We are missing large parts of our spiritual past in Europe, our classic education schools us around royals, battles and the movement of power over the centuries. But what about the history of belief, how the sacred developed throughout history, and why are we in this position of fragmentation and confusion, which leads us to travel to far-off places seeking lineages which survived the brute forces of colonisation?
When speaking to many of my peers, I often feel we are living without context, without understanding of the experiences of our ancestors and how to start to reignite the traditions of the old ways which once pulsed through the lands of Europe. It can feel bewildering to know where to start. Therefore, I have created this workshop in collaboration with writer, poet, mythologist, ritualist, and scholar of ancient religion Gabriela Gutierrez to offer remedy, to fill the gaps we have in our spiritual past and to offer us the grounding of context, from which we can start to develop a devotional relationship with the land and our ancestral oral traditions.
In this workshop, Gabriela will be taking us on a journey through the deep spiritual history of Europe, from the Palaeolithic and Neolithic worlds to the pre-Christian cultures of the historical record. Drawing on archaeology, mythology, ancient texts, folklore, and landscape, we will explore what can be recovered of the diverse religious worlds that preceded Christianity.
TOPICS WE WILL COVER:
Prehistoric evidence for ritual and religious imagination, including caves, burials, animals, ancestors, and relationships with the more-than-human world.
Entering the Neolithic, we will consider how agriculture and settled life transformed relationships with land, fertility, death, ancestry, and seasonal renewal.
Bronze Age and Indo-European migrations, including the increasing prominence of warrior, sovereign, and sky gods, and the ways older earth-centred, local, and goddess traditions persisted and transformed within later religious worlds.
What happened to the old ways through Romanisation and Christianisation, asking what was lost, transformed, or survived.
Challenging the enduring idea that prehistoric and pre-Christian Europe belonged to a primitive spiritual past that we have outgrown, Europe’s spiritual history instead offers a rich ancestral inheritance from which there may still be much to learn.
DETAILS:
Location: Zoom
Recording Available: Yes
Date: 10th September
Time: 8:30 PM UKT / 3:30 PM EST
Exchange: £25