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‘In any creative work, be it the artist or the artisan, the creatve person unites with the material they are working with, which symbolises the world outside him/herself. The worker and the artefact become one. The human being becomes one with his creation. ‘ Erich Fromm
The word Poiein in Ancient Greek (ποιεá¿–ν) means making. It is where the word Poetry comes from. Plato had pointed at the connection between craft-making and poetry, calling us to gaze at the rich worlds of form and meaning that come to life when we take raw material from our landscape and create with it. It is possible, when we look at a handcrafted object, to appreciate the emotion and soul life that the maker had infused in it.
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Sefrou is located in the heart of the middle Atlas. Traditionally, a market town located amidst fertile farming lands, it is known for its fruit orchards, cherry festival and the large Jewish community that lived there up until the last century. Sefrou is still home to a large community of local artisans, metal smiths, woodworkers, weavers and button makers. Though the community is still thriving, few are the ones of the young generation who wish to learn these skills.
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Visiting local crafts people in their workshops, we will learn about their work and daily lives as a way to get a sense of the place through the people and their working spaces. An orientation of the city from the inside out hosted by Culture Vultures, will lead us into a deeper relationship with Amazigh women who spin and weave and we will participate in a hands own textile workshop.
We will be introduced to ‘The Loom in Local Rituals’ and how women used the loom as a sacred medium for protection. On Sunday we will make a day trip to a mountain market town in the Middle Atlas where the wool comes from, to meet women who practice unbroken textile traditions in the region.
Alongside these visits our work will consist of listening to the stories that emerge from our activities, as well as engage with traditional stories from around the world to bring into clearer focus the role of craft-making in the life of the Soul. On our last day we will share these stories in a storytelling evening (no previous experience necessary). Daily shamanic practices will help us access ancestral knowledge and seek healing for modern day’s rupture between skill and community, craft and Time.
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KARMIT EVEN-ZUR
Geomancy, the art of Earth divination, explores the earth's vital energy systems.
Every landscape has an 'identity', a consciousness made up of its features and elemental life, and a story to tell. Geomancy, as an art and a science, is the field that studies the phenomena of earth energies.
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Geomancers read the subtle aspects of a landscape and interpret the 'stories' held by the earth's topographical and energetic features. Like shamans, they understand nature to be the visible face of spirit, that this work is about opening portals between the eternal realm of the sacred and the earthbound world of everyday reality, and that material reality is maintained and revitalised in close cooperation with beings and processes in other realms. Perceptions of these subtle layers of a place are best conveyed through the metaphor and emotion that these natural phenomena evoke. It is a language that our natural senses speak fluently, and we would be wise to remember that we are part of the earth's ongoing conversation, taking part in her multiple forms of expression. When we look 'with our eyes closed', 'stepping outside space and time’ we may well catch a glimpse of archetypal stories active in the landscape. This is no new technology, it is akin to traditional ecological knowledge held in sacred trust by indigenous societies, carried through by oral traditions.
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