Illustration by Kimberly Ardis Panitchiaq Sigvaun Jorgensen
Spirituality
Martha Nazuruk
Noorvik 8th grade
Pray to our lord,
Talk to our spirit,
To our lord from the sky to the sea.
The people can be
Powerful women
and men who
Tell stories from the long long time ago.
Photo by Crystal Tickett, Ambler
Fourth grade
Kiana
Living things have a spirit that sounds like something in your
dreams of whatever you did when you were small.
All things have
a spirit.
A person who believes in a higher power and being in contact
with it is spiritual.
You should believe in Spirits. You will
have better luck if you believe in spirits and don’t brag or say
you’re better than others. Believe
in God and Jesus. If you’re a good hunter don’t
brag about it.
All living things have souls. A tree doesn’t
have a soul unless someone puts a dead man’s body in
the tree. The man’s spirit
will haunt the tree. The same goes for a mountain.
Photo courtesy
Kotzebue First Baptist Church
Kimberly Ardis Panitchiaq
Sigvaun Jorgensen
Kotzebue High School
Where there is HOPE,
there is FAITH.
Let us expect good things.
Where there is FAITH,
there is LOVE.
Let us believe.
Where there is LOVE,
there is PEACE.
Let us embrace one another.
Where there is PEACE,
there is no conflict,
pain or fear.
So let us live as we should,
in harmony with
ourselves, others and God.
Photo courtesy of Hannah Loon/NANA
Spirituality
Asik
Noorvik Anchorage
My first experiences with the term spirituality came
from the upbringing I had as a child at fish camp. There I
learned about
the true spirit
of life, my connection with the earth and its creatures.
I would awaken to the buzz
of mosquitoes in my ear, to the sound of flies creating
their larvae and the smell of sourdough hot cakes frying on the
grill.
If there ever is a time in my life when I need
to return to true spirituality, my memories suffice.
The gruff
voice of
my Taata
as he shuffled from task to task, preparing meals
for us in his unassuming and gentle way. The
sound of curlews swooping, cranes calling to their
mates, the splash of a beaver’s tail. Or,
the lone loon singing his haunting song, the winter
ice
crashing past, leaving
us waiting on our stilted caches
for the water
to subside.
One of Webster’s definitions for
spirituality states, “the
rights, jurisdictions, tithes, etc. belonging to
the church or to an ecclesiastic.” Initial
contact with the Christian church occurred in the
eras of our forefathers and became an enigma to
myself,
an internal
conflict that has
enacted itself in many ways.
The arrogant assumption
that assimilation and acculturation was what the
Native peoples needed to provide the
avenue for Manifest
Destiny
does not
sit well in my gut. The near extinction of the
traditional dance, the eloquent
language, the true spiritual connection to our
past, is part of my own history and existence.
The shame-based
messages
of perfectionism, have-to-ism,
should-ism and a god that sends people to hell
is not my definition of spirituality. Yet I say
these
words
with
hesitation
and
almost an ingrained fear that indeed this is the
way it is. My grandparents
were pastors
of this ecclesiastic production and I lived the
fine line of not quite making the mark and running
from
it.
Hence the undeniable rage and fear that dominated
my adult life for many years. Finding my place
in this internal
struggle has
been,
and continues
to be, a personal challenge. Today I live in Western
society,
working with young children, bringing them to my
humanness, my passion for
knowledge and my desire to grow. These values passed
on to me by my grandparents are
my pillar.
There are no words to describe the feeling
of holding a little hand in trust. I also bring into this
picture my
struggle
with alcoholism
and materialism, a painful path of discovery.
Yet my world in the urban setting is only a breath
away from
the fish
camp. I
need only close my eyes and feel
the deep currents of the river flowing by, the
voices of my past, my strength. I remember Aana
warning
of the big
fish
in the river
and telling stories
of qayaqs being swallowed whole. When I think
of that gaping darkness and fear of that depth, I
know it’s
all connected . . .
“ When I think of spirituality, I think of fish
camp. And there I shall ever return.”
Asik
. . . Today I no longer live in the grasp of my addiction.
I live with purpose,
hope and dignity, knowing that I, among many,
have been given the gift of life. The disconnectedness that
I felt
for many
years is
easing and I
know that like the river meandering gently by,
so will my understanding of our Creator.
I share with you
the fear and hesitation in dancing my first dance. The freedom I felt
stepping out onto the
grass and moving in rhythms
of my ancestors.
The knowledge in my brain that it was just
a test, and yet I remained for the last dance. The shattering
of age-old
domineering opinions
of the conquerors. It is indeed I who must
live and accept
my
place in this
world of conflict.
Photos courtesy of Hannah Loon/NANA
There was a time when I
chose to remain in the realm and confinement of Webster’s
working definition of spirituality. And
maybe, for a time, I had no choice, or so I thought.
Today, what
remains is
the freedom of discovery.
I no longer choose to be bound by fear
and I can laugh when I run the water through
my coffee
pot and have
forgotten
the grains.
I also choose not to apologize
for my strong views and words, despite the overwhelming
need to run
and hide
underneath a rock. Maybe in sharing
my personal experience as a Native
woman, living in a world of many discrepancies,
I have touched
another human
being.
My wish for my two children
is that they may grow without fear,
with the desire to run
with the wind, to dance shamelessly
to the drum beat and bow to the
wonder
of a Creator
we know little of.
There are no words
to describe the joy in explaining to my son that sometimes
it does rain and shine
at the same
time.
Rainshine.
Yes, there may be a brink
of no return in the Biblical sense,
but
I do not close any doors. Maybe the
answer lies
in a building,
maybe
it does
not. Maybe
the answer lies within
our inner beings, reaching out for
the hand of another. When I think
of spirituality,
I
think
of fish camp.
And there
I shall ever return.
Iñupiat
Ilitqusiat
