LAURA SHANNON

FOLK DANCE - CIRCLE DANCE- SACRED DANCE - WOMEN'S RITUAL DANCE

The Greek Crisis and the Values of the Dance

February 15, 2015

 

 

Dear dancing friends,

 

I bring you greetings from Findhorn, where the light is waxing every day with a noticeably earlier sunrise and later sunset. The first blossoms and birds are responding with vigour  and there is an exquisite sense of renewed life in the air.

 

In Greece, the other place I call home, there is also a renewed sense of hope in the air, light and relief in people’s eyes.  After six years of gruelling economic and humanitarian crisis, people have given their support – peacefully and democratically – to a new government which wants to renegotiate Greek’s debt in a sustainable way.

 

Recent articles in the mainstream press finally acknowledge that in Greece, austerity has been pushed too far and it is time to find a compromise and a new solution. You can read my article about this situation, All We Are Saying Is Give Greece a Chance, today on the Feminism and Religion website.

 

In my article I describe some of the devastating effects of austerity in Greece, including soaring rates of poverty, hunger, unemployment, sickness, and suicide. And all for nothing: Greek debt is now a higher proportion of GDP than it was before the bailout. All of the bailout money went to foreign bankers, none of it to the Greek people. Those suffering are not the ones responsible for the crisis. Austerity doesn’t work.

 

It is time to exchange austerity for ‘charitable, civic-minded, loving’ values – values of generosity, hospitality, connection and mutual support. These are the values which brought me to live in Greece in the first place, and they are also the values of the dance. First and foremost, they affirm our common humanity. 

 

As you are lovers of Greece and of Greek dances, I ask you to please send compassionate thoughts and prayers to Greece now, for a peaceful and sustainable solution to both the debt crisis and the humanitarian crisis. 

 

And I encourage you to visit Greece this year if you can, to experience for yourselves the amazing sense of hope newly inspiring a nation which had lost all dignity and optimism. Your presence is a sign of solidarity with ordinary Greek people, who did not create the mess but have been made to pay for it, and who do not deserve further suffering.  They will cherish your support. 

 

There are still places on my upcoming 2015 seminars in Women’s Ritual Dances (for women):

    10-17 June 2015 in Lesvos, Greece

    30 August-6 September 2015: Mani, Greece 

 

For more information, and for details of workshops in other countries, please visit www.laurashannon.net.  I would be delighted to see you in the circle! 

If you are unable to join me on the above dates, there are many other wonderful events taking place at the centres where I teach, Milelja Inselgarten on Lesvos and Mani- Sonnenlink near Stoupa in the Peloponnese. The Kalikalos Centre in Pilion also has a full programme of alternative and holistic summer events, and I particularly recommend Carol P. Christ's twice-yearly Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

 

With love and blessings in the dance, 

 

Laura