The Bird's Nest - an all-women tiny home community
At 70 years old, Robyn Yerian from Texas made a decision that would change dozens of lives.
She took about $150,000 of her retirement savings and built something special: a women-centered tiny home community called The Bird's Nest.
The story begins in 2016 when Robyn, living in Dallas, watched an episode of "Tiny House Nation." She was facing retirement and realized she needed to drastically cut her living expenses. The tiny home lifestyle caught her attention.
In 2017, she moved into someone else's tiny home village in Decatur, Texas, paying $450 a month for her lot. She lived there in her own tiny home, learning how the model worked.
But Robyn started reading articles about making passive income in retirement. A friend who worked in finance encouraged her to buy land she could someday rent out.
The idea grew into something bigger.
In 2022, Robyn withdrew $35,000 from her 401(k) and bought five acres of land near Cumby, Texas—a small town about 60 miles northeast of Dallas.
The land had no electricity. No running water. It needed excavation and a new septic system.
Robyn invested another $100,000 developing the property. She created 14 concrete pads—each 10 by 30 feet—with full hookups: electricity, water, septic. Just like an RV park, but designed as something more.
In 2022, she moved her tiny home from Decatur to Cumby.
Initially, she opened the community to anyone over 55. She called it The Bird's Nest.
But then something unexpected happened.
Robyn hosted a workshop teaching women how to use power tools to maintain their tiny homes. About 20 women attended.
One night, they all sat around the fire pit together.
The conversation turned to what this place could become. Someone floated the idea: What if this was a women-only community?
The women loved it.
"It was all by accident," Robyn later said. "I didn't start out wanting to empower women—it evolved."
She quickly realized something important: "Eighty-five to 90% of the people living in tiny homes are retired women on a budget, on a fixed income. And so I knew the audience would be big."
The Bird's Nest became an all-women community.
Today, 11 women call it home. They range in age from 33 to 78, though most are between 60 and 80 years old. They come from all different backgrounds, from all across the country. Some are single. Some divorced. Some widowed.
They each rent their concrete pad for $450 a month.
On that pad, they can park their RV or build their own tiny home. The rent includes water, access to a storm shelter, and shared amenities like a community center, a pool, a fire pit, and what they call "the party pad" where residents gather for cookouts.
The entire community sits on 2.5 acres (Robyn kept the rest of the five acres undeveloped). It's completely fenced and gated. Every resident has a clicker to open the gate.
Each woman has her own space—her own deck, her own garden with flowers and landscaping. Privacy and independence.
But they also have each other.
"We drive each other to doctor's appointments if needed," Robyn explains. "We look in on each other if someone has the flu or surgery. We are each other's therapists and sounding board."
They cook and eat meals together. They meet most evenings for cocktails to catch up about their day. They have book club. They garden together. They help each other with home repairs, sharing tools like a community shovel.
They have nine dogs between them who run happily through the yards.
One resident, Cheryl, had a knee replacement about two months after moving in. "Everybody pitched in and helped," she says. "Not everybody has to have the same thing, and I think that's another good thing about The Bird's Nest."
The women come from diverse backgrounds. Their politics, sexualities, ages, religions—they span the spectrum. Some have been married and divorced; others have never married.
But they all share a commitment to one another and to the community's guiding principles: mental wellness, non-judgment, connection, and helping hands.
There aren't many formal rules. But there's one unofficial rule that Robyn does enforce: "No drama."
As the community's website puts it: "This community is female owned, developed and operated. It is dedicated to women empowering women along their journey. We encourage, help, console and laugh with each other. There is no 'you're doing it wrong' or 'that won't work' here."
Many women contacted Robyn needing somewhere safe to go—to escape abusive situations, or because they were recently divorced and needed affordable housing.
Robyn tells every person who comes: "I'm never going to raise the rent, and I mean it. I've even offered reduced prices to a couple of women that were in bad financial situations. I believe that's how you build a community—showing others they can count on you and you on them."
Getting into The Bird's Nest is competitive.
Currently, there's one opening available. And Robyn says she has about 500 people who want that last spot.
The vetting process is rigorous but informal. Prospective residents must call Robyn first for a phone conversation. Then they're invited to Texas to spend a few days at The Bird's Nest, meeting Robyn and all the current residents in person.
"Many of my tenants flew in for the process," Robyn notes.
The visit isn't just about seeing the place. It's about finding the right fit. People living at The Bird's Nest must be self-sufficient enough to stand on their own, but eager to support the other members of the community.
"We all run the community together," Robyn says. "I don't make the rules—it is their home too."
The women describe the atmosphere as "a college dorm for older people."
For Robyn, the goal goes beyond just providing affordable housing.
"My goal is really to keep people out of nursing homes," she told The New York Times.
And the model seems designed to do exactly that.
"If someone gets to the point where they can't move around too much, we're ready to jump in and help to a certain extent," Robyn explains. "We have home health care here that can come out like three times a week. We're going to do whatever we can to enable people to stay here as long as they possibly can."
Women can live comfortably at The Bird's Nest on a modest income—perhaps $20,000 to $30,000 a year.
Robyn had a simple dream. She wanted women to grow older with dignity, not loneliness.
"I didn't quite realize how many women are struggling in retirement," she says. "So now, I am always thinking of ways I can encourage women."
The need is clear.
According to government data, 43% of women over 75 live alone. Twenty-seven percent of women ages 65 to 74 live alone.
The majority—80%—of people who live alone after age 65 are divorced or widowed.
Around 10% of Americans age 65 and older live below the official poverty line. Using the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which accounts for medical expenses and other factors, that number rises to 14%.
Women are disproportionately affected. The poverty rate for older women is 10.1% to 11.2%, compared to 7.6% to 9% for men.
According to AARP data, 64% of American women ages 50 to 64 who are not retired and not married have less than $50,000 in retirement savings. A Goldman Sachs report found that 28% of retired women have less than $50,000 in savings.
Women's Social Security payouts are, on average, 20% less than men's.
For women facing retirement with limited resources, isolation, and the prospect of living alone, communities like The Bird's Nest offer both financial relief and social connection.
The residents of The Bird's Nest don't seem to want to fly far from home. They've found something precious: independence without loneliness, affordability without sacrifice, companionship without losing autonomy.
"This is our final home," one resident says. "We won't be going back. We hope to keep each other company for as long as we can."
Robyn hopes others will replicate the model.
"I have encouraged others to just go for it," she says. "Quit saving that little bit of money and invest in a community. You will not get rich doing this, but it is a nice little cushion, and the sense of community is everything."
As America's population ages—with the number of people 65 and older projected to grow from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050—the need for affordable, community-based housing will only intensify.
Poverty and loneliness are both linked to shorter lifespans. Communities like The Bird's Nest offer a solution: mutual aid, shared resources, genuine connection.
At The Bird's Nest, women learn power tools to maintain their homes. They share meals around the fire pit. They celebrate birthdays together. They drive each other to appointments. They look after each other during illness.
They've created something that's becoming increasingly rare: a place where people know each other, support each other, and age together with dignity.
Robyn Yerian took $150,000 and transformed it into something money alone could never buy: a community where women who might otherwise face old age alone instead face it together.
Sometimes the best investment is not money.
It is connection, courage, and care.
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Valerie Peavey
I got to talk with her ! She is inspiring! I am in the beginning stages of building my tiny home community! In Galena Kansas just off route 66!
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Marie E Smith
I have been dreaming about this for years… I wonder how many other communities like this are out there!
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Elle Alva
Can we do this for 40-50s? lol I’ll sign up
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Sylvia Donaldson
If it was created with as “small” an amount as$150k, this is very doable in lots of cities. I’m sure it depends on the location, cost of living, etc., but it’s definitely something to pray about. I’d love to speak with her.
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Gretchen Godshall Rockwell
Women working together is very powerful magic. I love this and hope we see more of these communities across the US.
3h
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Cecilia Guerrero Aguilar
I love this idea LaDawn Haglund for those if us who dont have kids!!! We can take care of each other
8h
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Terry Maguire Klausmeier
Would love to learn more about this; I think it is very much something that we need, whether it be men or women.
4h
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Keri Lawson
So she built the Shire for woman?
13h
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Kay Zee
I wonder if they all get along or if it's like middle school on steroids
8h
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Krystal Monroe
Kylie Luttrell we were just talking about these type of historical communities in Europe over the last two centuries.
Then this popped up!
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Pam Banning
Brilliant. A Golden Girls community!
2h
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Carol Kasser
I’d be interested if it wasn’t in Texas. Anyone want to do this in a liberal state?
9h
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Gretchen May Kingham Evans
Becky, you need to sell
everything and start a Louisiana version of this!
5h
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Sony Trieu
love this. she built community and that is powerful work, while filling a much needed area.
5h
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J Lee
I’m moving there
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Nina Theresa
I LOVE This Idea & was just talking to a friend about starting a tiny village 💜
3h
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Jennifer Hagan
I would be interested in a multigenerational community. There are young people aging out of foster homes that need elders to help them with the transition to adulthood.
2h
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Glen Royles
Living with gratitude ladies within a community of contribution for a lifetime supporting your families. Well deserved 💐
As a 60 yr old Aussie gent my small contribution ATM is just sharing 3 of my 4 bedroom home in Sydney. Once I retire I have the similar vision . Potentially in NSW Australia 🇦🇺
In 1871, when David-Néel was two years old, her father Louis David, appalled by the execution of the last Communards, took her to see the Communards' Wall at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris; she never forgot this early encounter with the face of death, from which she first learned of the ferocity of humans. Two years later, the Davids emigrated to Belgium.[5]
Since before the age of 15, she had been exercising austerities such as fasting and corporal torments drawn from biographies of ascetic saints found in the library of one of her female relatives, to which she refers in Sous des nuées d'orage, published in 1940.[6]
At the age of 15, spending her holidays with her parents at Ostend, she ran away and reached the port of Vlissingen in the Netherlands to try and embark for England. Lack of money forced her to give up.[7]
At the age of 18, David-Néel had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. "She joined various secret societies – she would reach the thirtieth degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry – while feminist and anarchist groups greeted her with enthusiasm... Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she was associated with the French geographer and anarchist Elisée Reclus (1820–1905). This led her to become interested in the anarchistic ideas of the time and in feminism, that inspired her to publish Pour la vie (For Life) in 1898. In 1899, she composed an anarchist treatise with a preface by Reclus. Publishers did not dare to publish the book, though her friend Jean Haustont printed copies himself and it was eventually translated into five languages." In 1891, she visited India for the first time, and met her spiritual preceptor, Swami Bhaskarananda Saraswati of Varanasi.[8]
According to Raymond Brodeur, she converted to Buddhism in 1889, which she noted in her diary that was published under the title La Lampe de sagesse (The Lamp of Wisdom) in 1896. She was 21 years old. That same year, to refine her English, an indispensable language for an orientalist's career, she went to London where she frequented the library of the British Museum, and met several members of the Theosophical Society. The following year, back in Paris, she introduced herself to Sanskrit and Tibetan and followed different instructions at the Collège de France and at the Ecole pratique des hautes Etudes (practical school of advanced studies) without ever passing an exam there.[9] According to Jean Chalon, her vocation to be an orientalist and Buddhist originated at the Guimet Museum.[10]
1895–1904: Opera singer
At the suggestion of her father, David-Néel attended the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles (Royal Conservatory of Brussels), where she studied piano and singing.[11] To help her parents who were experiencing setbacks, David-Néel, who had obtained a first prize for singing, took the position of first singer at the Hanoi Opera House (Indochina) during the seasons 1895–1896 and 1896–1897 under the name Alexandra Myrial.[d]
From 1897 to 1900, she was living together with the guitarist Jean Haustont in Paris, writing Lidia with him, a lyric tragedy in one act, for which Haustont composed the music and David-Néel the libretto. She left to sing at the opera of Athens from November 1899 to January 1900. Then, in July of the same year, she went to the opera of Tunis. Soon after her arrival in the city, she met a distant cousin, Philippe Néel, chief engineer of the Tunisian railways and her future husband. During a stay of Jean Haustont in Tunis in the summer of 1902, she gave up her singing career and assumed artistic direction of the casino of Tunis for a few months, while continuing her intellectual work.[13]
1904–1911: Marriage
On 4 August 1904, at age 36, she married Philippe Néel de Saint-Sauveur,[14] whose lover she had been since 15 September 1900. Their life together was sometimes turbulent but characterized by mutual respect. It was interrupted by her departure, alone, for her third trip to India (1911–1925) (the second one was carried out for a singing tour) on 9 August 1911. She did not want children, aware that motherhood was incompatible with her need of independence and her inclination to education.[6] She promised to return to Philippe in nineteen months, but it was fourteen years later, in May 1925, when they met again, separating after some days. David-Néel had come back with her exploration partner, the young Lama Aphur Yongden, whom she would make her adopted son in 1929.[15][6] Legend has it that her husband was also her patron. The truth is probably quite different. She had, at her marriage, her own personal fortune.[16]
During that time, she wrote for journals and lectured about controversial subjects in the cities of Europe. She advocated in favour of Buddhism, Zionism and radical feminism. Her marriage started to unravel, as her travels kept her apart from her husband.[17]
1911–1925: The Indo-Tibetan expedition
Arrival in Sikkim (1912)
Alexandra David-Néel traveled for the second time to India to further her study of Buddhism. In 1912, she arrived at the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she befriended Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal, the eldest son of the sovereign (Chogyal) of this kingdom (which would become a state of India), and traveled in many Buddhist monasteries to improve her knowledge of Buddhism. In 1914, she met young Aphur Yongden in one of these monasteries, 15 years old, whom she would later adopt as her son. Both decided to retire in a hermitage cavern at more than 4,000 meters (13,000 ft) above sea level in northern Sikkim.
Sidkeong, then the spiritual leader of Sikkim, was sent to the meeting with Alexandra David-Néel by his father, the Maharaja of Sikkim, having been told about her arrival in April 1912 by the British resident at Gangtok. On the occasion of this first encounter, their mutual understanding was immediate: Sidkeong, eager for reformation, was listening to Alexandra David-Néel's advice, and before returning to his occupations, he left behind the Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup as a guide, interpreter and professor of Tibetan. After that, Sidkeong confided in Alexandra David-Néel that his father wished for him to renounce the throne in favor of his half-brother.[18][19]
Meeting with the 13th Dalai Lama in Kalimpong (1912)
Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup accompanied Alexandra David-Néel to Kalimpong, where she met with the 13th Dalai Lama in exile. She received an audience on 15 April 1912, and met Ekai Kawaguchi in his waiting room, whom she would meet again in Japan. The Dalai Lama welcomed her, accompanied by the inevitable interpreter, and he strongly advised her to learn Tibetan, an advice she followed. She received his blessing, then the Dalai Lama engaged the dialogue, asking her how she had become a Buddhist. David-Néel amused him by claiming to be the only Buddhist in Paris, and surprised him by telling him that the Gyatcher Rolpa, a sacred Tibetan book, had been translated by Phillippe-Édouard Foucaux, a professor at the Collège de France. She asked for many additional explanations that the Dalai Lama tried to provide, promising to answer all her questions in writing.[20]
Stay at Lachen (1912–1916)
In late May, she went to Lachen, where she met Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche, the superior (gomchen) of the town's monastery, with the improvised interpreter M. Owen (E. H. Owen), a reverend who replaced the absent Kazi Dawa Samdup.[21] In Lachen, she lived for several years close to one of the greatest gomchens of whom she had the privilege to be taught, and above all, she was very close to the Tibetan border, which she crossed twice against all odds.
In her anchorite cave, she practiced Tibetan yoga. She was sometimes in tsam, that is to retreat for several days without seeing anyone, and she learned the technique of tummo, which mobilized her internal energy to produce heat. As a result of this apprenticeship, her master, the Gomchen of Lachen, gave her the religious name of Yeshe Tome, "Lamp of Wisdom", which proved valuable to her because she was then known by Buddhist authorities everywhere she went in Asia.[22]
While she was in company of Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche, Alexandra David-Néel encountered Sidkeong again on an inspection tour in Lachen on 29 May 1912. These three personalities of Buddhism, thus reunited, reflected and worked together to reform and expand Buddhism, as the Gomchen would declare.[23] For David-Néel, Sidkeong organized a one-week expedition into the high areas of Sikkim, at 5,000 meters (16,000 ft) of altitude, which started on 1 July.[24]
There was correspondence between Sidkeong and Alexandra David-Néel. In a letter by Sidkeong written at Gangtok on 8 October 1912, he thanked her for the meditation method she had sent him. On 9 October, he accompanied her to Darjeeling, where they visited a monastery together, while she prepared to return to Calcutta.[25] In another letter, Sidkeong informed David-Néel that, in March 1913, he was able to enter Freemasonry at Calcutta, where he had been admitted as a member, provided with a letter of introduction by the governor of Bengal, a further link between them. He told her of his pleasure of having been allowed to become a member of this society.[26]
When his father was about to die, Sidkeong called Alexandra David-Néel for help, and asked her for advice in bringing about the reform of Buddhism that he wished to implement at Sikkim once he came to power.[27] Returning to Gangtok via Darjeeling and Siliguri, David-Néel was received like an official figure, with guard of honor, by Sidkeong on 3 December 1913.[28]
On 4 January 1914, he gave her, as a gift for the new year, a lamani's (female lama) dress sanctified according to the Buddhist rites. David-Néel had her picture taken with a yellow hat completing the ensemble.[29][30]
On 10 February 1914, the Maharaja died, and Sidkeong succeeded him. The campaign of religious reform could begin, Kali Koumar, a monk of southern Buddhism was called to participate in it, as well as Sīlācāra (an Englishman) who was then living in Burma. Ma Lat (Hteiktin Ma Lat) came from that same country, David-Néel was in correspondence with her, and Sidkeong married Ma Lat, with Alexandra David-Néel becoming the Maharaja's marriage counselor.[31]
While she was at the monastery of Phodong, the abbot of which was Sidkeong, David-Néel declared she heard a voice announcing to her that the reforms would fail.[32]
On 11 November 1914, leaving the cavern of Sikkim where she had gone to meet the gomchen, David-Néel was received at Lachen Monastery by Sidkeong.[33] One month later, she learned about Sidkeong's sudden death, news that affected her and made her think of poisoning.[34]
First trip to Tibet and meeting with the Panchen Lama (1916)
On 13 July 1916, without asking for permission, Alexandra David-Néel left for Tibet, accompanied by Yongden and a monk. She planned to visit two great religious centers close to her Sikkim retreat: the monastery of Chorten Nyima and Tashilhunpo Monastery, close to Shigatse, one of the biggest cities of southern Tibet. At the monastery of Tashilhunpo, where she arrived on 16 July, she was allowed to consult the Buddhist scriptures and visit various temples. On the 19th, she met with the Panchen Lama, by whom she received blessings and a charming welcome: he introduced her to his entourage's persons of rank, to his professors, and to his mother (with whom David-Néel tied bonds of friendship and who suggested to her to reside in a convent). The Panchen Lama bade and proposed her to stay at Shigatse as his guest, which she declined, leaving the town on 26 July, not without having received the honorary titles of a Lama and a doctor in Tibetan Buddhism and having experienced hours of great bliss.[e]
Upon her return to Sikkim, the British colonial authorities, pushed by missionaries exasperated by the welcome afforded David-Néel by the Panchen Lama and annoyed by her having ignored their ban of entering Tibet, informed her that she was to be deported for violating the no-entry edict.[f][36]
Trip to Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, and Tibet
As it was impossible to return to Europe during World War I, Alexandra David-Néel and Yongden left Sikkim for India and then Japan. There she met the philosopher Ekai Kawaguchi who had managed to stay for eighteen months in Lhasa as a Chinese monk in disguise a few years earlier. David-Néel and Yongden subsequently left for Korea and then Beijing, China. From there, they chose to cross China from east to west, accompanied by a colourful Tibetan Lama. Their journey took several years through the Gobi, Mongolia, before a break of three years (1918–1921) at Kumbum Monastery in Tibet, where David-Néel, helped by Yongden, translated the famous Prajnaparamita.[6]
David-Néel preferred to eat vegetarian food throughout her life but whilst traveling in Tibet would often eat meat dishes as a guest at monasteries.[37][38]
Incognito stay in Lhasa (1924)
In Lhasa in 1924.
Disguised as a beggar and a monk, respectively, and carrying a backpack as discreet as possible, Alexandra David-Néel and Yongden then left for the Forbidden City. In order not to betray her status as a foreigner, David-Néel did not dare to take a camera and survey equipment, she hid, however, under her rags a compass, a pistol, and a purse with money for a possible ransom. Finally, they reached Lhasa in 1924, merged with a crowd of pilgrims coming to celebrate the Monlam Prayer Festival.[39] They stayed in Lhasa for two months visiting the holy city and the large surrounding monasteries: Drepung, Sera, Ganden, Samye, and met Swami Asuri Kapila (Cesar Della Rosa Bendio). Foster Stockwell pointed out that neither the Dalai Lama nor his assistants welcomed David-Néel, that she was neither shown the treasures of lamasery nor awarded a diploma.[35]Jacques Brosse states more precisely that she knew the Dalai Lama well, but he didn't know that she was in Lhasa and she could not reveal her identity. She found "nothing very special" in Potala, of which she remarked that the interior design was "entirely Chinese-style".[g][41][42] Despite her face smeared with soot, her yak wool mats, and her traditional fur hat,[35] she was finally unmasked (due to too much cleanliness – she went to wash herself every morning at the river) and denounced to Tsarong Shape, the Governor of Lhasa. By the time the latter took action, David-Néel and Yongden had already left Lhasa for Gyantse. They were told about the story only later, by letters of Ludlow and David Macdonald (the British sales representative in Gyantse).[h]
In May 1924, the explorer, exhausted, "without money and in rags", was accommodated together with her companion at the Macdonald home for a fortnight. She managed to reach Northern India through Sikkim thanks partly to the 500 rupees she borrowed from Macdonald and to the necessary papers that he and his son-in-law, captain Perry, obtained for her.[44][45][43] In Calcutta, dressed in the new Tibetan outfit Macdonald had bought for her, she got herself photographed in a studio.[i]
After her return, starting at her arrival at Havre on May 10, 1925, she was able to assess the remarkable fame her audacity had earned her. She hit the headlines of the newspapers and her portrait spread in the magazines.[39] The account of her adventure would become the subject of a book, My Journey to Lhasa, which was published in Paris, London and New York in 1927,[46] but met with disbelief of critics who had a hard time accepting the stories about such practices as levitation and tummo (the increase of body temperature to withstand cold).[47]
In 1972, Jeanne Denys, who was at one time working as a librarian for David-Néel, would publish Alexandra David-Néel au Tibet: une supercherie dévoilée (approximately: Alexandra David-Neel in Tibet: trickery uncovered), a book which caused something of a sensation by claiming to demonstrate that David-Néel had not entered Lhasa.[47][48] Jeanne Denys maintained that the photograph of David-Néel and Aphur sitting in the area before the Potala, taken by Tibetan friends, was a montage.[49] She pretended that David-Néel's parents were modest Jewish storekeepers who spoke Yiddish at home. She went as far as to accuse David-Néel of having invented the accounts of her voyages and of her studies.[j]
In 1975, Jeanne Denys's thesis was taken up and developed by Jean Marquès-Rivière in the Madrid-based journal Arbor of Consejo superior de Investigationes Cientificas. In a Spanish-language review of Jeanne Denys's book, he in turn states that Alexandra David-Néel never went to Tibet and that she lived in China from 1917 to 1924. Her role was allegedly to monitor Franco-Belgian interests exploiting the Beijing-Hanchen railway and the mines of Gansu.[51] This review, translated into French by Bernard Dubant, was reprinted posthumously in 2003 in the journal Charis. Archives de l'unicorne.[52]
1925–1937: The European interlude
Back in France, Alexandra David-Néel rented a small house in the hills of Toulon and was looking for a home in the sun and without too many neighbors. An agency from Marseille suggested a small house in Digne-les-Bains (Provence) to her in 1928. She, who was looking for the sun, visited the house during a rainstorm, but she liked the place and she bought it. Four years later, she began to enlarge the house, called Samten-Dzong or "fortress of meditation", the first hermitage and Lamaist shrine in France according to Raymond Brodeur.[6] There she wrote several books describing her various trips. In 1929, she published her most famous and beloved work, Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet (Magicians and Mystics in Tibet).
1937–1946: Chinese journey and Tibetan retreat
In 1937, aged sixty-nine, Alexandra David-Néel decided to leave for China with Yongden via Brussels, Moscow and the Trans-Siberian Railway. Her aim was to study ancient Taoism. She found herself in the middle of the Second Sino-Japanese War and attended the horrors of war, famine and epidemics. Fleeing the combat, she wandered through China on a shoestring budget. The Chinese journey took course during one and a half years between Beijing, Mount Wutai, Hankou and Chengdu. On 4 June 1938, she went back to the Tibetan town of Tachienlu for a retreat of five years. She was deeply touched by the announcement of the death of her husband in 1941.[k]
One minor mystery relating to Alexandra David-Néel has a solution. In Forbidden Journey, p. 284, the authors wonder how Mme. David-Néel's secretary, Violet Sydney, made her way back to the West in 1939 after Sous des nuées d'orage (Storm Clouds) was completed in Tachienlu. Peter Goullart's Land of the Lamas (not in Forbidden Journey's bibliography), on pp. 110–113 gives an account of his accompanying Ms. Sydney partway back, then putting her under the care of Lolo bandits to continue the journey to Chengdu. While in Eastern Tibet David-Néel and Yongden completed circumambulation of the holy mountain Amnye Machen.[54] In 1945, Alexandra David-Néel went back to India thanks to Christian Fouchet, French Consul at Calcutta, who became a friend; they stayed in touch until David-Néel's death. She finally left Asia with Aphur Yongden by airplane, departing from Calcutta in June 1946. On 1 July, they arrived at Paris, where they stayed until October, when they went back to Digne-les-Bains.[55]
1946–1969: the Lady of Digne
At 78, Alexandra David-Néel returned to France to arrange the estate of her husband, then she started writing from her home in Digne.
Between 1947 and 1950, Alexandra David-Néel came across Paul Adam – Venerable Aryadeva, she commended him because he took her place on short notice, at a conference held at the Theosophical Society in Paris.[56]
In 1952, she published the Textes tibétains inédits ("unpublished Tibetan writings"), an anthology of Tibetan literature including, among other things, the erotic poems attributed to the 6th Dalai Lama. In 1953, a newspiece followed, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle, in which she gave "a certain and documented opinion" on the tense situation in the regions once visited by her.[42]
Yongden died suddenly on 7 October 1955.[5] According to Jacques Brosse, Yongden, seized by a strong fever and sickness, which David-Néel attributed to a simple indigestion, fell into a coma during the night[42] and died carried off by kidney failure according to the doctor's diagnosis.[57] Just having turned 87, David-Néel found herself alone. Yongden's ashes were kept safe in the Tibetan oratory of Samten Dzong, awaiting to be thrown into the Ganges, together with those of David-Néel after her death.[42]
Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet and Alexandra David-Neel, November 20, 1961, in Digne-les-Bains.
With age, David-Néel suffered more and more from articular rheumatism that forced her to walk with crutches. "I walk on my arms", she used to say.[42] Her work rhythm slowed down: she did not publish anything in 1955 and 1956, and, in 1957, only the third edition of the Initiations lamaïques.[5]
In April 1957, she left Samten Dzong in order to live at Monaco with a friend who had typed her manuscripts. She decided to live alone in a hotel, going from one establishment to the next, until June 1959, when she was introduced to a young woman, Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet, who she took as her personal secretary.[42] She would stay with the old lady until the end,[5] "watching over her like a daughter over her mother – and sometimes like a mother over her unbearable child – but also like a disciple at the service of her guru", according to the words of Jacques Brosse.[42]
Road named Alexandra David-Néel in Massy, Essonne, suburb of Paris.
Legacy
In 1925, she won the Award Monique Berlioux of the Académie des sports. Although she was not a sportswoman in a strict sense, she is part of the list of the 287 Gloires du sport français (English: Glories of French sport).[58]
Alexandra David-Néel tram station on line 3a of the Île-de-France tramway
In 2006, Priscilla Telmon paid tribute to Alexandra David-Néel through an expedition on foot and alone across the Himalaya. She recounted her predecessor's journey from Vietnam to Calcutta via Lhasa. A movie, Au Tibet Interdit (English: Into Forbidden Tibet), was shot on that expedition.[59]
Bibliography
1898 Pour la vie
1911 Le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du Bouddha
1927 Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa (1927, My Journey to Lhasa)
Tulpa - creations of mental powers, David-Néel claimed to have witnessed this in Tibet
Explanatory notes
"At the same time, she joined various secret societies – she would reach the thirtieth degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry – while feminist and anarchist groups greeted her with enthusiasm...In 1899, she wrote an anarchist treatise prefaced by the anarchist geographer Elisée Reclus. Frightened publishers refused, however, to publish this book written by a woman so proud she could not accept any abuses by the State, army, Church or high finance."[2]
"Mystic, anarchist, occultist and traveller, Louise Eugenie Alexandrine Marie David was born in Paris on the 24th of October 1868...In 1899, Alexandra composed an anarchist treatise with a preface by the French geographer and anarchist Elisée Reclus (1820–1905). Publishers were, however, too terrified to publish the book, though her friend Jean Haustont printed copies himself and it was eventually translated into five languages."[3]
"ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL, Daily Bleed Saint 2001–2008 First woman explorer of Tibet and its mysteries. Successively & simultaneously anarchist, singer, feminist, explorer, writer, lecturer, photographer, buddhist, architect, mail artist, sanskrit grammarian & Centenarian."[4]
"At last, in the autumn of 1895, Alexandra landed a ... 31 She spent the next two years touring French Indochina, now Vietnam, appearing in Hanoi, Haiphong, and elsewhere, while performing lead roles in such operas as La traviata and Carmen"[12]
"In 1916 she again went into Tibet, this time at the invitation of the Panchen Lama [...]. He gave her access to Tashilhunpo's immense libraries of Buddhists scriptures and made every corner of the various temples accessible to her. She was lavishly entertained by both the Panchen Lama and his mother, with whom she remained a longtime friend. 'The special psychic atmosphere of the place enchanted me,' she later wrote. 'I have seldom enjoyed such blissful hours.'"[35]
"Alexandra David-Neel then returned to Sikkim with honorary lama's robes and the equivalent of a Doctor of Philosophy in Tibetan Buddhism. There she found herself slapped with a deportation notice by the British colonial authorities. They objected to her having ignored their no-entry edict in going across the border into Tibet."[35]
"Le palais du dalaï-lama dont la décoration intérieure, très riche en certains endroits, est entièrement de style chinois, n'a rien de très particulier."[40]
"Cependant, Alexandra commet à Lhasa même une imprudence qui faillit lui coûter cher, celle de se rendre chaque matin à la rivière pour faire un brin de toilette en cette période hivernale. Ce fait inhabituel intrigue une de ses voisines à un point tel qu'elle le signale au Tsarong Shapé (le gouverneur de Lhasa). Celui-ci, absorbé par des préoccupations plus importantes, allait, quelque temps plus tard, envoyer un de ses hommes pour procéder à une enquête lorsque la rumeur lui apprend qu'Alexandra et Yongden viennent d'arriver à Gyantsé. Le gouverneur en a aussitôt déduit que la dame se lavant tous les matins ne pouvait être qu'Alexandra. Cette histoire, Alexandra et Yongden ne l'ont connue que quelques mois après, par des lettres de messieurs Ludlow et David Macdonald, l'agent commercial britannique qui, à Gyantsé, a stoppé leur avance."[43]
"La famille Macdonald prête des vêtements et achète une nouvelle tenue tibétaine à Alexandra. C'est dans cette robe neuve qu'elle se fera photographier en studio, quelques mois plus tard à Calcutta."[44]
"The motives of this ill-tempered, anti-Semitic tract were made obvious by the author's insistence that Alexandra's parents had been modest shopkeepers and that they were Jewish and spoke yiddish at home" ... "Denys called her subject an actress and alleged that she was an impostor who invented the stories of her travel and studies."[50]
"Alexandra ne part plus à la découverte d'une philosophie ou d'un monde inconnus. Voulant conserver et affermir la place qu'elle a durement acquise, elle se rend à Pékin pour élargir le champ de ses connaissances sur l'ancien "taoïsme". le séjour est envisagé pour plusieurs années, mais elle ignore encore combien. Les événements vont bouleverser le programme qu'elle avait établi et la précipiter sur les routes chinoises... / Le périple lui-même s'est déroulé sur une durée d'un an et demi, entrecoupé par des séjours prolongés à Pékin, au Wutai Shan, à Hankéou, et à Chengtu, avant de s'achever par cinq années de retraite forcée dans les marches tibétaines à Tatsienlou."[53]
Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism, Routledge, 2003, 240 p., en part. pp. 123–150.
Brigitte Marrec, MCF Civilisation américaine, Université de Paris-X, Nanterre, Groupe F.A.A.A.M., 4 mai 2007, Présentation de l'ouvrage de Sara Mills: Discourses of Difference: an Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism, p. 24.
Peter Hopkirk, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet, Kodansha Globe, 1995, p. 226.
Stockwell, Foster (2003). Westerners in China: A History of Exploration and Trade, Ancient Times Through the Present. McFarland. ISBN9780786414048.
Further reading
Middleton, Ruth (1989). Alexandra David-Neel. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN1-57062-600-6.
Norwick, Braham (Autumn 1976). "Alexandra David-Neel's Adventures in Tibet: Fact or Fiction?". The Tibet Journal. Vol. 1, Nos. 3 & 4., pp. 70–74. JSTOR43299825.
