I had hoped that the USA could get over its patriarchy to elect a competent woman president. I had hope that the manners we teach our children would be reflected in the president of our country. I had hoped that the collaboration that builds successful businesses would be reflected in Read more…
This weaving of family stories is told from different perspectives, different voices, and in different versions. Stories told by aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles, cousins, and parents. Stories that the grandchildren listen to with big eyes inhaling the family mythology.
Anywhere people have lived in forested areas, mythology and folklore about the woods co-exist with humanity. After all, before the internet and CNN, most of us perceived the nature of reality through the material world around us. As Marie-Louise von Franz writes in her classic The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Read more…
Shadows of the past lay over the present and spill towards the future the way my father’s Estonia obscured and at times illuminated my experience in Estonia. My father’s Estonia was a secret, hidden away space and one I believe that he only let himself dwell on when he drank, Read more…
When thinking about hope, I always think about Emily Dickenson and her poem “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all – Yet for me hope, is more like the surf. Read more…
Prior to colonization, Estonia was a land of small settlements, villages, and farms. That all ended in the Thirteenth Century with the northern crusades (a topic for another day). The year my father was born, 1918, Estonia declared independence and by 1920 was the Republic of Estonia, an independent country. Read more…
Freedom is a concept bandied about in the USA as if it was the solution to all our problems. Yet, the word freedom has multiple meanings in different contexts. On an individual level, freedom can mean “not imprisoned” or “unrestrained.” Other meanings include the ability to change or a sense Read more…
In California, I live on the land of the Kuumeyaay / Iipai-Tiipai. I am aware I am living on someone else’s ancestral land, I am part of a community group that cares for the creek and salt marsh by my home, and I do my best to honor the land Read more…
Estonia is full of old wooden houses. Many of them are a few hundred years old. You’ll find them in cities like Tallinn and in the countryside as well. These old wooden houses provided shelter for both families and often times their farm animals as well. In a land where Read more…
In the thirteenth century, the German Livonian Brothers of the Sword entered the lands we now call Estonia as part of the medieval crusades. Lembitu was part of the Estonian resistance to the German invasion. According to some sources, he was a leader of a small area in what is Read more…