The Call
When life has a plan for you, and all you can do is follow the signs.
Today I want to share a story I have not shared before. It was the start of something so strong and demanding within me that I could not do anything other than heed the call.
Two years ago, in the depths of winter on a dismal January morning, somewhere in a cold and damp corner of Cornwall, UK, I was having a Himalayan Singing Bowl treatment from my husband. As so often, I was crippled by the inexplicable pain of Fibromyalgia that day. The only thing that helped me in those days was the healing of sound (and the immense love and healing from my husband). Just when the healing session had finished and Simon left me to gently return to my body, something happened that had not happened before. I slipped out of time and space and found myself back in Greece, at Lina, our old home in Tseria. Much to my surprise I was staring at the 49-year-old version of myself, sitting on the high walls of our little fortress there. I (she) was staring out over the Messinian Gulf. “You?”, I asked. “Why are you still here?” I realised, that without intending to do so, I had embarked on a soul retrieval mission. And there I was, a part of me that I had left behind when I left Greece and returned to the UK in 2022. I was gobsmacked.
She spun around to me, furious. “Why did you leave?” she spat at me. You have work to do here! Who will take care of the dogs if not me?” “The dogs?” I asked, baffled. And then it sank in. Of course, the dogs. The strays. I had suppressed that little snippet. “If you want this part of you (me) back, you will have to come back here. I will not rejoin you until you return to Greece”, she angrily replied. Oh my, I thought. How am I going to handle this one?
She (I) did not come back to me that day. I had to leave her there and return to my body without her. When I finally came out of the healing session, I was overwhelmed by an immense wave of grief that I didn’t even know I was carrying. After a year of thinking we had done the right thing by moving back to the UK, my grief for everything we had left behind in Greece finally rose from the depths of my subconscious. Tears flowed uncontrollably.
You see, when we returned from Greece after our 1.5-year stint there, I thought we had returned home to the UK for good and life would be better. Our experiences of Greece until then had been very unsettling. COVID, then Brexit, and a very uncertain future post-COVID had us running back to the UK, tails between our legs. Moving to Greece turned out to be a culture shock that we found very hard to process and something in our minds was craving the certainty, ease and predictability of a life in the UK. Yet, we were ill-prepared for the changes to life in the UK post-COVID: sky-high rental fees, economic collapse, and a deep sense of unease and hostility within the population - you couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but it was there. The UK was deeply divided and not a very friendly place to live. We picked up the threads of our old business again - our little crystal markets, and for a while all was well. But soon we realised that all was not very well at all. Sales went down, I got very ill with Fibromyalgia again, and we were haemorrhaging money - it was literally running through our fingers like sand, with no end in sight. Then the soul retrieval happened, which ended up not being a retrieval at all, but a failed attempt to reclaim a part of me that was lost. But, I shook it off and told myself that it was just a residue of grief that needed to be released.
Spring finally came and our internal unease grew. We couldn’t continue living in a house we couldn’t afford, but finding something cheaper turned out to be impossible. Then, one day we were rummaging through some books in a charity store and Simon came across a book by Rick Stein, with all sorts of delightful Mediterranean dishes displayed. It fell open on the page with Briam. It couldn’t be more Greek. This incident ignited the talk about returning to Greece again and after many days of talking about it, we decided that we would give Greece another try.
Fast forward to the summer of 2023. It was late August when we arrived in the Mani. It was hot and sunny and beautiful, just like we remembered it. We moved into our first rental on the 2nd of September. 3 more moves followed until we could finally take ownership of the house we had fallen in love with, almost a year later, on the 8th of August 2024.
During that year, I got more and more involved with the local Animal Charity - Mani International Animal Organisation. We had fostered some pups for them before at Lina but I was too far away from them to be involved in the day-to-day business back then. As soon as we had settled into the area, I started to work as a volunteer in their local shelter, joined the social media team and attended the open meetings. I got involved in rescues, fostered several pups and offered more and more of my time for behind-the-scenes projects and admin, too. It felt like something invisible was guiding me, telling me: “This way, this way, this is the way.” I knew this was what I wanted, what I came here to do right from the beginning, and the urge to help the animals in need was so strong, so overwhelmingly all-consuming and urgent, that whatever I did, I just couldn’t help myself - I could not look away. I had to help wherever I could.
In April 2024 MIAO’s situation trying to house more and more animals in need became desperate. We had so many pups and dogs needing a safe space, yet we couldn’t offer them refuge, so I took it upon myself to find a piece of land that we could perhaps rent and eventually buy with the right plan and fundraising campaign. I found a piece of land and showed it to the current president of MIAO. What unfolded that day, I am sure, was another wink from the Universe. Eva explained that the current board will not stand for election anymore and that the future of MIAO was very uncertain. But, she felt that I would be a great candidate to somehow lead MIAO into the future. I said that I would do my very best to serve.
It is now 2025, and the board elections for MIAO will be held in just under a month, on the 28th of March 2025. I have walked beside the board for quite a while now, and am hoping to be elected onto the board in the upcoming elections. Whilst I was hesitant and unsure whether I could handle such a huge responsibility in the beginning, somehow I have grown into a deep knowing that this is absolutely what I am here to do. It is my soul work. My soul purpose.
Although the piece of land that I found last year has become unviable, I have found a new piece of land which I believe will be the next stepping stone in the evolution of MIAO and for myself. I know I will dedicate my life to the strays of Greece. Not only as a physical safe space for strays in the Mani, but somehow I believe that I will become a bigger voice for the plight of animals in Greece in general. Not through radical activism but through compassionate education, and by leading by example.
The one problem that so many people working (read volunteering) in animal rescue face is that it is somehow expected that we offer our time and energy for free. Very few shelters can offer paid positions. Charitable work is only deemed “honourable” and non-profit when we give our resources for free. We have to beg for money to support our rescues, and we have to beg for money to support ourselves. Yet we, too, have to live. We, too, have to pay our bills like everybody else. It is one of our society’s great downfalls that those who exploit our world will grow forever richer and those who selflessly offer their service to the greater good will forever stay dependent on the charity of others. I hope that one day, this will change.
So I am facing a dilemma. If I am to dedicate my life to saving strays and becoming a voice for the voiceless here in Greece, then I will need to find a way to support myself. And I think the only way I can do that is by sharing my daily life and the work I do online and those of you who wish to support me, can do so by becoming my substack subscribers tribe. Your contributions will help me contribute to our household, cover part of my cost of living, and of course the many hidden costs that stack up so easily when driving across a vast area doing our chores, checking up on hurt or abandoned animal reports, and driving to the vet or the airport to drop off a foster dog.
So here I am. At the beginning of something that feels so much bigger than me, and something I couldn’t have possibly even dreamt of 4 years ago. It wasn’t even in my mind. I have no idea where all this will take me, but I have all the trust in the world in everything that has led me to be here, right now, with an unwavering passion and courage in my heart to make this part of the world a better place for animals.
I look forward to sharing that journey with you.
With Love,
Bee
