There's two more weeks of walking.
I'm landed at the Living awhile ness Institute, near the east coast of Greece. It's run by Maria Scordialos, who has a Ted talk I'm meaning to watch later this afternoon. I've met Clare, who wrote a book called One Wild Life, about her time interviewing social entrepreneurs around the world. I've also met Vanessa, who does work with social architecture. Maria does work with the Art of Hosting, a process that I'm still learning about, that has to do with creating spaces for creative conversation. When I talked with her this morning, and I told her I was an art student, she told me about graphic facilitation, and it's got me thinking about roles of the artist (which was my original question to explore on coming on this trip.)
Something about being here has me really fired up about what's next. They mentioned being able to host a conversation with us about why we came, and what we hope to do next, and seeing their alternative careers gives me hope about my next steps. They're acting as a mirror for us to see how unusual this form of study is, and what it means to have students approach their learning in this way. I'm interested in what's alive in each of us that gave us the impulse to come on this trip in the first place. More specifically, what's alive in me that made me want to come on this trip? When I hear about more integrated learning centers, I feel very excited, about integrating the whole individual.
From here, I have a few thoughts. One of the girls in the group is writing a thesis about interviews she's doing with college-age students who have gone through Waldorf education, and how they differ from students from traditional schools. She asked me what I think I learned in high school, and it brought up a lot of thoughts in me. This relates really strongly to why I'm here. When I wrote my letter of intent, I said I was interested in taking part of an education that came out of a love of learning, and of being out of the regular classroom more in order to be outside, be walking, and be directing our own course of study. There's a few things that come up when I write this. I realize, looking back, that that's exactly what has happened in being here. The specificity of studying art gets lost in group process, in meetings, in planning the route, in figuring out how to live together, and share money, and share intentions. There's no structure in place, so we're creating our own, and that takes a huge form of the learning- and it's also tiring, and for me, quite overwhelming. Already, I've always had a huge difficulty staying focused and grounded, so moving to a new location twice a day, and trying to navigate 11 different emotions and voices all at once can leave me drained. But there's also been quite a difference from being in structured classes. There's more freedom of choice. There's nothing to push against. There's more responsibility for your actions. There's more awareness that everything we do is a choice. In the walking and camping, there's more satisfaction with simple things, and we have fallen into more natural rhythms of listening to our bodies. By subtracting Internet, and a lot of conveniences, our challenges are simpler, somehow, and don't give us the option to stay up all night, or overload with external pressures. This isn't to say there's no stress. Subtracting the Internet, and warmth, and personal space, basic stress comes up. But I feel as though I've had the chance to go back to the most basic parts of myself, like I'm resetting. I see how I am around other people, when I can't hide from them. I see how I react to difficulties, whether it's food or time or needing space or discerning what I want. I see things about myself very clearly, in the form of what I dream about, and what I miss. Without any authority, without paying rent or managing my own money, I have a larger perspective of what money means to me, and what it's like to not think about it. I see what I'm like, being taken away from everything I identify with, and then, because we're studying, my only direction is what I feel interested in, what I feel like I need to learn.
Regarding the things I miss. Every time we come into a city, we're bombarded by culture, by choices of food, by spending money, by clothing and awareness of hygiene, and the desire to sit in cafés. I feel like I have a better awareness of the roles these things have played in my life, and why I need them. I miss the choice to wear clothes that express me that day, or time in front of a mirror to arrange my appearance. I miss talking on the phone, and driving in cars, and bakeries, the radio, libraries and bookstores, reading blogs and watching movies. I also see how these things cause a lot of stress in our group, and how they've caused stress in my life. Insecurity of how I look. Comparing myself and my life to others. Being overcaffeinated. Picking up the pace of a city and feeling I'm not being productive enough. Moving faster. Paying bills. Being afraid of money, being afraid of structures that are already put in place.
So I come to where I'll go from here. I won't remain sleeping in a tent and walking to a new place every day. I'll pay rent again. I'll have my cell phone re-activated. I'll drive a car again. But there's something about being able to see myself away from these things in order to go back to them, and use them to express myself as a creative person in the world. Instead of being controlled by culture, I can take a part of it freely. In terms of school, I can go into a school system as a whole human being. This is where I get a little lost, and feel like I need guidance from people who have started programs and businesses and schools that are unusual. About what it means to get a bachelors degree at an art and craft school in 2013, and pursue a lifestyle out of strength and passion.
So: content-wise, I can go a little bit into what I've been reading and thinking about. I began by reading The Dialectic of Freedom, by Maxine Greene, Art As Experience, by John Dewey, Teaching to Transgress; Educaton as a Practice of Freedom, by bell hooks. I've also read The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolph Steiner, Walking With Your Time, by Christine Gruwez, and I've begun reading The Archeology of Knowledge, by. Michel Foucault. A lot of themes that appear are what freedom means, whether we are free as individuals, how realizing our subjectivity shows us how we look at the world, so the way we relate to it can be a choice, and how to relate to the time we're living in as self-actual used individuals, instead of being overwhelmed, by being mechanical.
I might be getting a little general, but it's important to get this all down.
So, when I think of moving forward from here, it's a huge question for me how having a training from a craft school relates to these ideas, and how they can a) help me as an individual so that b) I can relate to the world.
And then there's also the things I've learned about community life, in being here. We have practices of checking in regularly, and holding meetings together, where we work to solve issues together. I've seen how we bring each other to better clarity through interacting and sharing our interests and needs. Clare is one of the people who started the Hedge School Projects, which put on events in socially-charged places around Ireland, where artists and musicians collaborate with speakers about all sorts of topics, and it's a place to come together and learn and talk about what's going on for everybody. This makes me think about how to be involved with our communities in a way we feel like we are free in the world, and have a say, and are able to create.
I don't think I'm an activist. I don't like organizing people. I get overwhelmed by crowds. This sort of community-art isn't really why I'm going to art school, at all. I don't want to paint murals together. I like "fine art," I like galleries. But there's something about the women I just met that have me thinking about this. I realized I also want to learn about everything I don't understand about the world I'm in- about the economy and money systems, about debt, about what living together and sharing resources means, about our energy usage and our different cultures, about how we relate to our bodies, and to food, and to time. I don't know what it means for me to go into these things (because I know that an arts degree related to these things) if I don't know how I'll bring it into the community. I don't want to be on Skype calls all day long, like these women, or necessarily hold retreats about yoga and writing, or anything. This is where I don't know.
There's books on the bookshelf here that have my mind whirring. There's more about Buddhism, and how we relate to nature, there's a book about American Indians, and about the goddess mythologies, and Biodynamic farming, and knitting patterns, and a couple of others. I think I'll write them down as possibilities of study, to somehow integrate them in.
I feel really unsure about where this will lead me. My smallest dream is putting on the equivalent of Hedge Schools in Alaska, and starting a farm/studio space that events can be held at, or conferences. More basically, I dream of having a home again, and going to conferences, of having chickens and a garden and watching films and going to galleries and cooking again, and buying a little car or truck and drinking good coffee and talking to people a lot and wearing clothes I like. Somehow, comics relate to this, too, and writing.
That's where I'm coming from, now. I need courage.
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