A Journey Into Cretan Weaving Traditions

The solidarity and mutuality ceremony, at the top of Mount Psiloritis which took place at dawn on the summer solstice, in Krana Mylopotamou in Rethymno was attended by the team of weavers from the Penelope Gandhi Mission, the pioneering project of the University of the Mountains, teachers from Evros to Crete, students and local women, inspired by ancient Crete which is at the same time a modern proposal of prosperity for the future, a study that teaches the new generation a brave but also peaceful way of life, in harmony with nature, awakening our inseparable relationship with the fertility and fruitfulness of nature. Represented by a handmade, flax derived woven garment, with a certain significance in our sacred memory, in history, and in the freedom of the mind, it represents a language lost in the depths of time, between the myth and the woman, the Great Mother.

The organisation “University of the Mountains” was founded as a movement whose aim is to transform the role model of modern prosperity into one that will combine sustainable development with the restoration of lost human relationships and the cultural identity of small societies. It aims to fulfil its objectives via protecting the human and natural environment; reinforcing traditional economies through modern management tools so as to stop the exploitation of natural resources; eliminate delinquency and dependence on loan finances and subsidies; and redefine human happiness via human criteria rather than financial data.

In order to fulfil its mission, the “University of the Mountains” rallies a dynamic community of researchers, academia, social partners and citizens from the mountainous rural areas which function in conditions of original interaction and mutual learning.

The team of the Penelope Gandhi Mission – University of the Mountains together with students and parents, teachers, teachers sowed the year’s flax. This blessed seed will transfer pure energy from the hands of the island’s children to the sacred Cretan land, where with the euphoria of the earth, it will bear fruit to become a natural, white woven cloth, which will warmly embrace and illuminate, providing instruction for self-sufficiency and prayer in the near future.