Akashavana

Our wonderful new yurt is now available for solitaries. For more info, click here.

The last few weeks in Matarranya have seen the Shrine Room shoot up from its foundations where the vajra we planted lies within a metre of concrete. Vijayasri and Isla cleared the pathway between the retreat centre and the shrine room so now you can walk the 150 metres or so along the goat track on the side of the hill and through a little crop of pine trees without stumbling on loose rocks and ducking under branches.

Through the pines you see the first views of the shrine room. It is a large rectangular building, raised a metre off the ground to protect it from damp. It has been built from scratch with red brick faced with stone or sand coloured render. Discussions about the size and placement of the windows in the shrine room occupied the ‘Aranya group’ for many a month, along with debates about where we would place the shrine. Now seeing the building with its walls built the large windows look great and where we place the shrine seems obvious. It’s hard to take in sometimes that the building will be a shrine room. When we walk around it our thoughts are in building site mode and we’re full of questions and anxieties. Do the builders really intend giving us a lintel above the door made out of a bit of old pallet? And why is one window lower than the other and just a bit crooked? We ask our questions and of course the builders have noticed and they are both just temporary things!

Apart from enormous beams crossing from wall to wall the roof is still open to the views. The ridge behind the shrine room rises to 1200 metres and even with all the banging and clattering of building noise, on one visit I watched two wild goats climb a hill a hundred metres away. It almost seems a shame to put the roof on but I think once the building is enclosed with a wooden ceiling and floor it will really start to become our shrine room.

The retreat centre work has slowed down a lot whilst different scenarios are mooted for our services. Water is fairly clear; we’ll have a large tank near the spring below the house and pump it up to another tank above the house and gravity feed it into the retreat centre. Lighting is also becoming clear and with the high ridge behind the retreat centre it’s important to place the solar panels where they’ll get maximum sun particularly for the shorter winter days. We’ve decided on a position that’s not visible from the house but we need to build a small ‘casita’ to house the solar batteries. Santi the carpenter is away making our doors and windows to fit the frames already in place. Many of the doors will be part glass to let more light into the rooms.

Our discussions turn more regularly to kitting out the retreat centre. What sort of kitchen will we have, and who will make it? How many beds do we want in this room and when do we need to put in an order to ensure we have them in place by spring? It is still a way off and much needs to be finished off in the retreat centre by then but it’s exciting to have got to this point. We are still hoping the builders will have finished their work before winter really sets in – by late November.

Vijayasri called in on our friends near Valencia after Moksabunny had been with them a few weeks. He was looking very trim and had lost all his factory farm fatness. He had become fitter and energetically evaded capture each night and had them running around after him. He thumped his feet a lot and generally evinced character and spirit. Moksabunny enjoying his freedom! Later I heard he was becoming less nervous of people and starting to enjoy being stroked.

But shortly after I got a call that he had managed to slip under a fence at the far end of the orchard that was his playing field. He didn’t come back and within days Vidyasri had found furry remains. There are a number of foxes in the area to whom he would have made an easy dinner. One of them didn’t go hungry that night. I was sad to hear of his death although it wasn’t totally unexpected. Vidyasri does a lot of ritual involving nature and when she told me she was going to make something from the grey foot she found with the remains the thought went through my mind “But that’s Moksabunnys foot!” I’d got attached to him as a small furry presence in my life, one that I was sorry to have to let go of.

The following women were ordained in Dunkeld, Scotland on the 30 July.

Public Preceptor Padmasuri

Clare Barton-Harvey becomes AMITAJYOTI. She whose light is immeasurable/boundless. (Private preceptor Ratnavandana)

Dot McGahan becomes SURYAMATI (long “u”). She whose mind is like the sun. (Private preceptor Punyamala)

Gordana Avramovic becomes JNANESVARI (long first “a”, “s” pronounced “sh”). Queen, “noble lady” of knowledge. (Private preceptor Vajrapushpa)

Sue Ilsley becomes PRASADAMATI (long second and third “a”). She whose mind is bright, pellucid, kind and calm. (Private preceptor Vajrapushpa)

Agnes Verbon becomes DAYAPADMA (long second “a” and long last “a”). Lotus of kindness. (Private preceptor Vajragita).

Maureen Brandon becomes MOKSAVAJRI (”s” pronounced as “sh”, long “i”). Vajra of liberation. (Private preceptor Parami).

Public Preceptor Ratnadharini

Fiona Jeffrey becomes Mokshalila (long “i”, long last “a”). She whose play is liberation. (Private preceptor Punyamala).

Heather Fitzsimons becomes GUNAKARA (dot under the “n” and a long first and last “a”). She who is a mine of virtues or who scatters virtues. (Private preceptor Kalyanasri).

Chris Holdsworth becomes SUBHAGA. She who is well blessed. (Private preceptor Sobhana).

Robyn Smith becomes ARYAJAYA (long first “a”, long last “a”). She of Noble Victory. (Private preceptor Padmasuri).

Rosemary Bartlett becomes DHARMAVAJRI (long “i”). She who is a vajra with egard to the Dharma. (Private preceptor Vajragita).

Jo Coates becomes KSHANTIKA (both long a’s). She who has patience, tolerance, spiritual receptivity. (Private preceptor Maitreyi).

Elisabeth Lynn becomes ANANTAMANI (dot under the last “n”). One who has or is an infinite, boundless, eternal jewel. (Private preceptor Kalyanasri).

Barbara Trznadel becomes SUNETRI (long “i”). A good leader. (Private preceptor Kalyanasri).

Public Preceptor Maitreyi

Jenny Lam becomes SASSIRIKA (Pali) (long second “i”, long last “a”). Glorious, shining, beautiful (through her contact with the Three Jewels). (Private preceptor Dhammadassin).

Rose King becomes SUVARNAMAITRI (dot under the “n”, long “i”). She whose friendship is golden. (Private preceptor Kulanandi).

Tere Valverde becomes SADDHAJOTI (Pali) (long second “a”). She having the light, the radiance of faith. (Private preceptor Parami).

Kathleen Winter becomes DHARMASHURI (long “u”, long “i”). The heroine who embodies the path to Enlightenment. (Private preceptor Dayanandi).

Jo Hughes becomes KAMALAGITA (long “i”, long last “a”). The song of the red lotus. (Private preceptor Dayanandi).

Martha Rios-Lopez becomes AKASAVAJRI (long first and second “a”, long “i”). Vajra in the sky/in space. (Private preceptor Parami).

Maggie Fasse becomes AMARACITTA (long last “a”). She whose mind-heart is deathless. (Private preceptor Prasadavati).

Laura Thomson becomes VANDIKA (Pali) (long first “a” ). She who worships or praises. (Private preceptor Khemasiddhi).

Public Preceptor Dayanandi

Chandra Birenbaum becomes KARUNADAKINI (long 2nd and 3rd “a”, long second “i”, and first “n” and “d” have a dot underneath). Dakini of Compassion. (Private preceptor Ashokashri).

Ginny Layton becomes SURYAMANI (long”u”). Sun-stone, sun-gem, (jewel of the sunlight). (Private preceptor Dhammadassin).

Cherry Collins becomes TARAGITA (all vowels long). Song of Tara. (Private preceptor Parami)

Public Preceptor Parami

Sheila McIntosh becomes SATYAVAJRI (long “i”). She who is a diamond or thunderbolt of truth/reality. (Private preceptor Viryadevi)

Cristyn Emmett becomes SHRADDHAMANI (long second “a”, stress on the syllable “ma”). She having the gem of faith. (Private preceptor Kulaprabha)

Belinda Birch becomes SATYASHRI. She whose radiance is Truth. (Private preceptor Ratnavandana).

Since the purchase of our properties 18 months ago now we’ve known that a name change for Aranya was on the cards.

The name Aranya was originally suggested by Vidyadevi before the start of the fundraising in 2000. It literally means forest and has connotations of wildness and seclusion of environment and also of practice; a place where true freedom can enter our minds. Aranya has served as a symbol for the qualities we’ve looked for in a womens ordination retreat centre and it has guided us well.

However it was always intended that while Aranya was the name for the fundraising project it was likely we would chose another name for the retreat centre once we had purchased. As we focused the property search on Spain this became more of a certainty due to associations with a very similar word in the Spanish language.

‘Araña’ in Spanish means spider. To top it off ‘loka’, or ‘loco’ means mad. Aranyaloka = mad spider. Apparently Bhante, in a mischievous mood, says he quite likes this name and I’m sure he’s not alone! In the community we are divided as to who is happy to live in the realm of the mad spider women! Spanish and Spanish- speaking Sangha members on the whole would rather a different name.

So over the past year we’ve invited suggestions for names and those of us who have spent time on the land have been able to get a feel for it.

Informally in the community we’ve found ourselves referring to the retreat centre as Gridhrakuta or Vultures Peak. Both because of its dramatic position in between two limestone ridges but more so because of the griffin vultures that nest in the rock face and circle high above the retreat centre most days.

The characteristic that seems to embody the land (all 108 hectares of it) and the very different settings of both buildings - is spaciousness. There is so much space here - on land and in the vast blue skies, and also ‘psychic space’. But there has also been a feeling not to lose the flavour of ‘aranya’ - the forest and the sense of seclusion. Along with the vastness of space there is also the intimacy of detail; the sense experience of meditating alone under a pine tree and touching the earth.

So Aranya becomes Akashavana - ‘the forest retreat of luminous space’.

Let’s see what emerges into that space as time goes on.