Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
An Older, Realer Paganism: The Life and Times of a Saami Shaman-Poet
the guests had one month fewer
they do not speak the language of nature
We take ancient gods and goddesses, revive them, and think that that's paganism.
But that's not paganism; it's a cartoon, a caricature, of paganism.
For an older, realer paganism, read the work of Saami poet Nils-Alsak Valkeapää (1943-2001).
Here there's a life lived so thoroughly among the old gods—the Sun our father, Earth mother of life, the Moon, the Winds, the Lake, the Mountain, the Reindeer—that there's no space between: a living relationship with a living world.
Listen to his shaman's song:
I fly away
see
come back and tell
the people
and their lives make
the visions true
but they asked for it themselves
In this world, non-Saami are “guests.” Here we see the bind of indigenous peoples everywhere. The Old Ways are the ways of hospitality. The others are our guests, but—to our undoing—they themselves are constrained by no such laws. The incomers take and take, giving in return only nightmare.
I lived
lived a complete life
one day followed another
rose sank disappeared arrived
I migrated, rejoiced
with the reindeer
to the summer lands to the winter lands
I kept sacred
served
and now
I am supposed to believe
that this is work
with sweaty forehead
a cursed condition
sin
a sin even to be alive
believe that everything in my life is worth nothing
wrong
insane
In the end, though—as they must—the Old Ways endure:
you speak of eternal life
without knowing
what eternal is
what life is
The primary Saami art-form is the yoik, the chanted poem. Valkeapää's poems are written yoiks, calling to be sung aloud. His poetry has the concision, the pith, of proverb.
a shared bed is warmer
His life among Europe's last surviving indigenous tribal people gives him a voice that many of us who call ourselves pagan will readily recognize:
soon
gone
each to his own
is there anything emptier
than an empty fair ground
Anyone who has ever remained on-site after a pagan festival will know exactly what he's talking about.
Don't just read his book The Sun, My Father (ably team-translated from the Saami by Ralph Salisbury, Lars Nordström, and Harald Gaski) which both begins and ends—how not—with yoiks to the Sun our father and Earth, mother of life: circular, like everything else that we know.
Listen to it. Sing it.
Learn it.
I sit down
cross legged
remain to see
push words away
thoughts
memories
feelings
that nature
sounds
smells
straight through
Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, The Sun, My Father (1997), DAT
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