There are quite a few distinctions between a joik and a song, but my professor focused on one difference: a song, in our culture, is meant to be representative and evocative of its subject. Joiking, to the Sami, is meant to embody the very nature and spirit of who or what it is singing.
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Drinking From the Stream of Time
Whereas the Viking ships sought adventure in conquest of outer seas, Odin leads us on an inner adventure in the deep Sea of Self. [Read More]
How can we be more like Finns?
I was born in Astoria and raised in the lower Columbia region with such a strong Finnish identity that I have no perspective on Finnish social values or politics – no perspective except if it’s Finnish, it must be good. [Read More]
An April in Europe
It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since I’ve been back from an epic trip to Europe which I shared with Nancy for 2 weeks in England, and then soloed in England, France, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. The details are starting to fade, so it’s time to write it all down, based on […]
What Remains
We can say Black Elk witnessed the death of an indigenous way of life that existed for thousands of years. He did so just as surely as we’re watching death today — from Aleppo to poison pipelines to dead zones off the coast of America…. [Read More]
Dangerous Angels
When I was a child, I imagined angels like the ones in sentimental postcards, those romanticized winged guardians walking alongside a blond, middle-class boy and girl whose aggressive normality rendered them as iconic as their protector. [Read More]
Jesus We’re Cold Inside
Cultural authorities remind us of the reason for the season. Symbols of Christ’s lowly birth add feelings of pious humility to the flashy mash up of religion and commerce. [Read More]
Baby Gramps and the Geechee Goo
Life is woven with threads from many ancestors.
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Again
You are no different than asters that fall dead
in sleep, reemerge each year strong and new. [Read More]
The Stars Still Shine Bright
I just got back from a walk around the neighborhood that I took with Lilly over a thousand times in the almost exactly three years she was with us. I know the canine (even better than the human) residents of almost all the houses I passed. Amazingly, not one of them uttered a sound (that I could hear) on the half-hour walk. [Read more]
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