Music. Indian music. Classical – Hindustani, Carnatic; folk, rock, and pop. Shruti, Swara, Alankar, Raaga, Taala. Sapta svara, and Sur – Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni – Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhaara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata, and Nishaada are the fundamentals of a raga. Classical dance and music forms include: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi,Odissi, Kathakali, Sattriya, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Chhau. Can we make ‘music’ a part of our daily life?
Father. Parent. Beyond biological relationships. Providing care, support, guidance. Guide, mentor, nurturer, provider, emotional anchor, presence in one’s life bonding emotionally, protectively, and supportively. Often a role model. Preparer. Daily. Through graduating stages play upwards.
Desertification, land degradation, and drought (DLDD) are a silent and invisible crisis that affects people and the planet. At least 1.6 billion hectares and 3.2 billion people. Over 1.3 billion people are trapped on degrading agricultural land. Triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste impact the health of land. Desertification, land degradation and drought, like most environmental threats, have disproportionate and differentiated impacts on poor, vulnerable and marginalized in general, and indigenous people, women and girls in particular.
Rangelands cover more than half of the world’s land surface. Up to half of all rangelands are already degraded or at risk, jeopardizing food and water security, climate resilience and rural livelihoods. This year, Desertification and Drought Day theme, therefore is ‘Rangelands: Recognize. Respect. Restore’.
Rainforests. Dense, warm, and highly humid forests characterized by a closed tree canopy and exceptionally high annual rainfall – tropical and temperate – lowland equatorial (Amazon, Congo…); tropical montane (Cloud Forest…); tropical freshwater swamp (inland river basins in Amazon, Congo…); tropical mangroves; tropical monsoon (Western Ghats …); temperate; and flooded temperate.
Refugees, forcibly displaced persons. Asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons. In India, these include Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghans, Myanmarese Chins and Rohngyas, and smaller populations form other countries.
Rahul Gandhi, 56.
Reading. All of us need to be literate, and reading, listening, and listening to music. Including digital, AI. And writing text, taking pictures, and doing videos. Log of the day, dairy. Taking notes by hand. And doing numbers, crosswords, puzzles, and riddles. Reflecting, meditating, keeping quiet, achieving word, and thought silence. Planning and tracking, daily, periodically. Learning, unlearning, relearning, and meta learning. Pursuing. Practicing. Being in nature in its various nuances, being alive, live, connected, and linked. Leading, serving, living, doing, observing, appreciating, and conversing.
IRMAN Reeny Modi’s ‘The Drift’ observes: in organizations that appear healthy with strong metrics, experienced leadership, and mature processes, the feedback arriving at the top has been calibrated for palatability. The people closest to the work know things the people at the top cannot know, because the structural conditions for that knowledge to travel have been quietly eroded. There is traceable specific predictable sequence through which every hierarchical system drifts. Regardless of leadership quality, the disciplined, ongoing work of maintaining the conditions that keep governance systems honest would resist/arrest the ‘drift’. Enduring institutions build the best systems and never stop maintaining these systems.
Being ourselves. Anil Seth’s argument. Consciousness. What we see (sense) and feel is essentially a ‘controlled hallucination’ driven by the brain’s predictions. Conscious level – multilayered increase or decrease of brain activity, ranging between brain death, being comatose, being awake, and non-ordinary mental states. Conscious content – conscious of – senses, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs. Conscious self – a collection of predictions – bodily, perspectival, volitional, narrative, and social. The deepest layers of our biology compel the brain to keep the body’s internal systems—such as blood sugar, temperature, and heart rate—in balance. Can we be ourselves?
Yoga. Can we transcend suffering caused by ignorance? Can we move from tamas to rajas and sattva? Can we journey in one or more of the yoga paths – gyaana, bhakti, karma,or raja or a combination? Can we combine movement, meditation, and breathing, and practice? Can we get the benefits? Physical, mental, and emotional. Can we practice, observe – ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya, and aparigraha? Can we maintain inner and outer saucha? Can we be happy? Can we deeply meditate, reflect? Can we study ourselves deep inside, and outside? Can we also do some suitable appropriate postures, aasanas, and exercises like praanayaama regularly? Can we concentrate? Can we silence ourselves? Can we seed, deepen and take Natural living to scale?
APCNF like scaling organizations have to work in tandem with community institutions (women groups, federations, and collectives) and enterprises, and research and learning organizations, at field level and at higher levels. The organizations on ground and the organization(s) at high-end have to reinforce each other. The academy is field-centric, practice-centric, and farm-centric. Its flagship is research and learning landscapes, over a long period of time, through its farmer scientists, researchers and mentors, supported by young research fellows. Via farmer scientist courses. Via internal research and learning teams, and partners. These RLLs would be tracked for long periods of time, even when they become alumni. It maintains a knowledge repository and offers online, offline learning certificates and diplomas. Academy, transforming itself as a mentoring Academy, would facilitate the evolution of more Academies, Chapters. The practitioners, their mentors and their facilitators may come together as a Society/Association to learn and practice. The Academies may come together as a network.
The higher learning institute, HLI, or rather NFFS HLI, would become an autonomous dedicated world class national/global centre generating Agroecology-NFFS future leaders and future leader landscapes, arenas. Talented, accomplished, celebrated inhouse and guest faculty continue to run their leader landscapes and be their role models, and mentor these future leaders. The areas include: Policy, systems change, research and learning, scaling, enterprises, tech-digital-AI, incubation, financing et al. Qualified, experienced, and talented people with leadership aptitude would be selected through a rigorous diligent 100+ day process. Intense, conceptually sound 365-day FLP would be 60+ credits, 60% (200+ days) in field, immersion, experiential learning, field and leadership practice and apprenticeship with leaders. FLP landscapes would be tracked as panel for next 10-20 years. Gradually, executive education, masters, PG diploma programs and fellowship/PhD programs would be added, over the next 10 years. HLI would also offer varying duration short-term programs for existing, inline leaders. By tenth year, HLI would have 1000 participants a year; 50 inhouse, 100 guest faculty; 50 incubated leadership landscapes/arenas; 100 partners; USD 10 million a year. The investment may be 60-80 million USD, with break-even in the first 5-6 years.
Can we have a leveraging team/group to support these soon? Can we have initial teams, trials, pilots, and investments? Maybe 100 R&L landscapes with 50 FS-FR-FMs, 20 YRFs; 50 participants, 25-strong team, 10 leadership landscapes, 20 partners; 6-8 million USD investment, in next 365 days.
Can we prepare and gear up for this? With synergistic bird’s views, articulations, actions and worm’s views, articulations, actions. Can we try?
Yes, we can. If we coexist, flowing. Linking, leveraging. In N? udyaamayoga for 7L.