A community update from Sadhana Forest in Tamil Nadu, India.

My ‘buy me a coffee’ page shows the impact small groups of people can have in the world. I don’t drink coffee, but have essential photography costs. Anything I raise above, I donate to the causes in these updates.

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‘May there be more forests to grow people.’

Words from a past volunteer at Sadhana Forest. A sentence repeated time and time again in the community. Its essence felt in every breath. Sinking deep below the surface like roots to a tree.

I’ve left Sadhana Forest, but the experience still carries with me. A minimum 20-day voluntary commitment gives them a chance to change a person’s mind. An imprint from this immersive alternate way of living. A confronting adjustment returning to a world where communal living isn’t the norm.

Sadhana Forest

Sadhana Forest is a global movement. For 22 years, they’ve been regenerating a Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest on 70 acres of eroded, arid land.

Their success in South India is helping them plant more forests in India, Kenya, Namibia, and Haiti. There they practice:

Sustainable living
Substance-free community life
Natural learning
Veganism
Gift economy

To simplify further, they describe their lifestyle as ‘empathy in action’.

After an introspective Tibetan Buddhism block, compassionate community living was a clear next step. To put my hands in the dirt and see if I can apply an understanding of the teachings.

Seva

My first taste of community living was all-in. Up to 130 volunteers sharing space. It felt like an extended school camp.

The voluntary experience centred around ‘seva’, the sanskrit word for ‘selfless service’. Like the karma yoga concept, the practice diminishes self-grasping.

This challenged my clinging to ‘me time’.

My day can enter a spin if I don’t fit in self-care practices. This could be writing, yoga, meditation, or exercise. These communal living arrangements challenge individualistic conditioning.

When dedicating to a higher purpose, how much time for myself do I need? Am I grasping to entitlement for wanting more?

“When I think negatively about not doing my practice, it actually becomes destructive to my practice.” - Aviram - Co-Founder, Sadhana Forest

‘Sadhana’ is a sanskrit word for ‘dedicated practice’. Projects like Sadhana Forest are teachers that practice is everywhere.

It could be a subtle moment like looking up at the trees. The calmness from watching the wind move through the leaves. Birds hopping between branches. The light patterns filtering from the canopy, dancing on the forest floor.

Practice can also come during the intensities of compost toilet cleaning. We had a great crew lifting poo barrels out of their pits. A concoction of several quarantined people’s poo dribbled out of the barrel and onto my arm. Shock erupted into hysterical laughter as I rushed to wash the discharge off me. A teacher that even the shit things can be fun if good people are surrounding you.

Forest Festivals and Weddings

A goal when shooting is to remind people that they’re nature. I love capturing this through expressions, connections, and movement. The events at Sadhana Forest encapsulated this. A Vegan Forest Festival and an indian wedding.

The Vegan Forest Festival is a three-day camping festival in Sadhana Forest. It immerses up to 1500 people into their communal living for a weekend . It astonished me to see an event of this scale be completely free.

All meals provided. No advertisements or food trucks. Speakers. Artists. Workshops. Sober.

Everyone offered their skills and time because they believed in the vision. I learnt that all speakers, artists, and workshop facilitators are vegan. An underlying care for the faces of the festival to embody non-violence.

For my final days in the forest, it was a joy roaming around capturing the energy. I timed my experience very well. On my first day I also shot an indian forest wedding.

Gentle Living

Sadhana Forest repurposes or responsibly recycles 95% of the accumulated waste on site. Following their zero waste philosophy for three weeks was eye-opening to how I can live more gently. It’s asking me questions as I consume:

How much water and electricity am I using?

What harm has created this dish?

Can I make changes to better support this planet?

Thank you for reading my latest community update on Sadhana Forest. My ‘buy me a coffee’ page highlights heart-led projects like this. I hope it can show the impact small groups of people can have in the world.

I don’t drink coffee, but have essential photography costs. Anything I raise above, I donate to the causes in these updates.