When Winning is Losing

Written by: Hayley Stevens

Western European civilisation is built upon a win/lose game.  A game which has been exported around the world.  In truth it is the lose/lose game. In the long run we never win when we play this game – with our children, our partners, colleagues, friends, neighbours, community… and with the planet.  When one side wins, and the other loses… the winning is just the start of losing all over again. This is what history shows us.  This is what is playing out around the world right now.   


The history of humanity might fill us with pessimism and despair about our ability to change this game.   But there is evidence that it has not always been this way.  The values and beliefs that underpin this game are only 2,000-3,000 years old - a mere fraction of time that humanity has existed on this planet. That’s 26-39 generations* or 800+ generations dependent upon which calculation you use!


There is hope.


It was hope that I felt listening to Laura Shannon’s talk at a conference in Cheltenham in the summer.  It was this hope that lead me to invite her to ‘the big room' in Macclesfield.  

Laura Shannon and Kostantis Kourmardias leading the dance

​What Laura shared both in words and in her being were the guiding principles of an Indigenous European Spirituality which guided Neolithic communities of Old Europe. Principles which still survive in some communities today through sacred dance practices. These sacred dances sustain and nourish a vibrant sense of community: based on sustainability, equality, mutual support, shared leadership, creativity, love of art and peacefulness.
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Following Laura and Kostantis’ visit, I woke with a dream about Pandora. I knew the myth. About the woman who opened a box and let all evil out into the world because of her curiosity (the parallels with the story of Eve are striking). 

​The Pandora story which has been handed down to us starts with Hesiod (circa 800BC) who tells us that Pandora was created by Zeus as a punishment for man for the deceit of Prometheus.  Zeus instructed the Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece to create a human woman with guile, beauty, charm and lies to bring all evil into the world.

Greek Vase Painting ca 475 - 425 B.C. Pandora and Epimetheus

fire clay cucuteni figure c. 4050-3900 BC

But this is not the only story. Nor the earliest.  Searching further we find that Pandora literally means all-gifted and all-giving.  And that Pandora is probably Goddess Ge or Gaia which is to say Earth. 

​In Hesiod’s version this life giving deity honoured and revered for thousands of years becomes the downfall of mankind.  How and why did this change occur?  And what has been the impact?  

​Whilst these are questions which would take several volumes to address,  the impact on our communities and the planet which sustains life is bearing its bitter fruits. In playing the win/lose game with the planet…. we are discovering that we’ve really been playing the lose/lose game.
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Notes:

• Calculating generations: https://kk.org/thetechnium/13-generations/
• Laura Shannon: https://laurashannon.net
• Old Europe: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Goddesses-Marija-Gimbutas/dp/0520229150/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Marija+Gimbutas&qid=1580743549&sr=8-1
• Hesiod: Pandora myth: https://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodWorksDays.html
• Healing Pandora:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1556438397/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1