CHILDREN OF THE WORLD
The man who raised me taught me not to fear the world because we are an intimate and integral part of it. My family lived off the land in Northern Alaska year-around. We supplemented our omega-3 rich diet with the occasional pizza or my one of my mother’s favorites, Swedish meatballs. My mom is a modern-day Viking who hails from thousands of fierce Scandinavian explorers. My biological father’s blood has been traced to Saami reindeer herders, East Asia, and an English couple who themselves descended from France & Germany. I even have some distant heritage from Madagascar! My genetic profile lights up countries around the world. I am proud to be a child of the world. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are many of us who have blood, history, and family from all corners of the world. But this didn’t happen overnight. Read more by clicking on this sentence; you will be brought to our article on Medium.com.
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Through Seas Invisible
By Aaluk Edwardson On a lake, the sun is stretching not yet seen between the trees. Light emerging brings forth this new day. On a lake, a loon is sitting sleeping on the water with ease. Soon, a laughing loon calls forth this day. On a lake, I am smiling as light and laughter swim through seas invisible waking me today. --------------------------------------------------- Tha-thump By Aaluk Edwardson tha-thump. tha-thump. tha-thump. the sound that comes after a fright, desire, laughter. tha-thump. tha-thump. tha-thump. steady as a river's flow its strength from love and woe. tha-thump. tha-thump. tha-thump. even when broken, it stands whole in my aching hands. Before this year, I never wanted a tattoo, or kakiñik as they are called in Iñupiaq. I’ve always admired them, but never felt drawn to putting anything permanently on my body. Until my good friend, Margi Dashevsky introduced me to Holly Nordlum over email. I was teaching a class and was planning on highlighting the movement and work she’s led in revitalizing Inuit tattooing across the circumpolar north. We talked on the phone about the history of Iñuit tattooing, our efforts in cultural revitalization and artistic expression. I didn’t know Iñuit tattooing was only done by Inuit women. After that conversation I knew I would get one someday. I first thought I would get one for healing purposes. Maybe dots or marks on my wrists and my feet. I wasn’t sure. I definitely didn’t think I’d dive right in and get a tavlaġun (chin kakiñik) AND forehead kakiñik right off the bat! I found myself in Alaska in August and texted Holly asking if she had time to meet up for lunch or coffee. I was hoping to meet her in person and wanted to start talking about getting a kakiñik. We meet for lunch. At the end, she looks at me and says she can do it tomorrow. I fly out the day after tomorrow and don't know when I'll be back in Anchorage AND have the opportunity to get a kakiñik from an Iñupiaq female artist trained in the ancient practice! Do I want to do it? My spirit jumps and I know I do. I know I REALLY do! I know it’s time. Holly had told me that some qaġġun (forehead kakiñik) have been associated with the sun and sunshine. Some people wore it as a reminder that the sun would come back during the dark winter months. I’ve wrestled with mental health challenges most of my life and this meaning really resonated with me. I knew I would get my own version of a sunshine kakiñik after hearing that. I’d heard about and seen quite a few tavlaġuns (women's chin kakiñik) in the past few years. A tavlagun is given to a woman after she becomes a woman. It is a mark that she is strong and capable. It brings out her beauty in a way only a tavlaġun can. I love my tavlaġun. We can’t really say this kakiñik design belongs to these people because tattooing was so prolific throughout Iñuit communities and happened over such a large period of time. There may not have been such hard and fast boundaries between people, culture and traditions as there are today. In the same vein, defining what a kakiñik means is not hard and fast. Just like all art and specifically cultural art, tupiks have specific meaning to the person wearing them, the person giving them and the many individual people seeing them. All the tattooing was artfully done by Holly’s hand with a needle. The dye is made of a plant root from India. I feel so fortunate to have had her as my kakiñik artist. Her beautiful work and art is very important, desperately needed and connects us back to our ancestors, ourselves and each other. Quyanaqpak (thank you very much) Holly for these amazing kakiñik, I am honored to wear them. ❤️ Before we began tattooing, I opened myself up spiritually to the unity of all things, the current from which I connect to my ancestors. I believe that our bodies die but our spirits, the energy and essence of who we are, continue to evolve. In this way, I am not an individual. I am here because of my ancestors and all life that came before me. My ancestors have been tattooing for thousands of years. Generations of my Iñuit mothers, grandmothers and sisters have been using their hands and needles to help people heal, celebrate and remember. Countless Inuit have walked this earth tattooed. Laying on the kakiñik table before we started I said,"You and I have never done this. I have never gotten a kakiñik from you but I also know I have. I know we have been here together as Iñupiat women thousands of times." We did the qaġġun (forehead kakiñik) first and within moments I could feel weight from my forehead lift. It also became very bright. My sister, Naŋinaaq Edwardson, who has had her tavlaġun for a few years now, asked that the spirits of our ancestors be with me while I was under the needle. They were. The current of strength I could feel from them thunderously pumped through my body as the designs were permanently inked in my skin. It was exhilarating and I wasn’t scared. I was ready. I am back in Washington DC now, adjusting to a new life with a new face but I don’t feel new. I feel like I’ve taken off a mask by putting this one on. I never felt right in my body and I never felt terribly connected to my face. One of my third-grade teachers once told me I was pretty and without thinking, I said "thank you but you should really tell that to my parents." She asked me why and I said, "because I didn’t do anything." The kakiñik I wear today are about reclaiming my body and my identity as an Iñupiaq woman. Through them, I stand in solidarity with other Iñupiat, other Inuit and other indigenous people and say we are here. We are resilient. We are beautiful. We are strong. They are also about healing. Getting these kakiñik was transformational. I could feel sexual trauma from my childhood that had finally made its way up to the surface leave my body. I had been working on that trauma for over twenty years – first in the heart, then the head and now through the body. I hope this means I can live with less pain, I don’t know and I don’t presume to know. All I know is something was let go and that’s a really good thing. Before this, I felt like I was hiding. I knew I passed as not Iñupiaq and that bothered me. I am not hiding anymore. I am standing against Western conformity and embracing my indigenous past and present. I honor my Western heritage and don’t deny it. I am Iñupiaq, Norwegian and Russian Saami. I come from the Iñuit and the Vikings. I grew up with stroganoff and Norwegian flags on our Christmas tree. My mother, Debby Dahl Edwardson, is Norwegian and she is the strongest and most inspiring woman I know. Now, you can see both the Norwegian and Iñuit ancestry on my face. The most meaningful part of my face happened unintentionally. There are 19 dots in my qaġġun. That’s how old I was when I had my son, who was the first light of my life. His birth opened up a new world for me, at a time I really needed it. Being his mom has made all the difference, I wouldn’t be here today without him. Holly didn’t know all that and I didn’t tell her. The fact that she ended up putting 19 dots on my forehead is magical to me. Both the tavlaġun and sunshine kakiñik are connected to my son, who responded fairly well the first time he saw me with these kakiñik. I told him the day before I got them so it wasn’t as big of a shock as it could have been. But, he was still pretty surprised! He said, “I like them, it’s just going to take a little while to get used to.” 🙂 Read more about the Iñuit Tattooing Movement: http://springboardexchange.org/honoring-inuit-culture-traditional-tattoos/ https://uphere.ca/articles/between-lines I've taught many students who were on specialized plans due to their behavior or infractions they'd received. In the Winter of 2015 I began a teaching residency at a school that hadn't met its adequate yearly progress goals in four years and was likely going to be gutted the next year. The fifth grade class I adopted had been abandoned, by their first teacher, who abruptly quit a month before, and then the substitute who had let them a week before. It was really two classes smooshed together and included a group of five boys who were struggling with authority and anger.
After seeing the curricula we were about to dive into, the teachers who had been there longer, including an aide that worked directly with the group of five, advised me not to include them in the program. The material was too hard, what was required of them not possible. I learned they each had come from very challenging home environments. A few them had no homes. The teachers' insight showed me how deeply these students needed to be engaged at school. Needed to be given space to try, to learn, to face challenging and scary things and to succeed. All boys were given that space and chose to participate until the end. I hope the residency helped all students in that class feel capable, valued and empowered. I've taught many students who speak English as a second language. One of the classes I was most impressed by was a class of 6th and 7th grade students, all of which had very recently moved to Boston from Cape Verde. Some just a few weeks prior. All of the students were nervous about speaking English and very shy. In addition to adjusting to a new country, a new education system and a new landscape, they were also just as self-conscious as any other kids in 6th and 7th grade!
I remember one young man, Xavier, who was a bit older because he wasn't quite ready to go into eighth grade, stumble as he tried to say a particularly challenging word during the performance. It was a tough word, even for a native English speaker: Alcibiades. He froze. The class froze. The audience froze. I waited. I saw him look down to his feet and then glance up in my direction. I smiled. I knew where he was in that moment because we'd been there before. He would stumble in class, too, and sometimes would look to me anxiously afterward feeling insecure that he didn't know how to say something. In class, I would smile and tell him it's ok, try take a breath and sound it out. On stage, he smiled. He took a breath and syllable by syllable said in a soft but clear voice: "Al-ci-bi-a-des." You could feel the tensity lift in the room. Looking around, I only saw smiling faces in the audience, silently supporting Xavier's efforts, and success. On his way back to his seat (which was on stage), he gave a few of his seated classmates low high-fives as he walked past their seats. He was beaming. That classes performance wasn't the loudest, wasn't the biggest and wasn't the flashiest but it was the most honest. It was a thoughtful performance with intention and focus. It was brave. The courage and dedication those students had during that residency has not been matched in any classes I've taught since. It was an honor to work with them. by Aaluk Edwardson
crash. tumble. still. The waves come in, loud and crashing, onto a cold and rocky beach. As they recede they are followed by a cascade of small still-wet rocks. Tumbling down, they sound like an echo of the wave that has just refreshed the shore. crash. tumble. still. The rocks, small and slick fall together as if reaching back to what came before. I sit close, watching not wet but immersed. crash. tumble. still. I spot a moment in between. A pause, maybe for reflection. The waves recede, and in their leaving, silently beckon as they journey back into the changing waters of the sea. Then do the rocks immediately follow tumbling down as if to say: come back. Until effortlessly the rocks stop. The sound of tumbling echoes quickly away. In this moment, the waves are still. In this moment, the rocks sit. In this moment, there is not what came before and there is no after. In this moment, there is just this moment. crash. tumble. still. The next moment comes and with it a new wave. The rocks and the shore are engulfed. Refreshed. By new waves of change that carry with them momentum from the sea. |
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