Having given myself the evening off from studies in order to blog I find myself staring at the screen considering rather burying my nose in puppy fluff.
These days I find myself dreaming in statistical equations.
The last couple of months have swept me up, tumbled me around and landed me flat on my back with sand in my ears and sea-water up my nose. I feel dislocated yet excited.
Moments of clarity, where my future reaches towards me, dances with moments of doubt, filled with the knowledge that I might never achieve anything.
Feeling this drained of energy scares me. Will it all be worth it? I hope so.
On Monday I decided to study outside. For a moment I let my books fall to the side as my eyes got swept up in the dance of the yellow leave. The sounds of other leaves clapping gently dissolved the grip of looming exams around my heart.
Fear of failure cannot exist underneath a blue autumn sky.
I find myself questioning why I chose a path leading into densely printed text and away from mindless contemplation.
Today I received an answer from the university library:
"I believe that native leaders and activists [...] have taken on a core role of the old shamans, that of protecting their people by cultivating a special knowledge of other worlds. They sense, in a way that the old shaman cannot, how the hidden reality behind the surface of daily appearances has changed.
Instead of the spirits of animals, land, and sky, modern native leaders must understand regional and federal government agencies and international organizations. Like the upper and lower worlds of the shamanic cosmology, the purpose of these bureaucratic worlds are inscrutable to ordinary people, yet they have the power to nurture or destroy them.
A drilling license granted over a community's head to a multinational company can sever the reindeers' migration routes and smother their pasture under devastating oil spills; a nature reserve created with the uncomprehending encouragement of an international wildlife organization can destroy a community and starve the families who are forbidden to catch food in their own home; a nomads' territory mistakenly marked as uninhabited and unused on the plan of a project that does not consult the people can be lost forever.
This is the capriciousness of Bayanay carried into new realms. Where shamans would traditionally 'fly' on reindeer or drums made from their skins to locate wild animals for harvesting and to fend of hostile spirits, these new native leaders fly in aeroplanes between ministries, parliaments, and expert committees, petitioning and bargaining for their communities, making sure a native voice is heard, harvesting new laws about land rights and natural resource management, and remaining ever vigilant for new kinds of threats.
Like shamans, they cannot work alone with their own limited strength but need helper spirits, who include sympathetic scholars, lawyers, and activists in Russian cities and abroad."
The reindeer people - living with animals and spirits in Siberia. Piers Vitebsky
If I want my children to also enjoy the dance of the wind, I might have to reach towards a new spirituality. Although at times I will be filled with fear and doubt I will continue on my journey. Even when it travels through worlds filled with statistics, empirical evidence and legislation.
I will therefore return to my books tomorrow.
If I listen carefully I might hear the wind
calling me through the turn of the pages.
For Jen - a shaman flying through lands of bureaucracy .
Where does this sudden, intense yearning
I truly believed in the ability to speak with animals,
I truly believed in the ability to speak with animals,
Now I know a lot more, yet remember little.
A lack of memory
One made beautiful by its complexity.
Still, I wish for a white owl swooping
For a door to open, allowing me access
For magic to roam free.
