At my first international retreat on Lesvos, Greece, women gathered with me from around the globe in the village of Molyvos to connect with their authentic creative spirit and bring their Mediterranean Muse to life on canvas. With permission from our wonderful Greek hosts, we built a Cretan style labyrinth in their olive grove, which we walked and danced daily as a metaphor for our journey within accessing our authentic creative voice. We painted, laughed, danced, swam, feasted, cooked, explored, sang, and dreamed. It was such a truly wonderful time.
I wanted to bring this program to Greece in part because of Carol Christ, who has called Lesvos home for over twenty years. In 2012, I participated in her ‘Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete’. To date, it’s one of the most transformational, life-affirming experiences of my life. I harvested so much creative inspiration and motivation from Greek village life, connecting to Goddess in this ancient landscape. I knew it was the perfect setting to gather women for an inspired creative retreat of my own. Carol took the time to come speak with our group, telling us about how she came to call Lesvos home. She spoke beautifully on Sappho, reading us some of her poetry. It was an honour to have her join us.
The simple, resourceful, sustainable way of traditional Greek village life and the generous nature of the Greek people is a humbling experience. On Lesvos, many people in the villages grow much of their own food, eating seasonally. In fact, food grows wild everywhere; wild thyme, oregano, dill, fennel, walnuts, figs, greens and much more. There are few large chain supermarkets. Trucks laden with fresh produce and fish make their way around the villages announcing their wares through a loudspeaker and the crowd gathers to shop.
There are over eleven million olive trees on Lesvos. Even the smallest plots of land often have them. Some villages own their own olive oil co-op. Cheese is usually homemade. Many people keep sheep and goats and the process has remained virtually unchanged since ancient times. Beehives are commonplace for honey and pollination, as too are grapes. Homemade wine is routine in many a household. Usually more than one job is held to make ends meet, many often supplementing their income through small-scale agriculture. One might be a café owner, a sheep farmer, olive grower and a fisherperson. Many traditional trades such as stone masonry and shoemaking are also still well and truly alive.
Life is not necessarily easy, but it is so much more sustainable, resourceful, and rich in tradition; offering a deeper connection to the land, food sources, community and family than we have in the modern Western world. We live in a disposable society based on convenience. It never ceases to amaze me to think that only a few decades ago, most households in Australia had a veggie plot, chickens, a rainwater tank and access to small family-owned corner shops for other necessities. Now that’s a rarity. It’s imperative for the sustainability of the planet to return to a grass-roots, village-based way of life. Greek village life inspires me and reminds me to hold tightly to these values.
Recently, I realized the heart’s capacity to hold both extreme tragedy and utmost joy simultaneously. Surely this is something I’ve experienced in the past, but both personal and nation-wide events have served as poignant reminders. First, the racism that primarily persists in microaggressive forms—in the underbelly of a society that too often prides itself in the heinous sin of “colorblindness,” claiming that racism no longer exists in the United States—reared its violent head in the most blatant and painful ways in the slaughter of nine innocent people in Charleston. Because the shooting took place in a church, some media outlets have tried to claim that the shooter’s intentions were to attack persons of faith. It is clear, however, based on Dylann Roof’s words, photos, and history, that these killings were hate crimes targeted specifically at black people. Hearts broke. Lives ended. We, as a nation, were reminded, all too soon and yet again, that the lives of black people are valued less. Racism is present, evil, persistent, both blatant and hidden. It is more than hearts can hold.
Feminism and Religion 