Lukas and Analee are leaving and they gifted us with the most wonderful divine chocolate mousse cake for their goodbye celebration. This was their last evening Jiwa Damai. We are so grateful for their presence and wish them all the best in their new life. They will get married in the USA. We wish them lots of love!
Our long time volunteer Lucas found this beautiful creature in our gardens. Is it going to be a butterfly, or will it remain like this? Its emerald green color is so impressive.
Arabella was our volunteer from Amsterdam. She stayed at Jiwa Damai for 5 weeks and shared with us her enthusiasm and positive energy. After her program was over we wanted to share with you her story because we found it genuinely inspiring.
„Previously, I worked as a project manager and marketing consultant at an advertising agency in Amsterdam. But I had a wake up call after travelling the world and hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I shifted my career with a focus on sustainability and circular economy, and started working at Blue City in Rotterdam.
One of the reasons I do wwoofing and came to Jiwa Damai in Bali, is to learn from nature and reconnect. And also work with the context and come up with possible solutions within that context.
I found this quote by Antoine Lavoisier very intruiging... "In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.”
During the 5 weeks I worked on several projects; restarting the mushroom project, shaping the compost areas, seeding and transplantation, organizing the seedbank and planning a family veg garden as an empowerment project with the purpose of making them less dependant on external sources.
My time at Jiwa Damai was wonderful and so much more then just a wwoof experience. It was a gift that kept on giving. The place is magical with endless (sometimes hidden) learning opportunities and the possibillity for cultural exchange.” Arabella, our volunteer from Netherlands.
The ethics of earth care, people care and sharing surplus are one of Permacullture’s unique contribution in our today world. They actually point the way to a new paradigm, from survival and lack of, to abundance and sharing.
Permaculture design provides a system which allows us to move deeply into our abused eco-systems and release their inherent potential.
To understand that you will be having an experience is one thing, and then to live it is something completely different…
When I initially agreed on a work-trade exchange with Jiwa Damai, I knew I would be in for an experience of personal growth, learning new skills and refining others, healing wounds, and making positive relationships. What I had yet to know was how the life-giving and infinitely deep energy of Jiwa Damai would work its way into every fabric, mental frame, and atom of my being. Sure, I had indeed supposed the concepts of these things – like the personal growth, healing wounds, etc. that I mentioned – yet, to be living and working here and feeling these things as alive, vitalized truths is something one cannot simply “know” or “understand” …it has to be lived.
“Ah…yes,” I thought to myself when I first started waking up to what is Jiwa Damai’s life-giving energy working its way into me, “this sounds familiar.” Collectively, we have heard these same constructs before, such as - the meaning of life cannot be merely named, or understood, it has to be lived; theory is only 10% of learning while experience is the other 90%. “I have found real life! I have found real life! Life is expressing through me!” I exclaimed to myself when my first epiphany at Jiwa Damai occurred.
Simply, what I am speaking to can be accessed because everyone and everything already is. The beauty of the process of connecting back to this truth here at Jiwa Damai is that Margret doesn’t bludgeon you over the head and tell you to “wake up, pay attention, or remember”’ in order to experience this life-giving energy. The collaborative energy of Margret and the Earth here move in such a way that Jiwa Damai already, definitely is without you having to do a single thing to it. It’s like a 5-star luxury retreat resort where everything is already taken care of for you, and every whim, want, and need of yours will be immediately granted. Then, as soon as you can release your grip to drop your baggage, relax, and open into what services Jiwa Damai has to offer that you, you will then begin your unforetold and insufficiently anticipated process of immaculate, energy healing. The magic of Jiwa Damai is also that regardless of your recognition or not, it will still indeed be able to work its way into you subconsciously on cellular and multi-dimensional levels, so that no matter what, you will leave here better off than what you were when you first came in.
Even though, as I just mentioned, the special life-force of Jiwa Damai works in unconscious ways, I still relish all the opportunities I can get to interact with Margret so that I may consciously connect to this pristine, powerful energy vortex that she has cultivated throughout this space. Whether through our conversations at meal times, working on projects together, attending her nightly Heart-Self meditations, or just randomly seeing her about, learning from Margret is one of the greatest gifts, privileges, and honors of my whole life. And I say of my whole life not only because this experience is thriving with what is life, but also because she taps into the many dimensions of life – past, present, future, personality, psyche, professional, personal, emotional, energetical, etc. – and revives the present, raw energy of what life is truly supposed to be back into my “higher, deeper, most innermost Self,” as Margret likes to say. Not forcefully, like I mentioned earlier, but softly and of my own initiative and engagement when I’m able to trust-fall back into the arms of Jiwa Damai.
Beyond being a place for retreats, organic and permaculture gardening, yoga, and meditation, Margret has created a space for individuals to practice, to play, to explore, to unravel, and to go evermore, infinitely deeper within their hearts and Selves. Literally and figuratively, waking up to this sacred, unconditional source-energy of Life is my reality every day here at Jiwa Damai. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
Written by Analee Scott - resident yoga teacher and volunteer at Jiwa Damai. Analee was also a teacher at New Earth Nation’s Bali festival – Ancient Futures – this April. This August, Analee will be leading a Dreaming Consciousness Retreat at Jiwa Damai.
Teaching our new volunteers how to prepare for hot compost. The right mixture of dry leaves and fresh greens sprinted with left overs from our coconut oil production and EM. The pictures show the cutting small of the materials used.
"At Jiwa Damai I felt as part of the nature, not apart from nature", says Bernardo, our volunteer.
Bernardo is a yoga teacher but he also had the chance to work closely on our mushroom project, taking care of them and planting them. He also worked with the coconuts and prepared the natural coconut oil. For Bernardo, Jiwa Damai was the place where he had his first woofing experience.
"Jiwa Damai starts from the idea of a retreat. I felt that I could work on my emotional part, even having people around. It offered me the time to reflect on my own life. I visited Bali, I went to the south, the east, the west, but Jiwa Damai is the only place where I managed to reconnect with the Balinese nature. It is the nature that really creates the uniqueness of this place", says Bernardo.
While Bernardo was a volunteer at Jiwa Damai, a yoga teacher training course was also taking place. "As a yoga teacher myself, I can see why doing the course here is more interesting. This place enhances the experience of the training. You get more connected to the environment", says Bernardo.
Originally from Brazil, Bernardo has traveled before to India and Thailand. His next stop is Malaysia. We wish him all the best and we are very grateful to having him as a volunteer at Jiwa Damai.
Here is our new garden crew, consisting of Komang, Ketut, Made and joined by our volunteer, Remy, from France. All are working very hard to make deeper channels to allow the immense rain waters to be drained properly. A hands on job, a mud bath actually. :)
If you would like to volunteer, please let us know at contact@jiwadamai.net!
Alejandro Llano, one of our wonderful volunteers wrote a paper in which he described the process he used in order to grow mushrooms at Jiwa Damai. He offers valuable information about early cultivation and the role of mushroom in the nature. He also provided details about the nutritional benefits of mushrooms for both for humans and for the environment. We invite you to read more!
Dave from the US and Bernardo from Brazil, our volunteers at Jiwa Damai were getting ready for the local Barong festival in our village Banjar Bindu. In order to enter the temple they had to wear a Sarong, just purchased in the market. One of our kitchen fairies, Nyoman showed them how to wrap it properly.
Find our more about our internship and volunteer program here.
The Barong festival, where barons from 120 villages come together in a large temple is held only once every 10 years. Our volunteers, Dave, from USA, Juliana from Brazil and Hussein form Spain where invited and enjoyed the honor very much.
They are all dressed up in Balinese garb and are following the villagers who are carrying the Barongs for miles to the temple.
Learn more about being a volunteer at Jiwa Damai here.
Jiwa Damai is a hands-on, socially responsible organic garden and retreat center.
We are located amidst lush tropical vegetation in the heart of Bali (20 mins from Ubud).
