Yoga Retreat

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We hosted a 24 day yoga training retreat at Jiwa Damai organized by School Yoga Insitute, it was a most interesting and intense experience.

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About 30 young people training day after day, getting up at 6 am to Meditate, then doing their Yoga postures, getting lectures about anatomy and sutras and much more. Our kitchen was working high speed, providing the vegetarian cuisine and many smoothies and of course, fresh coconut juice.

It was a pleasure to see so many young people learning and exploring themselves through this training. They will be back next year and are very much welcome.

A Balinese Wedding

Ketut Badung, our head gardener at Jiwa Damai invited the whole team and our volunteers to join him at his village in his compound to attend the wedding of his nephew.

Ketut in front of the altar

The altar in the background with all the Balinese offerings is made completely our of pork. This was prepared by the whole village and will also be eaten by the village later.

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The headdresses of the bride and the groom weigh about 5 kg each.

The clots are very beautiful and elaborate.

Guests come and go all day to bring gifts, mostly some money in an envelope to support the expenses.

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This was a wonderful event to witness and a beautiful opportunity to experience Balinese culture.

Terima Kasi!

Colorful flowers

Our organic garden at Jiwa Damai is home to various species of plants and animals. Flowers are blooming in all kinds of colors : purple, yellow, red, white, ...

Purple flowers

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Beautiful red flower

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Mandala workshop

Recently we had a group of  30 russian ladies staying at Jiwa Damai for 10 days. The ladies chose our retreat to be the location for their Mandala Workshop on Bali.

This particular workshop was about embracing your femininity. The russian ladies in their beautiful colored clothes, mostly long skirts, spent their time at Jiwa Damai meditating and walking through our gardens and among the palm forest.

mandala workshop

Most came directly for Russia and enjoyed the workshop and Bali very much. We at Jiwa Damai got excellent feedback on the beauty and serenity of the place and the excellent organic, mostly vegetarian cuisine we were able to provide. The language barrier was actually fun, since very few spoke little English.

Russian ladies

Thanxs for staying at Jiwa Damai!

Cleansing of the lotus pond

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Recently we had to clean the lotus pond at Jiwa Damai, since it was overgrowing with weeds.

Aitor and Justin, our two volunteers, as well as Wira, Jiwa Damai's coordinator, were getting ready to get into the mud of the lotus pond. To avoid possible skin irritations they covered their legs with large plastic bags, which are held at the top of the legs with tapes.

Preparation to work in the mud

However once they were in the pond, they found the mud quite agreeable and liked to walk and work in it, more like a mud bath.

Lotus pond

The growing weeds were pulled out and then the roots separated from the leaves which are used as mulch for our garden. In the ponds also grow large amounts of cancun, Balinese spinach which we use in our kitchen. Most probably we will eat Balinese spinach for the next three days. ;-)

Soul, the Jiwa Damai Baby

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This is Soul, the first child born at Jiwa Damai. This picture is taken in Jiwa Damai at age 1 month.

The bay was born in a natural underwater birth, so called Lotus birth, where the placenta remains attached until it dries up by itself, which happened the second day after the birth. The Mom was assisted by her husband and Ibu Robin, a famous Balinese midwife.

In this picture one of our volunteers is taking care of the one month old Soul at Jiwa Damai.

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Here, Margret is visiting Miquela and Soul, which had grown tremendously for age 4 months, in upstate New York.

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