Postcards from The Hedge - Dispatch 3
Eleftheria i thanatos
(Greek: Ελευθερία ή θάνατος, 'Freedom or Death’)
Welcome to our third dispatch of Postcards from the Hedge.
This month's care package has been prepared by Maria Scordialos, our co-faculty at the Hedge School.
Dear Friends,
I am writing to you from Athens, Greece, just as dawn is breaking on the day after the 200th anniversary of the Independence of Greece. I sit here with the word ‘Eleutheria’, (freedom), a word very dear to our Greek souls. One day in a conversation with a friend, I came to understand why this is so dear to us. Its deeper meaning is ‘to bring light into how we think’. So, Eleutheria, means becoming more conscious, more enlightened. This is very different to our modern notion of freedom, which is often reduced to having choice.
For those of us, that come from lands that were occupied and colonised, I believe our languages, traditions, and relationships are containers that preserve our natural resonance. The resonance of the soil that shaped the generations before us. Taking the journey of discovering the meaning of our languages, opens up new ways of seeing, as does delving into the foundations of our traditions and stories. The act of doing this, weaves us into our ancestral lineage.
I, as a Diaspora Greek, held a longing to return to this land of light, Ellada. To live on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Intuitively, I could sense there was a deeper indigenous presence that has been covered over by layers of occupiers. Even the glorified ancient Greeks were made up of tribes who colonised and massacred the indigenous people. Yet, I believe, they did not obliterate their ways, because they came from the soil, the same soil I stand on now. Again intuitively, I took on the stewardship of an olive farm in a remote part of Greece. A place where humans are the minority. The land, the complex web of relationships of many different life forms, remains wild, fertile, holding the memory of times past.
I began to learn how to listen to the land, to subtly perceive and witness. My teachers were the land, the seasons, the sea, and a young local man. Slowly I revealed behind the customs and ways of relating, a hidden potential that still exists and is waiting to be witnessed back into life.
It is not easy to capture this potential in words. It is a freedom, that comes from being in right relationship with how life regenerates. The local people, often say, shrugging their shoulders, “What can we do?”. This shows their knowing that Life’s flow cannot be controlled. Instead surrendering to it, makes one freer.
Discovering these deeper roots is my activism, my way of being part of bringing back balance to our humanity and our relationship with our Home. Coming into our natural by decolonising ourselves, reveals codes, ways that can right the mess we are in. It takes deep love to reconnect, yet for me, discovering our ancestor’s enlightenment is key to humanity’s existence on Earth. It is time that we care less about our individual comfort and embrace a collectively just, shared and nature led ways of living.
Με εκτίμηση
Sincerely yours
Best,
Maria
Maria Scordialos,
Hedge School faculty member at The Trailblazery
Living Wholeness Institute
Art of Hosting-Athens
Bealtaine Spiral at the Hedge School
We are delighted to announce that our friend David Whyte {poet, author, speaker and leadership consultant} will be joining us for this Spiral. Full announcements and booking to come soon. Watch this space.
You can join David in March online for a literary and mythic pilgrimage to many of the great pilgrim sites of the West of Ireland, in the imaginative company of many of his close friends, some of whom may even join the conversation as special guests.
AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A Mythopoetic Tour of the West of Ireland
March 7th, 14th and 21st
10am Pacific Time
Hedge School Highlights
Watch some golden moments from our Hedge School guides who remind us to mind ourselves, each other and this place we call home
Hedge School Website
Recommended Resources
Here are a few watching and listening pieces inspired by the Hedge School to mind you this week:
Watch | The Greek in all of us: Maria Scordialos at TEDxLeiden
Listen | Reconnecting to the Strength we have Maria in conversation with Charles Eisenstein
Read | Walk Out Walk On by Margaret J. Wheatley and Deborah Frieze
Read | Charles Eisenstein Essays. Individually and collectively, we are on a journey from a story of Separation to a new yet ancient story of Reunion: ecology, interdependency, interbeing.
Watch | Blessings David Whyte’s “Blessing” poems are interpreted through a visual journey across the Irish landscape in this short film by Emmy-winning filmmaker Andrew Hinton. Musician and composer Owen Ó Súilleabháin, who has collaborated with David Whyte for over a decade, offers a reflection on the music that inspired the creation of this short film.
Read | 'People, potential & the power of place' by Vanessa Reid