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…
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…
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…
In July, I presented preliminary research on Estonian folklore and depth psychology using the work of James Hillman and Mary Watkins at the Fates and Graces Mythologium. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology you can watch the presentation. I would love feedback, comments, criticisms, etc.. Let’s start a conversation. Read more…
The net of colonialism is wide with tiny openings from which almost no one escapes. Growing up in the USA I learned that we were the colonizers of the land upon which the nation sits. Despite the emergence of the USA out of the belly of other colonial powers, those Read more…
Today is Estonia’s Independence Day and today we celebrate one hundred and five years since declaring independence. Independence from Russia and the German overlords wasn’t achieved on this day in 1918, but the declaration of independence known as the Manifesto to the Peoples of Estonia (Estonian: Manifest Eestimaa rahvastele) was Read more…
I love libraries. They hold secret worlds hidden on dusty shelves and inside plain brown or green covers. In high school I would ditch school and go to the library where I would read, read, and read: animal husbandry, history, novels. I would check out as many books as I Read more…