Gandhi Day

Lanza del Vasto founded the Ark with a goal to live non-violently in every aspect of life.  This vision was hugely influenced by his faith in Jesus and his stay at an ashram with Gandhi in India.  Gandhi, who renamed Lanza "Shantidas" meaning "Servant of Peace", is considered the grandfather of the Ark.

Lanza did not go to India in search of "her famous spirituality"¹, rather he had, in his own words, "converted and not without difficulty to [his] own religion [Christianity], and [he] had enough with meditating the scriptures and applying the commandments."¹  He could tell World War II was on the horizon and desperately found himself searching for

[...]a doctrine of just peace, a peace without internal contridiction and that did not have the germ of it's own destruction, a peace that did not naturally engender war! [...]
     A method for defending without offending, to stop evil without adding a new evil that redoubles it, to prevent other's injustices by some way other than committing more... A new way, a human way of resolving human conflicts.
     Who practices and teaches that?  Only one, Gandhi.
     He, the Hindu, the pagan, the father of pariahs, the defendor of the oppressed, the liberator of his people and, in principle, of all people, is who contributes complement to the teaching of Christ on this point, because the gospel without non-violence is like salt that has lost it's flavor...²

Gandhi Day is on January 30, commemorating the day he was assassinated, and it's a reverent day of fasting here at the Ark.  We met together in our nicest, whitest clothes at 9:30am for a half hour group meditation in the communal kitchen.  Then in silence, we read books by or about Gandhi and mended clothes, to the clicking of two spinning wheels, transforming pillows of sheep's wool into skeins of yarn.  Yanni and Moisés joined us for as much as possible, but came and went with Nico as their needs required.

Benoit (left) and Robert (right) spin wool on spinning wheels.
Elisabeth (center) teaches Nico, Moi, and Yan how to card wool.

David reads a book about Gandhi.
Every now and then, someone would read a quote,
from or about Gandhi, outloud to the pensive room.

Christiane, a trained calligrapher (or Kalligraph in Germany,
where she studied), works on the community's newsletter.

In the foreground, Robert spins wool on a spinning wheel.
In the background, the skills are being transmitted to
Marion, who is practicing with a drop spindle.

Moisés learns to spin with Robert.

At one o'clock, we broke the silence and made our way to the atelier (workshop) in a barn across the street.  Two years ago, when we visited the Ark for a week, the long, beautiful room didn't yet exist.  Elisabeth had given us a tour, and coming to the barn, she showed us the dusty corner where one day a space would be built to house looms, large and small, and equipment to process wool from raw material to yarn to finished products.  The vision she shared is now a reality.  The room holds all the tools necessary for three different trades: woodworking on one end, a cobbler's workspace in the middle, and weaving in the back.  It's one of my favorite places to visit on the farm.  Sometimes I step in and let the heavy door click shut behind me, just to listen to the stillness and marvel at all the potential that surrounds me.  It's a peaceful and sacred-feeling space.

On Gandhi Day, we brought life to all the workspaces at once...

...Robert taught Nico and Marion how to make wooden buttons...

Robert marks where to drill the holes.

Marion sands a finished button.

...Benoit went back and forth between the woodworking and cobblering tools, fashioning poignées pour un tiroir (drawer handles)...

Benoit, surrounded by shoe molds of every size.

...Elisabeth taught a handful of us how to card wool with a large, swinging apparatus, punctured through with nails all bent in the same direction to pass the wool through as the fibers are aligned...

Heika pulls fluffs of wool from the black bag and
drops them into the space between the swing and base.

...then we learned how to replenish yarn on a shuttle for a loom, and finally, she taught us how to pass the shuttle back and forth across the loom, pushing the correct pedals with our feet to separate the rows of yarn in the proper order.

I got to try my hand at weaving!  I even ran into a couple
problems that I felt quite pround to troubleshoot and
solve myself while Elisabeth was teaching someone else. :)

A guiding principle at the Ark is transmission of skills, the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next.  At the Ark, Gandhi Day is celebrated by carving out one day in the busy schedule to take a break from regular work and share a taste of these traditional skills to those of us who have never experienced working with our hands in these ways.


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¹ del Vasto, L. (1982). El Arca tenia por Vela una Viña. (p. 13). Spain: Ediciones Sígueme, S.A.
² del Vasto, L. (1982). El Arca tenia por Vela una Viña. (p. 16). Spain: Ediciones Sígueme, S.A.

I translated these quotes myself, with some liberal help from Google Translate and Nicolás Melas.