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Overview
from Pippa Cope, Centre Manager
Our damaging drought came to an end with a few good rains in mid March. A great relief for the earth, dried out garden, streams and dreamed about waterfall, which has been a water drip with a very small pool beneath it for weeks. Our usually abundant autumn veggie garden harvest has been very disappointing but planting of a few tough winter crops has begun.
Our small but dedicated on site team has been increased with the return of Mary who has worked incredibly hard on the unkempt garden and has been involved with a possible resurrection of the crèche with far more local input. She always works here with such joy and enthusiasm, lighting up occasional evenings with her harp playing and singing. It has been a pleasure to have her join us even for two, far too short, months.
 The highlight of this period has been the hugely inspiring visit of Lama Yeshe Rinpoche accompanied by Lama Zangmo and Ani Lhamo who we hosted for 5 days with most visitors attending for the weekend. Committee members and on site personnel had a bit longer to spend with them all. His messages of carrying on with the late Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche’s wishes for development of TRC to the best of our ability were hugely motivating. He stressed the importance of all working harmoniously both within TRC and with the greater southern African centres.
 He wished Coen and Megan well with the growth of Tikologo as an environmental development, education and information programme. He talked on numerous occasions about the importance of caring for the environment on which all sentient beings depend. His message about the dedicated Tara Valley retreat area means that it will now be open for weekends, for anyone wanting to engage in serious practice.
Evidence of how he has willingly embraced his vastly expanded worldwide commitments since his brother’s passing has been an inspiration to all. It was heartening to see the fresh air and surroundings of TRC renewed his energy as he launched out on some exploratory walks. We hope such visits will continue in the future.
TRC now hosts more and more retreats with activities on most weekends. Each group brings different facilitators, people, energies and those who attend hopefully gain some inspiration to carry them back to their dally lives.
For the TRC volunteers and staff, increased activity means more work. For the hard working and as yet mostly inexperienced catering and domestic folk much supervision and more training is needed. Unfortunately it is not easy to find many capable, experienced and motivated staff locally, but we do the best we can with who we have. More dedicated practitioner-volunteers are always needed and appreciated to help share the load.
On the building front a small team is plodding on with building staff accommodation initially to replace William’s old crumbling house. This, as ever, is being done with limited capacity and funds. Both James and Alan have been trying to keep up with the endless maintenance and repair jobs needed around the site; with Alan's focus mainly on electrics and woodwork repairs.
We have received a much appreciated donation of books, furniture, household and catering equipment from Jeannie, wonderful painted slates from Natalie, second hand clothes for sale from the Bath’s neighbour, crèche support materials from the Baths and Marion and Fergus in Scotland. Thanks to all.
We hope our programme and web advertising of future events will entice more visitors to Tara's Valley either for events or just to be here using our accommodation. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested in the retreats outlined below.
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Volunteers needed at TRC
After the visit of Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, we are committed to expanding the reach of the Tara Rokpa Centre, so that more people can benefit. In order to do this, TRC is looking for committed practitioner-volunteers for the following positions:
- Administrator
- Book keeping
- Housekeeping manager
- Catering manager and general kitchen help
- Handy-person/builder
- Carpenter
- Plumbing and solar (particularly 'kalk' expert)
- Gardening
- General volunteers for specific retreat periods, especially over Christmas
- Recordings of retreat instruction
- Marketing (no need to stay at TRC)
Ideally, we are looking for volunteers who already have a daily practice (meditation, yoga etc) as this can help you to live happily in this remote part of the country. The work commitment is 4 hours per day, and the rest of the time you have for practice or activities in the local area. We provide free accommodation (usually a room with shared bathroom). On the recommendation of Akong Rinpoche, we request a contribution of R2500 per month towards food (or R85 per day) as it is considered a special opportunity to work in a retreat centre. In the case of scarce skills or people willing to work full-time, these conditions are negotiable.
Ideally, we like volunteers to stay for a minimum of 3 months, so that they can take full responsibility for a key area of the retreat centre, without supervision. However, at peak times, such as November and Christmas, we take volunteers for shorter periods. For the position of catering manager over November or Christmas, we offer free attendance on Rob Nairn’s November or Christmas retreat in exchange.
Some volunteers subsidise their stay by offering services to retreat visitors such as massage. Alternatively, you may like to make items for sale in the TRC shop, depending on your skill area.
Please contact Susan on trc@vodamail.co.za for the Volunteer Application Form. Your application will be considered by the TRC Management Committee and you will usually hear back within a month of application. Please note that you must be able to provide your own transport to and from the Centre, whether you are coming from South Africa or overseas.
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Musings of a TRC Volunteer
Mary Stebbins
I come from the other hemisphere, from the other side of the world. I come from Canada. When I first came to volunteer at TRC, some 7 years ago, I only knew that I’d fallen in love with this place and needed to return. Since then I’ve come a number of times and each time it feels like coming home.
 In the dawn light I often a walk up Temple Hill. I sit on a rock, scarf wrapped around my neck to ward off the morning chill, eyes closed to allow the sounds to enter me; the endless soft chattering of a hundred little birds, over which floats the lone melody of a dove. This punctuated by the raucous call of the hadeda ibis as they take to wing, and the nasal “go away” of the gray lauries. A cow groans, a voice calls, the wind flaps the prayer flag erected in memory of Akong Rinpoche, faded and tattered, a reminder of impermanence.
I’m happy to work in the earth. That is how I spend a lot of my time here, working in the garden, rediscovering the beautiful rounded rock forms, the bedrock, the bones of the earth. I clear away weeds, cut back trees and bushes. One of my happiest times is when I’m wandering the hills in search of indigenous plants to bring back to the gardens, fingers feeling in the loosened dirt for their roots that have held them onto their chosen place of earth, and hoping those roots can stretch out to find sustenance in a new place.
I stay with Pippa, my friend, the manager of this centre known to all who pass through. I am not very large, so it always surprises me that she is smaller than me in stature, when she is so strong in all ways, and fearless, with a seemingly never ending flow of energy and deep compassion. She is boss and mother here. Early mornings, when the day is yet young and there isn’t a retreat happening, as we eat our oatmeal on her porch, and ponder over the day ahead, people come to her, endless problems to solve about work, about relationships. “Ma gogo....” it starts and then she is off to deal with some situation. And so her day goes.
She is the Gogo, but now with me here there is another gogo, the gray haired ones. I actually like being called that, the term feels endearing, and respectful, like I am a part of a family, not just an aging female becoming invisible as is so often the case in the culture of the Western world.
 Since coming here, we have reopened the crèche that closed last May due to dwindling numbers. With the energy and determination of Maria behind it, a well respected member of the community, who has lived here long before the land belonged to TRC, it might continue. Time will tell. She knows how to stimulate children, to tell stories with great drama, to play and dance. But with her many other responsibilities, she hasn’t much time. Her daughter and another young woman are taking it on under her guidance, without pay at this point but with the support from TRC of food for the children. Right now the children come with great exuberance. Even the older ones, teenagers on their spring break, come. For me, the crèche, the children there, bring me to this place in a heart-to-heart way. I look at their faces as our hands mime the words of songs I’ve taught them, their eyes so bright, smiles wide, even the littlest one and a half year old making an attempt at the motions, and they are totally there, in that moment, and so am I. This, I think, is mindfulness. Now, as I am soon to leave, I say good-bye to them with hugs, and it comes so naturally to say, “I love you.” They are the hope. In this setting, I see in them only potential, the amazing degree of concentration they are capable of, the capacity for joy, the growth of confidence, and I don’t feel the need to dwell on the sadness of the homes so many come from.
Below are the words to the chorus of a song my 8 and 9 year old students in Canada wrote many years ago when I asked them, “What do children everywhere need?” The last 4 lines are my addition, because it is through children’s eyes that we can learn to see the world anew.
“Children everywhere need hope.
Children everywhere need love.
Children everywhere need someone to belong to.
Children everywhere need love.
Children everywhere from birth,
Live together sharing this earth,
Hear their laughter, hear their cries,
See the world through children’s eyes.”
The evenings are cool now as we head into autumn. I look at the black night sky, the Milky Way a river of stars across the sky, and I smile at familiar Orion (He’s here, but upside down to my northern eye). I will be back in that northern home soon, back to being “Grandma,” instead of “Gogo.” Orion will be hidden for most of the night, as we head into spring. I like to imagine the Milky Way river is connecting us all in the vast universe on this tiny little planet we call earth. It has been my great privilege to spend these months at TRC. Thank you universe, Akong Rinpoche, and all the others, here and at home, who have made this possible.
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Tikologo Autumn Update
The autumn winds have arrived, the days are becoming noticeably shorter and the intense heat and energy of summer is beginning to take a dip. It has been a busy few months on the Tikologo permaculture site and we are delighted by the recent developments and first real physical changes taking place on the ground. Since January Tikologo has successfully hosted its first practical training weekend, we have commenced the construction of a nursery shade house and were fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to do a world renowned online Permaculture Design Certificate Course taught by the incredible Geoff Lawton himself.
 The first environmental training weekend offered by Tikologo was a practical nursery shade house building workshop and we are happy to announce that it was a great success. The workshop took place from 20-22 February and we had a wonderful turn out. A total of 16 participants joined us for the weekend activities. Our participants and friends arrived on Friday evening and were treated to delicious soup dinner prepared by Pippa and Trish in the TRC kitchen. After dinner there was a short introduction to TRC and the Tikologo environmental project to give some idea of the weekend activities but also offer a perspective on the broader vision of the Tara Rokpa Centre and Tikologo project.
Saturday started off nice and early with a discussion on the design and construction of the Tikologo nursery shade house. The rest of the day was focused on the practical construction of the main structure with participants getting stuck into either the hard labour of assembling gum poles or the friendlier activity of stitching together shade netting which would be used for wrapping the completed structure. Everybody worked really hard and by the time we went for a well-deserved walk to the waterfall, the shade net had been stitched and we had made good progress on the support structure. The evening involved another tasty TRC meal, a beautiful solo Harp performance by the very talented Mary Stebbins, a preview of the crowdfunding video and drumming around a glowing bonfire.
On Sunday we completed the roof and Southern shade net on the structure but could not complete the project in its entirety. A famous saying in permaculture is ‘the problem is the solution’ and hence we see the event as a wonderful learning curve and will structure future events with more accurate time planning. Although we didn’t manage to finish the main project, work was simultaneously being done on two smaller projects which were successfully completed. These were a miniature hooped plastic tunnel/cold frame and a big bath tub worm farm. These were included in the weekend schedule as kid friendly activities and we are very pleased to say that they were completed and are already in productive use as part of the new Tikologo nursery site.
A huge thank you goes out to all the participants and friends who made an effort to support our first event weekend. We are truly grateful and will use the experience to continue developing our training activities. We would also like to thank Marvin Diedericks, not only his youthful spirit and helpful contribution to the weekend but especially for compiling a short video clip on the building of the nursery. For a peak please go check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEF7TSppWE4&feature=youtu.be
 Apart from continuing work on the nursery and designing the Tikologo site we have also been fortunate enough to receive an amazing scholarship from Geoff Lawton to do his online Permaculture Design Certificate Course. This is a remarkable opportunity for the project and is enabling the Certification of community members in permaculture design. The participation in this course is providing an incredible resource of knowledge and design principle which will have a hugely beneficial impact on the Tikologo project site as well as the surrounding community through future outreach and educational work.
We are facilitating the course in the training centre using a laptop and TV to show the digital videos and there are 6 aid recipients attending the 1.5 Hour weekday sessions. It is a 12 week course and a new chapter is released every week. These are viewed and questions are asked on the internet forums which Geoff answers in specially shot Q&A video segments. Presently we are half way through the course and have found it to be incredibly informative as well as expertly presented. The material is challenging but revolutionary in that it creates a whole new perspective on what we thought we knew about the world and all of its intricate life systems. One fundamental thing that we have learnt is that for humans to sustainably inhabit the Earth we have to start understanding life systems and looking at developing and designing partnerships with these systems that have evolved over the course of our planet's existence. This truly seems to be the only way forward and the whole course is structured around providing the necessary directives to move us into action. We are really thankful for this opportunity as it will provide us with all the necessary information and tools for developing Tikologo into a model for sustainable community development. Have a look at www.geofflawton.com for some very informative short videos and more information on his course.
On Tikologo’s to do list for the coming months we have:
- Finish the nursery shade house,
- Start propagating indigenous and fruit tree cuttings for planting up the training centre site next season
- Build a new chicken run at the training centre site so that we can start supplying TRC with some good quality free range eggs,
- Ferro-cement the leaky pool for water catchment storage,
- Start laying out and preparing the new Training Centre zone 1 food garden and,
- Raise money to put in some very necessary water harvesting earthworks to initiate our soil hydration strategy.
On that note it seems that we better remove ourselves from the laptop screen and get back to work. Please remember to like our Facebook page www.facebook.com/growingtikologo to keep up to date with events and check out our blog at www.growingtikologo.wordpress.com for a growing database of environmental information.
Before we do so we have to mention the absolutely wonderful visit by Lama Yeshe Rinpochè, Lama Zangmo and Ani Lhamo. We were very privileged to receive teachings on how to care for our inner environment as well as some very positive commentary on the environmental project itself. Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, who feels very strongly about environmental work and care, gave us a lot of confidence and encouragement to move Tikologo forward. Rinpoche also named our future garden at the Training Centre the ‘Wish-fulfilling garden’. We believe that it will live up to its name!
Take care and grow well from the Tikologo team.
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A 'Reset' Retreat with Rob Nairn
My wife (Diedre) and I attended the December/January retreat with Rob Nairn and Nan Lutz. We also attended the retreat the previous year, which I must confess, I had some reservations about, particularly, as this was to be my first proper retreat and I wasn't that familiar with Buddhism etc.., only having attended a few talks at the Kensington Centre during the course of the year.
As it turned out, the 2013/14 retreat was a great experience and had a very positive impact on our lives, particularly as we were going into what was expected to be a difficult year ahead. We booked early again for the 2014/15 retreat, being very pleased that Rob was once again going to be involved.
We arrived at TRC and were amazed by the transformation of the country side, compared with the previous year, following good early season rains. Being keen Mountain Bikers, as well, I couldn't wait to do some serious "cycling meditations" 😃 through the magnificent valleys and surrounding farmlands. Our accommodation was basic but comfortable, with nice quite, considerate house partners.
The structure of the program is perfect, with early morning meditation followed by Rob's talk. Nan's mindful movement sessions thereafter, were a highlight, particularly for Diedre.
While I am ordinarily a "meat eater", I absolutely loved the food and didn't miss my Ostrich steak or Snoek fillets at all and actually felt better after a week of being a vegetarian. They really do work miracles in the Tara Rokpa kitchen....
The measure of a good retreat, I guess is the longevity of the impact and as we reflect back on that week almost two months ago, Diedre and I can honestly say that the benefits have been sustained, not just through our (now daily) meditation practice but also in the teachings by Rob and Nan.
We would highly recommend the retreat for anyone. You certainly don't need to be a Buddhist or an accomplished meditator to enjoy and derive benefit from the experience. For Diedre and I, it is a really great "reset" and the perfect way to start the new year.
Rob and Diedre Surtees
For information about Rob's up-coming April/May retreat, click here
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Schedule of Events and Retreats
APRIL
Yoga and Tai Chi Retreat, with Lucy Draper-Clarke and Mike Draper
Friday 17th – Sunday 19th April
Friday 24th April – Sunday 3rd May
MAY
Friday 8th – Sunday 10th May
Friday 15th – Sunday 17th May
JULY
Mandela Volunteering Weekend
Friday 17th – Sunday 19th July
Marico Classic MTB Race
Friday 31st July – Sunday 2nd August
Self-catering accommodation available
AUGUST
Shenang Revitalise Retreat, with Nan Lutz
Friday 7th – Sunday 9th August
Friday 28th - Sunday 30th August
Dog Walking Weekend, at the Training Centre
Friday 28th – Sunday 30th August
SEPTEMBER
Working with Our Mind Poisons, with Alan Muller
Friday 4th – Sunday 6th September in Tara’s Valley
Compassionate Mindfulness Retreat, with Lucy Draper-Clarke
Friday 4th – Sunday 6th September
Springtime and Zen with Dharma Teachers in the Tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn, organized by Ava Avalos
Friday 11th – Sunday 13th September
Liberating our Self-Created Delusions, Neurotic Fixations, Negative Emotions and Attachments - A Dzogchen Perspective, with Dr Melanie Polatinsky
Friday 18th – Sunday 20th September
Tikologo Environmental Training Weekend, with Coen Meintjes and Megan Bisschoff
Friday 18th – Sunday 20th September, at the Training Centre
Shinay Retreat, with Tara Rokpa Therapists
Wednesday 23rd – Sunday 27th September (Heritage Long Weekend)
OCTOBER
Dharma Retreat, with Ken Holmes
Friday 2nd – Sunday 4th October
Shenang Revitalise Retreat, with Nan Lutz
Friday 9th – Sunday 11th October
Gardening with the Elements, with Thomas Linders
Friday 16th – Sunday 18th October at the Training Centre
Bringing Awareness to Our Lives, with Alan Muller
Friday 23rd – Sunday 25th October in Tara’s Valley
NOVEMBER
10-day or 1-month Retreat, with Rob Nairn, Edie Irwin and Lorraine de Raay
Friday 30th October – Saturday 28th November
Permaculture Principles, with John Nzira
Wednesday 11th November – Sunday 15th November at the Training Centre
DECEMBER
3-week Christmas Retreat, with Rob Nairn, Choden and Nan Lutz
Friday 11th December – 3rd January 2016
or 10-day options from Friday 11th December - Sunday 20th December,
and from Friday 25th December - Sunday 3rd January 2016.
Dates and topics may change slightly. For latest retreat information, accommodation options and pricing, please refer to our online information:
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