BACK IN GREENLAND (KALAALLIT NUNAAT)!

Najungasoq - Bones

I am writing to you all above the Arctic Circle, in Greenland!

Last time I was here in Greenland, I had a Bone Cupboard (and I am going to recreate it today!) I was collecting bones and animal skulls on my hikes and I turned the wardrobe in my room into a display cabinet. (I kept my clothing in the suitcase instead).

The Greenlandic people call Greenland “Kalaallit Nunaat” (White Earth). The Earth is seen as a mighty and powerful being in her own right: Nuna.

Last time I was here, my dreams were about the spirits gradually replacing all bones in my skeleton with animal bones instead. This felt like a classical initiation-by-dismemberment experience. Such dreams mark a major rite of passage, a key transition in life.

In October 2022 I wrote: The spirits are filling me up with animal powers and the magical abilities that go with that. It is a huge privilege, if a little unsettling at times. I am never quite sure who or what is going to look back at me, in the mirror... I just hope that I do not turn into a reindeer or narwhal so convincingly that a local hunter shoots me and eats me for dinner!

But actually… that would not be the worst way to go! Here are links to a few earlier pieces from Greenland:

OF ARCTIC BURIALS AND DANCING ON BONES

LETTING BONES SPEAK

I am typing this piece at a guesthouse in Sisimiut in Greenland. If I lift my eyes I see panoramic views of the Amerloq Fjord and the harbour (yes, I admit that the views are a bit of a distraction!)

October 2022: My jawbone is replaced with a caribou jawbone!

In September 2022, after my mother had died and we had dropped our youngest son off in his new university city, I decided to act on a dream I had cherished for years: painting under the aurora borealis in Greenland! Right up to that moment I could not “disappear for a month”. I already travelled a lot for work (intercontinentally). I was still busy being both a mother and a daughter. I was seeing our third son through his high school exams and also dealing with the rapid decline of my own mother, which involved making extra trips to the Netherlands.

All of a sudden the entire constellation (of my daily life) changed. I no longer had a mother and I was released from day-to-day mothering myself. So I crammed a crazy amount of art materials into a suitcase and took a plane to Greenland.

The Ice Bridge - The Old Norse people saw the Milky Way as the Road to the Land of the Dead, where the souls of the dead cross over. In my dreams here the bridge across the Amerloq fjord (outside my bedroom window) became the mythical Ice Bridge.

I wrote a series of 31 daily “Greenland Posts” on Facebook, in October 2022. Those posts gained an eager following. (One person told me she cried when the posts stopped because she had felt transported to this mythical land in the Far North!) Of course I now regret that I didn’t make myself a Substack account then - but obviously there were other priorities. And I did reproduce some of those posts here, just so they could still be found.

Caribou Vertebrae

My sacred art students urged me (in truth a few of them physically cornered me!) to take them to Greenland, so they too could have a full immersion experience in arctic art process, painting with artic water, picking bones out of the boggy soil on top of the permafrost. After spending a month here I knew that the spirits of the land were asking for shamanic work to done. That ancient deities wished to be re-membered (the literally meaning of the word “remember” is putting all limbs back together, to reassemble).

I took the plunge and organised a sacred art retreat, titled Sedna and Sila. Just opening Facebook I see posts from people flying to Iceland and Copenhagen (in Denmark), from far-flung locations, just to get to Greenland and join me here. (Unfortunately you cannot fly here directly from other locations. Air Greenland has the monopoly and Copenhagen is their hub). The students are on their way, but also fitting in some extra stops along the way! This is exciting!

Sisimiut is the second largest town in Greenland (after Nuuk, the capital). Sisimiut means “the residents at the fox holes”.

Last time I was here, I started dreaming in black-and-white. I made black and white paintings inspired by this. I will use some to illustrate this essay. Just before I left, I started dreaming in Greenlandic. I had just started to understand (on the most basic level) what the native people were saying and how to talk back to them. Then it was time to leave, sadly. I am so grateful for the gift of of more time here, with kindred spirits.

Najungasoq is the (West) Greenlandic word for BONE. It is the generic word referring to all and any bones. I think that the plural, BONES, would be Najungasuit - but don’t hold me to that, ask a native instead! Greenlandic is a very regular language, it follows all grammatical rules to the letter. Greenlandic also has many other words for specific bones, as the Inuit still have a strong hunting culture and tradition. This time of year people go caribou hunting and seal hunting. Upon their return, they butcher the caribou in the harbour. Death is not hidden from view here. It is not sanitized. And I may be a vegetarian but I find that refreshing and a good reminder to live life to the full. Death feeds life and informs everything we do. Death is sacred. Death should not be hidden from view as that robs people of key experiences in life.

Greenlandic spirit ruling bones

My obsession with learning foreign languages may be well be an autistic trait. I certainly appreciate that not everyone shares the passion! However, I am already making lists of Greenlandic words for class. I am hoping to teach the students at least two Greenlandic words a day (ideally more of course!)

In a future essay from Greenland I plan to write more about the spirituality of the Greenlandic people. About bones and Skeleton Woman. This is what I can manage today!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes two), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). If you would like to see regular posts about about Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of all the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!

Imelda, Sisimiut, Greenland

BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST

Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022.

The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.

Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.

Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings, which can be watched any time.

Website:                           

http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/

YouTube Channel:             youtube.com/user/imeldaalmqvist

Online School:                  https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/

Facebook:                            https://www.facebook.com/imelda.almqvist/

Instagram:                          https://www.instagram.com/almqvistimelda/