I have been talking to my father a lot recently. He has been exploring the depths of Buddhism, and has some especially profound things to say. This has come at a time when I have been doing a lot of thinking on connectivity in general, but specifically how it relates to experimental archeology and my intentions for study.I have begun to feel very connected to the people I am studying. I dream of misty hills that dive into the clear cold Baltic sea. My thoughts are filled with images of a life not lived in this existence. And I wonder about the connectivity in the world. I feel tied to these North People; not just the Norse people of Gotland, but of all the people living so close to the Arctic Circle. There is frost in my veins....
As I look over the simple objects found in the graves of these people, I wonder about their lives... their conversations... their dreams.
I see a simple expression present in all of the artifacts of the Gautar, the Sevar, the Curonian, the Inuit, the Lapps, and the Sami. They shared an understanding of each other... they shared the ocean, the rock of ages, and the cold.
The similarity of the objects is uncanny. Yes, they differed in small ways only barely visible to experts; and yes, each culture had some major art or craft that the others didn't... but they shared so much. In the picture I have posted... Can you tell if these tools were made by the modern Inuit people, or ancient Norse people... ?
A connection between the ages seems to be evident as well. These people carried the tools of ages past as sacred objects meaningful on the deepest levels. They lived with the past in a way that our modern mind full of living not in the now, but in the next can not begin to comprehend.
It is these connections, these fuzzy edges between cultures, generations, and belief that have me captivated.
It is wondrous, it is beautiful, it is sacred...
It is magic!
