Katy's Canvas: Kush

Vladmir Kush

This weekend I went to my uncle David’s wedding. I used to think that weddings are boring and long, but now that I understand love a little bit more, I now realize it to be one of the happiest and most beautiful ceremonies there are. It’s also funny all the rituals there are, like whoever catches the bride’s bouquet is the next one getting married, and the groom not seeing the bride the entire day, and the fact that one can spend $1300 on a wedding cake.

It’s a form of art, really.

Ironically, when I was hanging out with my new friends last night, they kept talking about this “marzipan” stuff, and I was like what the hell is that. When they googled it, I had a great epiphany, and made the connection that the flowers made of sugar at my uncle’s wedding were made of marzipan. I found out you can practically make anything with it.

Now I know where babies come from.

This is my friend Franny’s online artist portfolio. Her shower concentration eternally changed the way I think about taking a shower.

http://francesmendeslevitin.carbonmade.com/

She does an exceptional job of portraying how the cleansing can sometimes feel like melting.

Melting off the bad parts of our day, or our insecurities, or just those things that restrict us.

In my environment and culture course, we learned about a Native-Canadian tribe called the “Ojibwa” who live in Ontario.

For those of you who don’t know, Ontario looks like this.

ontario

Don’t worry, I didn’t know what it looked like before I looked it up either.

These indigenous people believe that their dreams are just as much a part of their existence as being awake- they recall experiences from dreams as true events, or conversations they’ve actually had.

During their dreams, they can communicate with the spirits (what they call the "grandfathers”) that have taken various forms. For example, they may encounter an old woman, bear, or raccoon, in a dream who they suppose is a spirit who has gone through metamorphosis.

“The ‘dream visitors’ (ie pawaganak) interact with the dreamer much as human persons do”

Note: They legit believe that this stuff all happens daily. It’s the center of their culture (one dude said “the Ojibwa live in the school of dreams”).

At the same time that they can be visited by other metamorphasized people, spirits, or animals, they can also have their own adventures while they sleep.

“When a human being is asleep and dreaming his octcatcakwin (vital part, soul), which is the core of the self, may become detached from the body (miyo)…”

While the soul is detached, it can go about the world and have what they believe to be “real life” experiences during the night. Since the soul is separate from the body, they believe that

“the human self (soul) does not die; it continues its existence in another place, after the body is buried…”

Socrates explains this concept of immortality of the soul in Phaedo, when he says that things can never become their opposites (ice cannot become hot, or else it wouldn’t be ice). He argues that since the essence of the soul is that it brings life to whatever it embodies, it can never be dead, or it wouldn’t be a soul. Therefore the soul will always be alive.

Um, so anyway,

Some of them believe that they have taken the forms animals in the past, and take it as an extremely meaningful (metaphoric) event in their life.

Since spirits and humans can take the form of animals while they sleep, they consider animals as fully cohesive peers. They are also always very skeptical of one another because they never know if they’re talking to the actual person they think they’re talking to, or a spirit who has taken their form.

“This is another illustration of the deceptiveness of appearances…The body of a sorcerer may be within sight in a wigwam, while ‘he’ may be bearwalking.” (Hallowell 71)

So basically what I gathered from the paper is that you can never trust anyone, ever.

What would anthropologists say about this?