Eris’ log: Autumn Communities
This autumn, seems like a “community weaving” autumn. I think a lot about the different communities of support in our work and daily life. About the different beautiful nods of supportive individuals that weave these different networks and allow us to move forward, to catch a breath when we most need it and heal when the lessons are too hard.
After three weeks of intensive heat, training, sharing and bonding with different types of communities (on creativity and youth empowerment) in Luxor, I flew briefly to Athens to be a supportive node myself and then flew again to Brussels for the kickoff of a new project. I wanted to write down some of my thoughts, before they dissolve. Or maybe so as to allow them to form something new.
In Luxor I had the joy of sharing my days with local creative facilitators, listening to their stories and observing the support they offer to one another and to the community. It was a transformative experience for me, it still is, as I process their stories and their openness. As I process my own stories and my own authenticity. Subtle revolutions that work in different levels of understanding and becoming. Connections with older processes and current realisations.
Later on, during the international meetup, the energy shifted to different types of communities, more networking, but still tenderness and tender individuals that support or bring communities together. It was fascinating for me to observe all these bubbles of cooperation, sharing and creativity, throughout cultural differences, gender roles and points of entry. However it was clear that the first week with the local team, provided me with many different insights on the different layers of community building and individual support. The importance of taking care of the individuality within the team, sometimes more than the team itself. The importance of taking care of yourself before taking care of the others, allowing this process to take me along with them to another step. The importance of allowing ourselves to wait, fail and be brave to take another step. You cannot spiral out without making some brave steps within, right?
In Athens I was just in time to say goodbye to a friend that is leaving Greece and is a node of different communities herself. We have found ourselves meeting up and supporting one another in different groups over the years and I have been always admiring her passion , authenticity and deep involvement to every different community. These 4 days, I was also extremely happy to host a dear friend from Argentina that I met a year ago in an intensive academic experience in NY and we have been supporting each other since. Spending time with her was not only a gift, but a reassurance of how lucky I am to meet once and then meet again so many beautiful, giving people.
Leaving back my small tribe in Athens I flew to Brussels. The kickoff was supposed to be a bureaucratic informative meetup, however again it revolved around fostering communities (this time artistic communities). Got me thinking a lot on the notions of creative expression and freedom we need to allow to ourselves and to the networks and tribes we build. I also had the pleasure of catching up with a new friend from the Luxor team. She allowed me to vocalise my thoughts about the wealth of these communities and the privilege of this wealth to us, while sharing her thoughts on the different layers of meaning and needs of these communities.
I returned to Athens were I met with a beautiful artist working with young people on open methodologies of democracy. She helped me understand the importance of feedback and trust on our work. We need a group of peers that will be there to spend time on us and be gentle yet truthful. She also shared her thoughts on the importance of ownership in these projects and on the difficulty of allowing the communities to work without you.
These conversations gifted me with a newfound problem: how to create an ethos of work with different types of communities, based on humane interactions, trust and respect, using open yet sustainable methodologies. As artists, facilitators, managers, producers, educators, designers: How can we help communities to remain sustainable in our absence? Find their own authentic center of gravity without the need for experts, mothers, leaders?
I wonder what November will bring (probably a blog update).
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