Kari’s Voluspa

Things that concern the health of our Folk Soul,our Human Soul, and our Planetary Soul.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

I am a Völva. Völva is Old Norse for “staff carrier,” the traveling spiritual guide learned in the ways of my European/Scandinavian Folk Soul. Like Thorbjorg from Eric the Red’s Saga, I am invited into communities to lead ceremony, share information, impart wisdom, and perpetuate the folk ways through song, story, and dance. I heal oorlag at it's source and read wyrd for individuals and groups.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Working with Wood

Today I cut down the plum tree. It was into the neighbors garage foundation. The branches rubbed on the roof tiles and it didn't make too many plums. The city (Minneapolis) asked us to keep the branches out of the alley...well, it was quite a big tree. A couple of years ago I started three of it's babies to growing. So to make room for grandpa's fishing boat I took the plum down. I will make runes of some of it, stavs of some of it. Some of it will go to our neighbor boy for his smoker...he's a saucier extraordinaire at age 15. The main part I saved for myself was the fehu that the young branches made off the main stem. I will make a Yule candle holder out of that part and honor the life of that poor tree. I counted about 18 rings.

The twin plums that I left will have lots of sunlight now. We took out the outside chicken pen. Katie never hangs out in there anyhow. So we moved our firewood storage, chopping, and sawing opperation to the otherside of the shed.

The squirrels chatted and scolded me about that tree for around two hours.

Ratatosk the world tree squirrel will spread the news that another tree is down but the ones under it's canopy are being well cared for. And that Grandpa Cliff's boat will have a good home. He is sailing accross the veils now. We will miss him.

In this way, I work runes all day long, every day.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Why a RuneBlog?

Some of you have requested that I concentrate some comments on the runes. So this is a great format for this concept.

Let's start by drawing at random a rune from one of my sets (www.karitauring.com)

R
Rad
Wheel

The journey is long and arduous but the horse is swift and sure. The horse is the process and relationship by which you are able to move these great streaches of world. Take care of the process. That is your task.

The journeyman's rune. So you wrote your songs, learned your instrument and are ready to go out and share your work. That is the image of this rune for me (Kari). It signals a chance to perform. I see the arduous task...perhaps a better translation would be, it will take diligence to get there with all the lessons learned so you must take your time and enjoy the journey because it is a life's work!

Wheels in sanskrit are chakras. From our common indo-european roots, the wheels of chakras and energy centers would have been understood by the Nordic peoples of 2 - 8 thousand years ago. It is evidenced in their artwork.

At any rate, the wheels of the chakras must turn at a certain rate and in certain relationships to one another based on the work the physical body is doing. This rune indicates a time when attention must be paid to the intention of the physical body and the variant speeds and relationships of the chakras must stay in allignment with that.

There is a journey. Think if the charriot wheels are out of allignment and the goal for the moment is a watering hole and your horse takes off at full gallop...yikes!

More on Grants

One of the main reasons people don't get grants...they don't apply. Now, why wouldn't they? Fears get in the way. Fears of rejection, not being good enough, the feeling that we have to justify what we are doing makes us mad, possibly fear of success...if we get a grant our level of excellence is raised! I often hear people say "they are never looking for what I do...or...I'm not enough of a minority, they will never accept my application..." hmmmm. Much of this, I think, is a fear of speaking one's own truth. A fear that who you are as an individual will somehow go unvalidated or even chastised. Pretty human.

I've been told that if I don't get a grant the first time to keep applying. They just might be keeping an eye out for me!

Friday my 10 year old son and I drove down to the Bush Fellowship office in St. Paul to deliver the work he had seen me pondering over for the last week or so. We had a lot of fun. What did I teach him at age ten? That writing grants is fun and not at all scary. That the process itself has lessons and the outcome, while variable never takes away from the lessons of the process.

There are other grants sitting on my desk now. One other main reason that folks may not apply for things is that it really does take some time to write them. Yet again, time spent pondering my work is time well invested!

So to you, dear readers, I would say: If there is something you want to go for and are being held back by fears or apparent lack of time, just dig in and go for it!

Yours,
Kari

Monday, October 17, 2005

Bush Artist Fellowship

Glorious autumn days are spent with sun shine and my computer. Looking through all the photos of the past two years of performances with Maren placing them in Powerpoint...digging up audio files from since 1999!

One thing that writing a grant proposal does is lets me see and appreciate the massive ammount of work I have done in the last year or two. The website lets me see all the work I have done but putting it together in a grant makes me think about the future as well.

More shows, more collaborations, more costumes!

I love this work.

Thanks to everyone who helps make it happen!

Kari

Monday, October 10, 2005

Incite Hope

Was the theme at Patrick's Cabaret this past weekend.
There will be a benefit Yule Party at Patrick's Cabaret. The guest who brings with them an LPG projector which will remain at Patrick's Cabaret from December 22nd, 2005 forward, will receive a very special prize.
See the details at http://karitauring.com

Gahndi/Ghandi is quoted to have said "be the change that you want to see in the world."

And to be the change, I need to see the change.

So this is what it looks like:

Ecolab calls up Patrick's Cabaret and says, "Hi, hey we wanted to do a presentation over here at our big meeting. We were wondering, do you loan or rent out your equipment? How much does it cost to get a professional performance artist to create this presentation? Would the price drop if we had our own gear? Ok well, could you give my number to the woman who performed the night we had 20 folks down from Ecolab afer work on Friday? Thanks so much. Keep up the great work of keeping culture alive. "

See it happen!
- with no attachments to the outcome,
Kari