I just heard someone say on Radio 4 that if we want to understand a particular culture it is more important to look at what it doesn’t speak of than what it does speak of. I tried to list what isn’t spoken of in our culture. I suspect that most people hate their work and don’t think it does much to help anyone. That many people have dreams but don’t feel they are able to realize them because they wont pay.That many people feel a low-grade anxiety about the state of the world but feel powerless to initiate change or do something that would help. We are grateful for institutions like the National Health and free education but we feel uncomfortable with these services but would hardly dare mention that they need redesigning in case we would be seen as endangering the sacred institutions.
The Peckham Experiment.
The Peckham Experiment lasted a few brief years before the second world war and few brief years after it was over.It was the attempt by a small group of doctors to study health rather than sickness.The community around the centre were interviewed about the time they had been involved there.It was the most meaningful time of their lives resonating on for years later.The centre consisted of many facilities including a gym , a pool, gardens , opportunities to dance or to just meet.It included the possibilities to go away in the summer working on the land and was dedicated to allowing the people using the centre to find out how they wanted to use it thereby cultivating enlightened individualism. The model was shown to the powers that be as the way forward regarding the nations health.It was not accepted as such because the ideas for the national health were already very much on-line and it would have been a huge amount of work to scrap that plan and look at this new one.What was lost was the concentration on small local communities taking responsibility for their own health with the support of health professionals.What was also lost was an opportunity for community building and for the real experience of joy and support that gave people….look at
Being Me and Also Us, Lessons from the Peckham Experiment,Alison Stallibrass.Perhaps these ideas have a chance now.
Last month I was at the workshop,’Personal Creativity to Re-imagine the World’, which was run by Deborah, Mia, and Emily.
A wide collection of people from all kinds of work,business and professions were there.
We sat in the Round House, getting to know one another, and ourselves, whilst being encircled by an exhibition of Deborah’s Social Sculpture
This is a collection of larger than life (possibly} portraits of members of Deborah’s community, with a narrative from or about their life underneath……..a story of each life, descibing a personal process of transformation.
With these powerful images around us we were all,in our own ways able to absorb a sense of possibility, both individually and collectively. This was the possibility for change.
A process out of which comes positive results from a negative situation…..a transformation from negative to positive. A lotus from the swamp; a phoenix from the fire; redemption out of suffering.
The symbolism of the lotus flower is to do with how a flower of such untouched beauty can grow out of murky and muddy water, and how the flower has no smear of mud on its petals.
That of the phoenix is to do with the Phoenix’s ability to be reborn from its own ashes, and begin life anew.
This really is so reminiscent of the understanding of the word metanoia.
The usual translation from the Greek word ‘metanoia’ is ‘repentance’.
Literally, and taking it’s more subtle nuance, it means a ‘change of heart…..the transformation from a ‘heart of stone’ to a ‘heart of flesh’. A turning around; a coming back on course.
What a valuable day! One which shows us a broad vision for change…..a coming out from darkness into the light.
Thank you to Deborah, Mia and Emily!