The Ichor Foundation

I'm sure that most people wish they could make a better world, one they could leave feeling they had in some way contributed to its being a better place as they depart than the one they had found on their arrival. Most parents must feel that for the sake of their children, and most artists do simply because we are like that, perhaps it's a part of the creative process. I know that when I saw that I had an opportunity to do something myself I grabbed it with both hands; I founded Ichor (ee.kor). I created the Ichor Foundation in 1994, which is supported entirely and exclusively through the sale of our work. It is a charitable organisation which exists for the promotion of Beauty on all levels.

Beauty is like a drug to me, it has been since I was a child. But as I grew up, I discovered that Beauty has more levels and aspects than just the way things might look. I learnt that there are even beautiful ways to live. Of course, part of that means a healthy way to live, and when I discovered that and all its implications I immediately threw away my last cigarette - I had been smoking heavily for seventeen years by then - and also I became a vegetarian. I took to both those things, becoming a non-smoking vegetarian, like a duck to water, as I was so motivated by what I had learnt through my studies.

The greatest gift we have, after life itself, and it's actually five gifts - are our five senses. And they're free! They cost nothing to use, but I discovered very few people even know how to use them to their full potential. And so I set up Ichor originally as a "Beauty Awareness Centre," a base where I could show my work and basically teach - pass on - all the knowledge I had acquired concerning all aspects of living beautifully. Nutrition has to be part of all this of course and I had studied it very deeply, becoming at one point a raw-food vegetarian, eating no grain or dairy for fourteen years. Having several children later however, it became too complicated to follow a different diet from them and so I became less strict about the raw part. But believe me, those fourteen years gave me a good health which by the grace of the gods I celebrate to this day.(Touch wood.) Of course, organically grown foods are a great contribution to the scheme of things which happily people are becoming ever more aware of all over the world. And the study of organic foods leads inevitibly to the discovery of all things connected to our Mother Earth.

I have never met anyone who knows and cares more about the earth and agriculture than our friend David Hogg, a Kiwi who has made India his home for more than thirty years. David travels all over the subcontinent lecturing on bio-dynamic farming based on Ayurvedic principles, and he also writes prolifically on the subject for many magazines, using his Sanskrit name of Aryaman. Through life's awesome twists and turns David became the resident manager of our Ichor Estate in 2004, and has transformed it into a great example of Paradise on earth and into a very busy market garden that inspires all those neighbours who originally were only inspired by our work, our paintings and drawings. Ichor stands for Beauty on all levels and we are very proud of the influence it is beginning to have on all those who come across one or another aspect of it, and the pleasure it causes them. As Ann Wigmore, founder of the Hippocrates Institutes in the U.S. said, "Why Suffer?" There are so many - beautiful - ways to make our lives of here and now beautiful, from Art to Agriculture. I have my say on the former in my articles here on the E-Zine, David will now have his say on the latter, right here.......

Ichor Farms and Services

Anthony Christian

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