Futhark? What's a Futhark?

Futhark? What's a Futhark?

The first six runes of the Norse alphabet are the representation of the sounds that create the word 'futhark.' Rune stones -- large stones with runic inscriptions -- have been discovered in Heavener, Oklahoma, and in Kensington, Minnesota. Are they authentic? Did Vikings in fact travel deeper into the continent than Leif Eiriksson's camp in Newfoundland (pronounced New-FOUND- lund by Canadians).

Futhark - the runic alphabet

Man has always been a seeker of adventure, curious, a creature desirous of finding out what is around the next corner. If a camp was created in the Americas, as has now has been firmly established via archaeological evidence, then what kept one or two or more of those curious souls from wandering deeper into the continent?

Read about the Heavener rune stone.

http://www.midwesternepigraphic.org/heavener01.html

I would go. Would you?

Unfortunately in both cases -- Heavener and Kensington -- skeptics step forward to call fraud. But are they? The runes are intricately carved in stone, to what end? What does one have to gain spending endless hours creating these intricate tools of communication, these works of art, just to fool us?

We were taught that Columbus "discovered" America. I agree that his exploration led to the era of European colonization around the world  (for better or worse is another topic altogether) but "discover"? There have been people wandering the Americas for millenia. Many of them left behind the artifacts of their journeys. We're finding new evidence everyday.

The rune stones left by the wandering Norse people are written using the Futhark, their alphabet. I for one believe the Vikings were explorers. They are infamous because of their raids in northern Europe, but they were human and humans are curious beings. The Futhark will help us to understand.

Several runes figure prominently in the saga Dance of the Hummingbirds. Lars Svensson will eloquently explain    them to you.

Writing "Dance of the Hummingbirds"

Revealing parts of her soul to the world through the characters is a risk every novelist takes

 I have been asked: "Is this you?" My answer: "Sometimes."   

My novel Dance of the Hummingbirds is the saga of a Tucson archaeologist who sets out to find answers to the mysterious disappearance of the Hohokam -- people who populated southern Arizona until about 1450 AD. She discovers an artifact that takes her across the continent and deep into her own soul.

The novel is now available at all of the major ebook retailers and I'm getting wonderful feedback from people who have read it. Buy it for your Kindle, Nook, SonyReader, or download a free Reader app https://ebookstore.sony.com/download/ to your laptop or desktop. 

As you read you may in fact find bits and pieces of a novelist's soul weaved through the characters. If you like the story please rate it on Amazon.com. 

Until next time, don't be afraid to dance. 

A Tribute to my Father

Today my heart is full of memories. A flood of emotion and thoughts of childhood greet me on this morning each year. Some I push away and others I savor as each child of a great man should. My father was a great man. Despite his stature, he loomed large in our lives -- caressing, demanding, pushing us to become strong in a world of uncertainty. He urged us to "just try it," never allowing us to shrink back from challenges we faced.

I love you Papa and wish you were still here to celebrate today and tomorrow, but you taught me that this is not the way of life. So, today I cling to fond memories and offer a poem about a place shared with my father and his father and his father. 

The largest natural lake in Indiana -- Lake Wawasee -- holds our souls.

 I am grateful for all my fathers reaching back to Leonhard Buergi who ventured from the Alsace across an ocean to freely practice his faith.

 (Note: Formatting poetry on this website is challenging. That is my disclaimer. Nothing more to add)

By the Lake

At night when I return to musty smells of cottage walls

and soft murmurs of grown-ups on the old screened porch below

The crickets chee-ree, and a squirrel’s clatter in the attic we thought was a wolf,

and the oarlocks’ creak as old Harley and Wilma head out of an evening

to catch a pike for supper, late.

Quiet laughter is muffled by ripples dissolving into the cracked seawall at twilight.

Waves caress velvet nightfall after

                     a day of frolic and bluster

                            tumbling down the whitewashed dock

                                  curled tight  inside the tube of an old tractor tire   

                                           crashing into a gumbo of giggles,

                                                         no eyes poked out on air valves.                                                                                                            

               Eight tousled cousins mewling and tumbling like kittens at play,

               pausing only to sit in a row on the flocked-green couch watching  

               the mantle clock tick tock the long hour after dinner

Until We could play again without the dreaded cramp and certain drowning.

Oh to once more watch minnows massing along the seawall as daylight ebbs behind the monastery turned Sphinx Hotel across the liquid expanse of three miles,

Nibbling emerald threads swaying with the tide, darting into the crack and and           right out again, as children do.

                Mother mallard leading her clamorous charge on parade,

                bobbing for bits of day-old crusts tossed by

Eight tousled cousins sitting in a row on weed-stained cement of the old seawall.

            And pop bottles strewn ‘cross that old sycamore stump, felled

             in wintertime before trucks drove right onto the ice to haul its immensity away.

             And cattails, chocolate lollipops rising straight out of lily pads, bursting

             into tufts  of playful naiads in late summer.

Misty mornings, with not a whisper of sound except waves knocking on old walls,

When that old green rowboat heads to the fishing hole where blue gills are bigger than a man’s hand.

That’s what Gramp says. “Right out there, straight off  the pier.”

A tendril of memory nudges and I return to lie awake on the lumpy mattress among tousled cousins,

Yearning  to be all grown up to stay up late murmuring softly on the old screened porch By the Lake.

What Do You Believe?

I'm home from Tennessee and a journey back to my childhood. Reminiscing with my family takes me to places I haven't visited for years. The experience is at the same time joyous and heartbreaking. As I grow wiser along this grand journey, I often reflect on what was and what could have been, but the greatest challenge for me has been one of spirit.

Jennifer Pastiloff is a new FaceBook friend I am following and she asked a simple question today:

“Do you believe in God? What does it mean to be spiritual, to you? Whether you believe in God, or something God-like or The Universe or none of the above, I would love to hear your thoughts below. Intelligent and respectful comments only.”

— Jennifer Pastiloff

Pausing to consider the grandeur.

After some thought I answered the following: 

I believe in God because I was brought up to believe in God. What God is to me has changed many times through the years as spirituality is ever-present in my life. I no longer subscribe to any particular religion because my God is bigger than any of them. When I was young I felt very close to God and have explained that as having just left the womb of heaven; As I grow older, I am rediscovering the longing to be reunited with an entity that is beyond my understanding. I have always loved the verse from I Corinthians, Chapter 13: Now I see through a glass darkly, but then shall I see face to face. God is beyond, but some day I will know.

Now I ask you to weigh in on this question. Lillie Lisle explores the question from many perspectives in Dance of the Hummingbirds. If you would like to know more about Lillie's thoughts, I challenge you to read her story. For now, I'd like to know what you think. 

Continue to enjoy your journey and from time to time, stop a moment to dance.

 

Romance of the Sea

When I plotted my blogging course, I decided I should stay focused on the themes of my novel Dance of the Hummingbirds.  But, after a good deal of reconsidering -- this is after all my musings, my journey, although indeed  I have invited you along -- I must turn again to my passion for the sea.

​The Siren's Lure

But “aha,” you say. “The sea is a theme in your novel.”

I’m glad to see you’re paying attention. Yes, Thorynn shares my passion for the sea and I will continue to explore his passion in the sequel to Dance. It’s currently in its formative period.

My passion for sailing is purely romantic. Being elbow deep in engine parts, sanding and staining brightwork, or fiddling with navigation equipment really isn’t my cup of tea. As a certified bareboat sailor I do know my way around the technical side of a vessel, and wouldn’t be worth my salt if I wasn’t prudent about safety and maintenance, but my reveries have never indulged much in the way of bilge water, burping engines, and GPS (God please save us) devices. I plot my course on a paper chart; love the physicality of manually raising the main and cranking in the headsail to catch just the right breath of wind. My prayer to Neptune usually goes “please watch over the holding tank and keep it holding.”

It’s the moment when the sails are set, the winds are fair, and the seas are following, when I just become… It’s the majesty and the power and the awe of the sea that tugs at my soul.

This is  the sea that tempted Thorynn, and lured him on an odyssey to lands unknown.

I wonder why?

What are We Humans Really? or, Ontogeny Does What?

Exploring the Edge - A Blog RSS

One of the arcane snippets bandied about by my Dad while I was growing up was ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.  

“Do you know what that means?” He looked me directly in the eye, because an answer was expected. My reply?  Always “no.” Dad invariably followed with “Well then, go look it up.”

I would answer with an, “ok,” and hurry off to more important things like canoeing, trapezing into the river,  or cheer practice.

For reasons unknown, the phrase stuck with me. Perhaps it was the enigma, or its rhyme, or the way it rolled off my tongue when it occasionally crossed my mind. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny – mysterious words with a musical sound – became encapsulated and stored someplace along the periphery of conscious and unconscious, randomly surfacing to amuse me and, of course, remember Dad.

I went on to college, majored in psychology and anthropology, and never heard those words – ever. Time went by. Weeks became months and then years. At some point I found myself becoming ever more intrigued by psychologist Carl Jung, and his theories of the unconscious. Not in a formal sense, mind you, just curiosity.

Oddly, several years ago my son Robert gave me a book for Christmas, Pilgrim by Timothy Findley is a fictional tale of Carl Jung’s life. There within the story were those magical words – ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny – along with a detailing of Jung’s idea that we may inherit the memories of our ancestors, caching them away in our subliminal archives.

You bet I looked it up!

​Haekle's model of development

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is the now debunked theory posited by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in the mid-1800s. Its premise holds that as an advanced species develops, it passes through the evolutionary stages represented by adult organisms of more primitive species. For example, a human embryo will undergo changes in utero in a specific order from fish (gill slits that become ears) to amphibian to human. Each successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the adult forms appearing in its evolutionary history.

So what does all of this mean to my writing journey, my story? The answer is a question: Do we hold the collective memories of our ancestors filed away in that 90% of our brain we call the unconscious? If we do, are dreams, paranormal and déjà vu occurrences merely the resurfacing of our grandparents’ life experiences? Are past-life regressions not about our lives at all, but rather a prodding and poking of the primal memory bank, a stirring up of the daily lives of our ancestors? Do we have a library of our own evolutionary history stored in the deep recesses of our temporal lobes, more easily accessed by some of us than others? This is what Lillie Lisle, a curious young archaeologist living in Tucson, Arizona, seeks to know. Dance of the Hummingbirds is her search for meaning, her story of journeying into the depths of the psyche.

It is my hope that scientists who are conducting new studies on our brains reexamine their expulsion of Haeckel’s theory. Maybe ontogeny really does recapitulate phylogeny?

Yes, I looked it up. Thanks Dad.

A Tribute to My Mothers

Exploring the Edge - A Blog RSS

My DNA is ancient. The bits and pieces that formed in my mother's womb were formed in her mother's and her mother's. The mitochondria is passed unchanged from mother to daughter and has been so since the dawn of humanity.​

This morning, I reflect on motherhood and what that means in my life. I think of Jerusha who traveled dusty trails to reach Indiana in the early 1800s, losing her husband to an early death along the journey. And I wonder about Adeline Mosher and Alice Gunter, Jerusha's daughter and granddaughter. What were their lives like in the early days of our country? Farm wives who struggled, carrying the joys and sorrows of raising their families, sometimes burying their children before their parents, and survived. I remember fondly my grandma Edith Munson and the the beautiful Christmas treasures she baked. Sylvia Hasty died too young. My mother was a rock for her family. Her death left a hole in our souls that we still are working to fill.

I carry on their memories and their genes, and because of their lives, I live mine forwarding those bits and pieces of DNA on into the future through Stephanie Herrick and her daughter Kylie Rios. At nine, Kylie has no thought of the history coursing through her veins. But she will. 

​Today, I offer a poem of gratitude to my mother, and her mother, and her mother -- and to all the daughters who will be.

​Glads by the stable door

Gratitude

Gladioli growing beside the stable door.

Mother on her knees clawing loam, searching for bulbs.

Separating, digging, replanting. Her connection with the earth.

Solid values embedded in fertile soil.

The ethos of the Heartland – God, country, family, fulfilling promises made.

My heart swells with gratitude for that great woman, on her knees nurturing seeds sown by God.

An Introduction

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), acclaimed American author, said this:

"You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life."

My life has been lived with Ms. Nin's philosophy close to my heart. Who says "you can't" destroys -- destroys dreams, destroys innovation, destroys lives. Who takes control and focuses on dreams and goals, lives fully. I choose to live fully.

Many years have passed in bringing Dance of the Hummingbirds ​to life. It is ​a saga that merges my passions for history, archaeology, and the capacity of the human mind. During the conception, development, and now birth of Dance  I have become fascinated with how people lived in the Americas and in Scandinavia 1000 years ago.  Time and again I asked the question, "did they meet?" We don't have the evidence yet, but I believe people have been hopping the globe for many millennia.  We now know they did indeed meet on the shores of Newfoundland, but what about in the interior of the continent. Humans after all have been great explorers since they ventured forth from Africa some 40,000 years ago.

"Hummingbirds?" you ask. What is the significance of the Hummingbirds? The short answer: During my writing journey when I could no longer peck another key, or force another idea out of my noggin,  I sat on my porch and watched the "hummer hawks" (so called by some Native American peoples). I watched them nest, and play, and spiral up into the air forming the image of the DNA helix. From those aerial displays came the dance. And on our DNA is the ancestral memory that we carry from our past and into the future. ​The novel will explain the rest of the story..

I will continue to explore these ideas and invite you to share the journey via this Blog, articles about hummingbirds, vikings, archaeology and such will fill the white spaces. The spaces will also be filled with poetry, to which you may wish to contribute, and I welcome your participation.  ​

Another day I will write about a dialogue between my Dad and me. It surrounds an old theory: Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny. Ernst Haekel's idea may just rise from the pile of the debunked and the heckled. I'm sure Dad would be pleased.

For now, live fully. And if you choose -- dance.​