EPIMEN_IDiS Forum

Motivations and Tools for the Regeneration of Rural Societies

The figure of Epimenides — suspended between myth and historical reality — inspired us to hold our first gathering on the mountainous slopes of Psiloritis. The highest mountain of Crete becomes the stage where, this summer, we will explore entrepreneurship and cultural management as expressions of innovation by creative individuals, groups, and communities who choose to act beyond the conventional urban framework and to think outside the established boundaries of the city.

Epimenides was the young shepherd who, while searching for a lost lamb from his father’s flock, fell asleep in the sacred cave of the Idaean Cave at the heart of Psiloritis, entering a sleep that lasted fifty-seven years — known as the Epimenidian sleep. In a story that balances between myth and belief, Epimenides awoke as a traveler through time at the very place where everything had begun: the search for his lost lamb. Seeing the profound changes that had taken place in his homeland, among its people and within the family he had left behind, he realized that the half century of sleep had transformed him into a traveler embarking on the journey of a new life. The strange story of the young shepherd was regarded by the people of his time as a divine sign, and Epimenides came to be known as one favored by the ancient gods.

Following the call of transformation that he experienced upon awakening, he set himself the goal of being initiated into the hidden knowledge of the ancient world, driven by an unprecedented thirst for wisdom, exploration, and participation in the affairs of his time. He became a traveler orbiting around his homeland, while that first initiation within the cave of Ida remained inscribed in his very name.

So renowned was Epimenides, and so influential his public interventions — even in political affairs — that he is said to have initiated the philosopher Pythagoras into the mysteries of the Idaean Cave. He also contributed as a seer to the purification of the Athenians from the Cylonian Curse, a period remembered for the plagues and hardships suffered by the city of Athens.

For us, Epimen-ides — with the dual nature of a historical figure of the 6th or 7th century BCE and a timeless mythical hero — stands as a powerful symbol reflecting the enduring universality of Mount Ida from antiquity to the present day. Epimenides represents the innovator: a man ahead of his time who, despite having been immersed in deep slumber, awakened with a profound thirst for knowledge and initiation into the unfamiliar and the different. He is the young shepherd who awoke as a pioneer and seer, eventually remembered as one of the Seven Sages of antiquity.

The role of Epimenides as purifier and seer, actively engaged in public and political matters, can today symbolize the crucial role of a critical mass of people that every place needs in order to reshape — or redefine — the course of its history. The legendary 297 years attributed to his life may in fact represent a symbolic era during which communities of people, with Epimenides as their emblematic pioneer, acted across three centuries as “Epimen-ides”: innovators who cultivated and spread ideas across the mountains of the gods. These ideas, deeply rooted, acted locally before spreading universally, transforming Epimenides into an emblem of initiation into knowledge, civic participation, and the courage to speak with responsibility.

The Epimenidis Forum is an initiative and inspiration of Androidus Project Tank, a creative and cultural management think tank that seeks to collect and activate the elements that shape our cultural identity, promote the unique character and culture of our region, and foster intercultural dialogue. Guided by scientific research, empirical study, and interdisciplinary collaboration, our aim as a research and cultural organization is to rediscover the deeply rooted strengths of our region and highlight them as drivers of openness, social engagement, and productive development.

In our first gathering, the discussion will focus on the concepts of innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural management, structured around the thematic axis:

The Re-turn to the Mountains
Motivations and Tools for the Regeneration of Rural Societies

Drawing on the momentum of the present moment, we aspire to establish a landmark forum for rural and non-urban regions, addressing themes of cultural management, alternative forms of entrepreneurship, education, and creative engagement that can function as tools of regional development and strategic planning in building a complex and creative socio-economic model.

Our first meeting will take place on August 3rd, 2019, in the mountainous environment of Psiloritis, with the aim of creating a natural amphitheatre of participation, interaction, and synthesis through the examples of individuals, organizations, and institutions who wish to contribute ideas and initiatives.

We aim to establish an active forum with a clear thematic framework and participatory format that will bring together seven presentations under the common axis of innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural management in rural and mountainous communities. Through these presentations we seek to foster a structured dialogue between speakers and audience, generating new questions, collaborations, and exchanges of ideas.

The search for authenticity, the creative potential of communities, and above all the desire of innovative individuals to create and work are what inspire our invitation for a return to the mountains.