Additionally, they are required to spend 16 hours a year farming the land. “The consumers need to be aware [of the process] so they can really be a part of this system,” explains Irene.

Irene says that there are many families in Geneva who want to be a part of this new style of cooperative; but due to quality control measures and limited production on this small plot of land, the cooperative has had to turn down some requests for membership. Luckily, dozens of cooperatives in Switzerland have also adopted these consumer-supported agricultural systems.

At Jardin du Chorroton, almost all of the management employs mechanized systems for farming. Ten well-constructed greenhouses complete with irrigation systems are erected on the property. Farmers use a variety of tools, from simple hand tractors to large tractors and machines for turning and loosening the soil, and shape garden beds for planting are all employed.

Farming methods are based on sustainable farming systems; therefore, there are also mechanized systems for moving compost and processing waste. “One of my friends who works here is crazy about machines,” says Irene, laughing.

One traditional technique Jardin du Chorroton continues to preserve is horse-drawn ploughs. The horses they own plough the land, transport produce, and are even used during demonstrations. In fact, the cooperative’s name is derived from horse-powered farming techniques: In the local language chorroton translates to “horse-drawn carriage.”

This afternoon a consumer is harvesting sage herbs from one of the garden beds. Usually, on the weekends, consumers will bring their families, especially their children, to learn and play at Jardin du Chorroton.

This model of a producer/consumer cooperative for food production is actually increasingly popular all over the world. In addition to Switzerland, the countries of Japan, the United States, and Spain all boast rising Community Supported Agriculture movements. If product prices are compared with store-bought items, the cost of cooperative produce is similar; but cooperative farming offers the additional benefit of support for local products, allows consumers to know the quality of their food, and offers a short chain of sale.

From the farmer’s perspective, cooperatives provide a guaranteed income and, as a result, a secure source of livelihood hard to come by in today’s market. Farmers are also protected from risks such as crop failure or market price fluctuation.

Can a system like this be developed within our local farmers’ organizations? Is it possibly to spread this idea more widely across Indonesia?

Written by the Head of Foreign Affairs for the Indonesian Peasants Union (SPI – Serikat Petani Indonesia). This article was written in conjunction with in-country activities to advocate for small farmer’s rights during the 16^th Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Switzerland, March 2011.