{"id":3328,"date":"2017-03-11T14:37:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T19:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.asc.wdtest.info\/en\/?p=3328"},"modified":"2024-11-18T17:55:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T22:55:28","slug":"the-land-of-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/the-land-of-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Land of the\u00a0Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second part of a message from Helga Natoli from Greece through the good offices of Ingrid Krause<\/p>\n

Athens, 14th of November 2016<\/p>\n

In Athens, in a section of the Ellinikos old airport \u2013 to be exact \u2013 live 300 refugee children from Afghanistan, aged 1 to 18.<\/p>\n

Their shelter is\u00a0an abandoned building, the former\u00a0arrivals terminal,\u00a0now unused and left to fall apart for more than a decade.\u00a0In\u00a0July 2016\u00a0there were 2000 people living in this building, of which around 900 were children. Many have left since, having found better shelters for themselves. Some really lucky ones might have crossed borders and been awarded asylum in other European countries. Yet the ones that\u00a0remain, live in tents for over a year now, on the upper floor of this building. An external rusted metallic staircase takes them down to what once was the parking lot of the airport\u2026 broken glass, cement, rubbish and a full-speed highway is what the surrounding view provides, among other things.<\/p>\n

This is just one of the small official camps created in Greece, camps run by the Government, to shelter the thousands of refugees of WAR that kept arriving on Greek shores since 2015 to save themselves from bombs and terror.<\/p>\n

I am grateful to\u00a0the government of this country for having taken the choice to protect\u00a0these fellow human beings from deportation, even though Greece wasn\u2019t prepared nor had the funds or expertise to take care of such a crisis. Most of the Government\u2019s employees and NGOs involved and allowed to work on behalf of the government don\u2019t know how to take proper care of the traumas of people that have experienced extreme violence, lost their homes to bombings, were threatened, saw relatives\u00a0being tortured and executed before their eyes and so much more.\u00a0They try though, to cover basic needs, such as nutrition, hygiene, asylum procedures, security and legal issues\u2026 And this is already a large engagement, considering the massive economic problems Greece is\u00a0facing\u2026 this country is broke\u2026 bankrupt…literally.<\/p>\n

Yet, the arrival of these people in the country I live in, in my opinion, IS AN HONOR!<\/p>\n

Refugees give us a vivid and clear message: \u201cBETTER RISK EVERYTHING, EVEN DROWNING IN FOREIGN SEAS, THAN BE KILLED BY BOMBS AND HATRED IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY\u201d.<\/p>\n

Refugees from all over the world have been the carrier of this message\u201cNO MORE WAR \u2013 NO MORE VIOLENCE.\u201d A message delivered with insistence for ages\u00a0to people of the West. To the Americans who don\u2019t live similar realities anymore, and who maybe have forgotten to actually study our own country\u2019s history, at school, for something more than scoring \u201cA\u2019s\u201d on mnemonic tests.<\/p>\n

Remembering the year and exact day of a naval battle isn\u2019t what a student should be attending a history lecture for. If we ask our grandparents about their experiences, and the experiences of their ancestors, what they tell us is more about the actual feelings and the spirit with which they\u00a0managed to survive World Wars and other events. Real history is about those who, having managed to survive, can tell us what happened\u2026it is about people\u00a0and their feelings and stories about how they managed to protect themselves and one another. To SAVE one anther\u2026 rather than headlines such as \u201cthe winners-the losers-the battles-the kings-the queens-the army-the weapons\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

History lectures, on the contrary, mostly concentrate on the \u201ctechnicalities\u201d\u2026 who won, who lost, when did the fight happen, what countries were involved, what were the interests at stake,\u00a0was it a racial issue, a religious one\u2026 An economic one? In all this encyclopedic learning we miss to learn\u00a0about the people, the children, the emotions\u00a0flowing in the populations we think we are studying. We aren\u2019t studying them, in fact, because we neglect\u00a0the actual images of their past, the heart of the events. We have been trained to remember headlines, names, numbers, dates\u2026 not emotions, so it becomes hard to understand a message, to feel it, experience its wisdom and finally respect the source that brought it to our doorstep, even when it is blatantly shouted\u00a0in our face!<\/p>\n

I started volunteering as an art\/play therapy teacher in another camp, at the Piraeus Port. I was there with the children every Wednesday, from beginning of March to late July this year, when it was cleared. The Piraeus Port camp was an unofficial site sheltering about 5000 people from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, e.t.c. In the camp I met other volunteers, one was Belle, she had come from California. She built a platform for volunteers to connect and join, brought in a container for us to store our materials, created an on-line tutorial for \u201cTrauma informed care\u201d as of her field of study, created Code of Conduct and finally, called the project:\u00a0The Schoolbox Project<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Independent volunteers from all over the world, including me, joined the Schoolbox Project to offer children a school environment, a shelter, a safe-play area, with a stable timetable and\u00a0a flexible\u00a0program of activities depending on availability of teachers and field of knowledge. All volunteers came on leave from work, or on vacation times, to help with the situation here, all at their\u00a0own expenses (I need to also mention here the great support of private personal donations made to us with trust and love at heart).<\/p>\n

I am also a member of another organization, a Greek NGO, Center for Research and Action for Peace<\/strong>, whose responsible person, Fotini, is a dear friend of mine, a teacher and counselor to me. In June, when threats of camp closure in Piraeus started becoming imminent, I made contact with both Fotini and Belle. We agreed to apply together for permission to move our little school to an official camp, Ellinikos, where kids had absolutely no school project running since November 2015, when their camp opened. Applications in official camps take ages to be processed by the Ministry and dealt with, but we still tried.<\/p>\n

And\u2026 WE MADE IT! We were granted permission to take care of these children, finally, in October 2016 (after much bureaucracy, waiting, hoping and praying).<\/p>\n

Today, Thursday, the 10th<\/sup> of November, we are in the second week of lessons at the Schoolbox. Everyone I know is frozen, shocked, worried\u2026 about what this man, the newly elected American president will do\u2026 Frozen and scared for the possible Wars that might follow, for racist episodes and violence likelihood to rise\u2026<\/p>\n

On Thursdays, I coordinate the school schedule, time is 10.00 a.m. this 10th of November. I have a meeting with fellow volunteers to study and structure the day with the kids; we are to start lessons at 11.00 a.m. I have quite a big plan for the day\u2019s activities and ask my colleagues to help me with it, and as a big portion of the population on Earth frozen in shock I realize my\u00a0attempt is to accomplish the exact opposite\u2026 to warm up a tiny little group of fairly new people to what we are doing with one special power\u2026 the power of the Heart.<\/p>\n

Our school is located in the old airport\u2019 parking lot, facing the arrivals terminal, constituted of two office-style containers, where one is used as a classroom and the other as storage space for now. These containers are positioned to form an \u201cL\u201d shape, and the asphalt\u00a0surface in between we dressed with a grass carpet, that\u2019s our garden.<\/p>\n

Further down the school, more asphalt. Today I thought of using it for something special\u2026 at the 10 o\u2019clock meeting a volunteer in the team tells us he is studying to become an engineer. He offers to help by doing a design on the floor, one of a circular linear pattern. He did that for us with colored chalks, during the first indoor art lesson. Later kids and volunteers all joined the design, drawing another linear pattern departing from the circular shape and going all the way to our little artificial garden.<\/p>\n

\"Athens\"The sight isn\u2019t anything grand, just some colored lines on gray asphalt, and yet it is enough; in reality we don\u2019t even need those lines, but it\u00a0makes it intriguing and playful, so we gather at the circular chalk shape, and tell a story: \u201cThis circle is our island, all around there is sea, we light a fire in the middle of the island and warm our hands\u2026 we dance, play, sleep, have good times here\u2026 but at some point, we start craving to see what is out there\u00a0and decide to go for an exploration\u2026\u201d With the help of music, on a cellular phone and a small speaker, we dance following the pattern that takes us to the garden, making at least 30 turns around ourselves in dancing rhythm and getting pretty dizzy.<\/p>\n

A volunteer from Poland, another three from Germany, one other from the Dominican Republic, one more from Kazakhstan, me from Italy, another Greek and the Afghan children, residents of the camp, reaching the garden, all lay down to relax on the grass. A minute later a 10 year old boy, says: \u201cI want to go back to the Island now!\u201d But I have plans for the garden, and reply: \u201cWe\u2019ll go back! But let\u2019s take a breath first!\u201d To which he replied: \u201cI am not tired!\u201d So I looked at him and said: \u201cOk! Shall we first thank the sky \u00a0we reached the garden safely, and then go?\u201d He agreed.<\/p>\n

Music and \u201claying down dancing\u201d happened outstretching arms and feet to the sky, sounds with tapping and fast rubbing of the artificial grass, screaming, and then dancing turns on the pattern that took us back\u2026 to the island. We sat, relaxed, closed our eyes, listening to music and clapping at its rhythm, we freely danced in the circle too, holding hands and smiling at each other, we made this happen TOGETHER!<\/p>\n

This island I now want to reveal to you, represents the Heart, the Land of the Heart, a land that has space for everyone, together, not apart! Warming us\u00a0up, with little, close to nothing, and the help of the Sun.<\/p>\n

I welcome whoever is now frozen, scared of what is to come, to draw or even simply visualize this circle, gather one of his own, with people known or unknown, all holding hands, even in public places\u2026 Because truly, if there is anything that can save us all, it\u00a0is the combination of our hearts, the Land of the Heart<\/strong>\u2026 filling with warmth, every worried sick, frozen corner of our minds.<\/p>\n

This is the Truth<\/u>, a truth that\u00a0lives within us already, and our job is to bring it outside and\u00a0keep it pumping energy, keep it alive, also\u00a0in between us, not only within us!\u00a0Every single person can do this job, in his own unique way, from wherever, with whoever. Each way is perfect, for as long as it is given with Love, shared with others and made to happen!<\/p>\n

Heart\u2019s Flower<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second part of a message from Helga Natoli from Greece through the good offices of Ingrid Krause Athens, 14th of November 2016 In Athens, in a section of the Ellinikos old airport \u2013 to be exact \u2013 live 300 refugee children from Afghanistan, aged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3328"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12931,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3328\/revisions\/12931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}