Forest Fire

I was extremely pleased to attend the Sustainable Development training course. It is not often that one describes a place as a home away from home as memorable experiences tend to be brief. Though we may entertain the possibility of repeating the venture, we are hastened along the arduous path of life until our experience is but a memory. That may hold true for most of our encounters, but a brief stay at the Asha Centre is enough to forge a lifetime’s relationship with what is not, a reflection of an idea, nor a project, but a way of life. Zerbanoo Gifford's vision is exactly that- a way of life; the culmination of a lifetime’s work to promote that vision of peace, harmony and understanding, set amongst the most idyllic gardens in the serene Forest of Dean. I truly felt at home as with my new friends, we lived together, dined together, danced together and the ‘real’ world seemed a distant blur. Where fires blazed and stories told and song and dance gave melody to the forest’s whisper. Where we truly understood the essence of what it means to live.

(Written for the Asha Centre's website, October 2011)