Breakfast.

Wednesday morning had a sharp cold edge, the kind you expect when the sky is blue and the sun is out but is still weak, like a projector just turned on. Yoga was complimented by qigong with Eike Niclas Schmidt. A bright new day.

Ayesha Keller’s journey to Greece and all that entailed was the subject of the first morning lecture. She went in 2015 when a lot of asylum seekers were landing on Greek shores, to see for herself how things were. The originally week long holiday stretched over a year, working in a refugee reception camp, and eventually establishing a pilot project for dignified refugee housing. After over a year, the cold reality hit that despite all the hard work and good intentions, conditions continued to deteriorate. Borders were everywhere here and despair duelled empowerment, also reflected in us.

Fika.

Tzega Kibrom, supported silently by her husband Till Henning, came to the underlying point behind all the lectures and workshop on the theme of Beyond Borders: the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. “Make peace with feeling uncomfortable”, she urged. “So what can I do to help?”, “I feel guilty” and more responses echoed back from we the audience. Clearly we were being challenged on a deep level of our perception and place in the world. We who are primarily white, primarily at least moderately well off and we who, most of us, have many privileges.

As an unplanned addition, two girls from Formation Järva spoke about their neighbourhoods in Stockholm and the challenges they face with a striking clarity and purpose. This clearly roused the room, as the atmosphere became palpable with a real situation so local in our eyes. This double session felt like a hinge upon which the entire Beyond Borders theme could hang.

Lunch.

Workshop time again with time to digest, which was welcomed. Separating into smaller groups and doing something together, not just digesting information but transforming it or creating something new. This is the beginning of the answers to all these difficult questions raised.

Fika.

Open spaces, from cerebral critical thinking and gender equality conversations to forest walks, the participant community’s offerings on practices to digest. Something for all.

Dinner.

Wednesday’s cultural events evening might have been the best yet. A 2 hour open mic, hosted by Street Poets, Inc., including all the talents on offer - modern dance, poetry in many forms, songs, bird calls, rap, it had it all. Here we were community in its most complete: audience and performer; reveler and mourner; web of hearts for an evening. Which is not to take away from DJ Arts excellent command of the dance floor. Overall, we’re beginning to suspect, we’re very good at taking the heavy mornings and healing in the evening