In honour of Stephan Harding, lecturer at the Schumacher College, who left us yesterday...
Today, on the new moon, my heart grieves with other hundreds, maybe thousands of hearts our dear beloved Stephan has touched one way or another. He passed to the Otherworld yesterday, over a month after we all heard he was home with his loving family receiving palliative care, and it has been a long month of grieving, processing, praying, remembering and feeling incredibly grateful for everything he did for us all.
Whilst I feel a bit numb on the surface from the news, I also sense the storm brewing under the surface. Thanks to this most wonderful man, I know that I can count on and trust the one he called Gaia to support me process these emotions that will bubble up to the surface eventually.
Indeed, if it hadn’t been for him, I would have perhaps never had the chance to learn how to connect to Her and feel deep and mutual love, respect and care for the one I call Nature (with a big N indeed), and sometimes in my prayers the Great Goddess. I would have never stopped and slowed down engouh to watch jackdaws dance for hours on end, not to try to understand but really rather comprehend with all my being, soul, spirit - or “head, heart and hands” - what it might feel like to be Jackdaw. I would have never danced with others like bees in the hope to better grasp their ways of communicating, all the meanwhile having fun. I would have never met the extraordinary lecturers and Nature lovers Colin Campbell, Andy Letcher, Satish Kumar, Rupert and Merlin Sheldrake who all deeply revolutionised my way of relating to Nature during the short course Mind in Nature 2019. I would have never met his wonderful caring wife Julia, head chef at Schumacher, along with all the kitchen and other staff who taught me invaluable life lessons as I became a volunteer at the college later on. I would have never learned about Alchemy, nor the Gaia theory, and become an animist. I would have never reconciled science with spirituality and never thought it was possible to have a holistic life, hugging trees, dancing around fires, playing music, praying to the moon, believing in magic and miracles whilst being a scientist.
Stephan taught me to live. To appreciate every little thing in life with the awe and wonder of a child. To allow my vulnerability to show, my raw emotions to be seen, unashamedly, to dare speaking up in the name of Love, to share it, to be contagious with it, to infuse others with what they might first perceive as foolish belief, but then let them be touched by the numinous, the sacred, the mysterious to lovingly challenge their beliefs. To ask questions, reclaim the first quality of any scientist: curiosity. To open my mind beyond my conception of “reality”. To reinvent my world, live the life I chose, dare follow my dreams.
His legacy to me was the birthing of magical ideas around the themes of eco-psychology and what I call sacred ecology: the Avalonia Project I started a few years back really found its roots in Schumacher, particularly when I took the initiative to lead my first Samhain gathering with the Schumacher 2019 cohort and guests, including Stephan’s son. Years later, hundreds in Geneva gathered around fires celebrating the Celtic wheel of the year, all thanks to this course led by Stephan which I was extremely privileged to attend. Many benefitted of his teachings through little me trying to spread like wildfire that love of Nature he instilled in me, and I hope to further honour his gift by continuing to spread hope and joy for as many human hearts and souls as I can touch, along with all my fellow Schumacher community peers.
Stephan, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You saved my life and lent me your hope when I lost mine. Through Darkness, you taught me to see the light, and I have no doubt you will follow yours as a strong beacon as you journey through the Otherworld. May your teachings be forever alive and wild in the hearts you have touched, may old and future generations find solace from Nature and accomplish your dream of a harmonious unified humanity as a part of, and extension of, Nature.
Sarah
03 Sep 2024
Poem written a few days after we all learned of Stephan being homebound, awaiting for the next step in the journey, in July 2024 for a collective video wishing him farewell:
Dearest Stephan
Thirty seconds are far too short
To tell you I'm your biggest fan.
You opened my world, my aura,
When my life was on a precipice
Taught me to connect to Gaïa
And see all life as a bliss.
I thought I was trapped
Being a scientist
You showed me I was apt
To also be an artist.
Finally opening up
To spiritual alchemy
You implied I wasn't stuck
But had it all within me.
A cartesian blossoming
Into an Animist
Lover of every thing
Knowing miracles do exist.
You saved my life
You and your wife.
Words are superfluous to the Numinous,
The Magic you seeded in so many.
In gratitude we bow to you eternally.
Blessings to you and your loved ones,
Till we are all united again at once.
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