Aurodeva Guerci:
Earth, Spirit & Auroville Youth
We are reprinting portions of an adapted article featured in Auroville Today’s February Issue. To Read the Full Article Please visit Auroville Today. The article below contains excerpts.
Aurodeva is the force behind the Bhumilucis Project which we published in our last newsletter.
Aurodeva is an artist and art therapist born and raised in Auroville whose work displays a rich blend of creativity, introspection, and connection to his roots. Influenced by the environment of his upbringing, Aurodeva is currently completing advanced studies in art therapy and psychology, all the while committed to fostering growth and well-being through his therapeutic practice and creative efforts. His recent project, Bhumilucis (Land of Light), is one example of this. It is a project that connects children with the red earth of Auroville, a playful union of spirit and matter through collaborative art.
Auroville Today: Could you share about your upbringing in Auroville?
Aurodeva: My upbringing was like that of most Auroville kids, I suppose. Whenever I think about it, I find myself comparing it instinctively to what a European or Western child – or any child not from Auroville – might have experienced. That comparison feels necessary, I think, to underline how unique growing up here was.
My childhood had its challenges, but it was a good childhood. I had a loving relationship with my parents, which gave me stability. But beyond that, the community itself fostered me – fostered us – as children.
Reflecting back now, what are the things that make you feel appreciative of Auroville?
When I was 18, I moved to the West to study, and to be honest I found it hard to explain where I was from. I was terrified of appearing as an outsider, and being from Auroville certainly didn’t help. Even my name felt like a signboard plastered on my forehead screaming, “I don’t belong here.” Thankfully, this changed over time. What I once tried to hide, I eventually could hide no longer. Auroville and the yoga practiced here stopped being something that needed explaining and, instead, became something I relied on – a tool and a posture that carried me through life.
The Yoga is the biggest gift I’ve taken from home, a resource I’ve used, even if only later on. You don’t realise these things when you’re a child, they’re just part of the air you breathe. Although, really, it only takes a few of life’s trials to learn their utility – and life is usually generous with those.
What were some of the moments where you had those first insights or shifts – when you realised, “Oh, I have this inside me, and I can tap into it”?
Those shifts tend to come knocking during moments of difficulty. At least, that was true for me. But it wasn’t a great external misfortune – it was more of an internal dissatisfaction with life. Everything I relied on for nourishment felt fleeting – relationships, especially romantic relationships, my interests, even my work, all seemed terribly sterile. I began to yearn for something lasting, something unmoving and unchanging. An anchor. Though, at the time, I don’t think I knew what that could be.
This was some ten years ago. I was pursuing a career as an artist in the luxury wine industry – a strange world, to say the least.
Could you talk briefly how you ended up in that world?
Sure, it’s a funny story! I was in the Netherlands, studying at university. One evening, while painting, I accidentally spilled some wine on my canvas and it sparked an idea: why not try painting with wine?
I spent about two years experimenting, boiling wine, and trying to find a formula to transform it into paint. My flat mates were not amused – our student house started to smell like a distillery, and the walls of our kitchen were turning a bright shade of purple. It became a kind of fixation. Eventually, I found my formula and thought: “Maybe I could do something with this technique.”
I moved to Bordeaux with my then-girlfriend and things snowballed from there. In a few years I found myself, a shy 21 year old, painting with wine for some of the world’s most prestigious wineries. They’d invite me to do things like live shows for their clients on cruise ships. I stood in front of large audiences – I even had to learn words like ‘tannin’ and ‘full-bodied’.
What happened next? How did you process those feelings?
COVID happened next, and it was a strange blessing. Work stopped, so I left Bordeaux and moved to Italy, settling in a small house by a river in the countryside. I lived frugally: no car or TV and only a trusty firewood-stove to brave the winters. I nurtured only a few close friendships. Quite unlike the life on the page I had just turned.
The pandemic gave me time and silence – two most precious gifts. It also gave me plenty of space to sit with my sadness which, I soon realised, intended to unpack its bags and settle in with me. Eventually it turned into an existential frustration and this went on for long. I began to frequent Buddhist monasteries and read Christian, Islamic and Hindu scriptures, and it helped a lot. But it wasn’t until one day I picked up a copy of The Mother’s Prayers & Meditations that I found deep consolation and comfort – like honey for a sore throat. Though I had known her teachings by heart from childhood, that day, as I read those pages, I questioned whether I had ever really read them before.
The words quenched my thirst. “Have I been sitting on this treasure all these years? And if so, why did I have to travel so far and long to be reunited with it?” – I complained to Her like a child would.
For some periods, I lived an almost monastic life and began retreating to the woods. They were moments of great replenishment – so much so, that I began to question why I ought to ever go back. Eventually that question always gave way to more pressing concerns – like the need for a hot shower or tending to tick-bites.
I always found my way back sooner rather than later, but one thing was clear: in those brief periods of solitude I found more fulfillment than years dwelling aimlessly in the cities.
What are you currently studying?
I’m finishing up a master’s degree that combines psychology and the healing arts. The decision came from a newfound sense of duty to align my creative efforts to something more…useful. And if I was to rejoin the circus of western society after COVID, I couldn’t, for the life of me, go back to wine-painting, so at the ‘ripe’ age of 29, I decided I ought to go back to school. I was awarded a scholarship and moved to Milan to undertake the intensive two-year degree… READ MORE
What is an art therapist, and how does psychology, art and healing come together? Is it something that also enriches your own artistic expression or something you primarily offer to others?
Well, I’m not a physician, nor am I a healer with a magic wand – unfortunately. My role as an art therapist is more that of an investigator, one who works alongside someone to uncover the hidden resources they already possess within themselves to overcome a crisis or difficulty. At the heart of the practice is the quest to reclaim that luminous segment of our being unyielding to circumstance and untouched by the tides of the mind. I don’t rely on my skills as a therapist alone, but rather, on the belief that, as creative beings, we are capable of transforming even our darkest shadow into light. It’s in this certainty – or perhaps I should say faith – that I base the work. While we may not be able to find solutions to all of our life’s trials, we may certainly, with a bit of grace, discover the resources we need to endure them……
What was that like, making the exhibition?
Bhumiluicis is a collaborative art exhibition involving nearly 100 Auroville school youth, aged 3½ to 14, using only Auroville earth and flora. It was inaugurated at the Citadines Centre d’Art in January. The project was deeply personal, and it offered me an opportunity to reconnect with the home I hold so dear – a home that has given me so much. I was also moved to see the school teachers, some many years ago, were my own teachers, playing a crucial role in sustaining the students and enriching the project with their dedication.
The project evolved very organically. We began by introducing the young artists to the idea of working together to create a unique earth-based exhibition. They were divided into groups, taking on responsibilities such as foraging, painting, or crafting their own earth-based paint, affectionately called “mud-goo.”
How did the idea come about? What inspired it?
The exhibition, Bhumilucis or Land of Light, is an attempt to create a visual union between spirit and matter through creative expression…an easy task! The name too reflects this well: Bhumi, meaning ‘land’ in Sanskrit, represents the material realm where we keep one foot firmly planted, while Lucis, meaning ‘of light’ in Latin, represents the ethereal realm where we place the other.
I like to think that we needn’t look very far to find spirit in matter. Our soil, especially Auroville’s earth, is so raw, vibrant, alive, and yes, I like to think, Divine. This project was born from a desire to honour it. And who better to collaborate with than Auroville’s school youth, who are so deeply tied to their land?
It is part of their lives; they play and run on it. No matter how much a parent might scrub – and scrub they do – their clothes remain coloured with it. It’s on their hands and feet, it’s in their hair and under their nails. It’s in their very being!
On some days, while working with them – hands dusted with earth, covered in the leaves and seeds we foraged – I’d find myself thinking that there is as much of a Work tree seed in the heart of an Auroville child as there is an Auroville child in the Work tree seed. Both carry the quiet promise of growth, of blossoming into tall, noble beings – rooted, reaching, and full of life.
Making the exhibition has been both an honour, and a learning experience. I cannot imagine that they learned from me even half as much as I did from them. The work the children created is, I believe, a promising testament to the community of their brilliance. It shows us