blindfolded reflections after the Takeover in Simrishamn’16

Photo: Diana Lindhardt, ‘The I’ of Sisters Academy

Searching for something. A door, a clue. Feeling I am not challenging myself enough, not doing anything grand enough. Constantly waiting for “cracking it”

That stepping down from the „leader/inspirator/teacher“ role and letting myself experience what naturally unfolds in interactions with students without carrying the „giver“ mission – this I was not able to do most oft he time. But it was a pre-step to „getting it“ later, after my ‚100 faces’workshop and a following private session with a young woman from Berlin: vulnerability, awkwardness…and finding gold in learning from „less experienced“ (as the frame I created had suggested). She gave me such a gift by together breaking that frame. In the end she said I gave her a gift of empowering her to be a giver, not a „pupil“. It’s a crazy space that space. It’a edgy. It’s presence.

Paradoxically, one oft he strongest (or the most important) images I recalled today from the Takeover was that of students – after cooking so good and eagerly – dwelling over the table in evening hours with us. Seeking connection to something, ways of being?: the way of being themselves and being in love at the same time… We didn’t have a clue – I imagine – what complexities were happening in their teenage organisms. Thank you!

The egg: The Mechanic has given me the key…again.

Towards the end, in the kitchen, the Mechanic was communicating, with pauses, kindly as always and with patience, letting me put words on what I was reading from his language. He took an egg-shaped candle and started to hit it hard against the kitchen surface.

Nothing. For nothing.

Then he simply lighted the egg.

There was nothing to crack.

Not when you try to take something for what it is not.

Photo: Diana Lindhardt, ‘The I’ of Sisters Academy