I am a Slav, Not a Slave: Reclaiming Creation from the Heart
By Dr. Anna Biela 26.05.2025 Wrocław 9:36
There is a fire quietly awakening in the souls of many across this Earth—a remembering. For some, it comes like a whisper on the wind. For others, it arrives as a force, pulsing from the land beneath their feet. For me, it returned as I reconnected with my Slavic heritage—not as something forgotten in history books, but as a living, breathing truth woven into the fiber of my being. I am a Slav, not a slave. I am indigenous to my land. Like many ancestral peoples whose culture was passed down through spoken word, sacred symbols, and the rhythms of Earth and sky, I create not out of obligation, but from the heart.
This remembering is not just mine. It holds true for all those who have walked the Earth under the weight of colonization. Whether by empire, industry, or ideology, entire peoples have been bent beneath systems not of their own making. Their stories rewritten. Their medicines outlawed. Their spirits labeled primitive or dangerous. In the name of civilization, the sacred was severed.
For Slavic people, the distortion runs deep. The very word Słowianie—the People of the Word—speaks of our ancestral identity: storytellers, singers, speakers of truth. Yet history was rewritten. The Slavs were rebranded as slaves, the “work race,” a linguistic colonization that stripped us of our wisdom and sacred role in the balance of life. But we were never meant to serve—we were meant to sing.
This distortion of identity is not unique. All around the world, indigenous and ancestral peoples have been subjected to similar rewritings—mechanized, monetized, silenced. Africa, India, the Middle East, Turtle Island, Eastern Europe—each has its own narrative of colonization, and yet they echo each other. What was once rooted, rhythmic, and in deep conversation with the cosmos has been severed from source.
The new colonizers wear suits and hold patents. Today, colonization looks like plastic-wrapped food stripped of life, pharmaceutical “cures” that deaden rather than heal, and jobs that extract our soul’s energy to feed systems that do not feed us back. We are being colonized by corporations. We eat poison, drink poison, and are taught to medicate away our natural instincts to rest, to grieve, to create. This is not history. This is now.
And yet—we are remembering.
The revolution is not loud. It does not need weapons. It is quiet, like seeds opening in spring. It is found in the act of refusing to comply with systems that no longer serve life. It is found in painting from the heart, planting with bare hands, sharing stories by candlelight. It is found in reclaiming ancestral names, sacred songs, and the right to feel joy that is not tied to productivity.
This is not regression. This is restoration. We are not going backwards—we are going deeper.
In reconnecting with my Slavic roots, I began to feel the heartbeat of the land again. I remembered that we once created in harmony with nature—not to dominate it, but to co-create with it. The forests were not resources; they were relatives. The rivers, not utilities, but veins of life. We knew the herbs that healed, the seasons that sang, the moon’s rhythm as a guide. And above all, we knew that the heart—not the mind alone—was the true center of creation.
I do not “work” anymore. I create. There is a difference. Work implies servitude. Creation implies freedom. Work seeks reward. Creation flows from love. This is the path we are all being invited to return to—not as escape, but as revolution.
This shift is not only cultural—it is energetic. The bioenergetic field of Earth and body are aligned through the heart. Colonial systems disrupted this alignment, disconnecting us from our lower chakras, the source of our grounded, rooted power. Many of us live in our heads, or float unanchored in the spiritual realm, cut off from Gaia’s pulse. Healing this requires more than thought. It requires practice, presence, and community.
In this way, the revolution is also bioenergetic. We are restoring the flow from root to crown—from the deep earth to the stars—through the heart. The heart is the bridge, the portal, the place of remembering. Creation begins there.
This is why I paint, why I gather others to co-create, why I offer my works with no fixed price. I refuse to place a value dictated by markets upon what flows from spirit. I trust the law of balance. I live in conversation with it. The land gives, I give, and those who receive will feel how much it is worth.
And I am not alone. Around the world, a wave of people are stepping away from the systems that drained them. Artists, healers, teachers, and farmers are returning to their roots—not as escape, but as revolution. Their tools may be brushes, seeds, chants, or open arms—but their intention is clear: we will not be colonized any longer.
This is not a rejection of the modern world. It is an integration of wisdom that was never meant to be lost. Indigenous and ancestral knowledge systems hold the key to restoring balance—not only to ecosystems but to inner systems. We do not need to invent a new way. We need to remember the way.
This remembering is urgent. The Earth is crying out. The people are burnt out. The medicine is failing. And in its place, a new-old way is rising—one rooted in love, reciprocity, and the radical act of creating from the heart.
As a Slav, I carry this remembering not just for myself, but for my ancestors. For the sacred forests, the forgotten songs, the women who healed, and the men who listened to the land. I create with their breath in mine, their strength in my hands. My resistance is my remembering. My remembering is my art.
To all those who have been colonized: this is for you. Your culture was never primitive. Your knowing was never wrong. You were never meant to be slaves. You were meant to speak the Word, to carry the Fire, to create from the Heart.
The time of awakening is now. The Earth remembers. So do you.
We are not going back—we are going in.
We are not here to work—we are here to create.
We are not slaves—we are the word.
We are the future our ancestors whispered about.
And the revolution?
It begins with one simple, powerful act:
Creating from the Heart.