SILENCE BECKONS -THE NORWEGIAN TRAIL
SILENCE BECKONS -THE NORWEGIAN TRAIL
I was invited as a special guest
speaker and trainer to talk about Indian myths parallel to myths from the
Norwegian folk tales at a Folk house school in Kristanstad -Northern part of
Norway.
I was lucky to be invited for both training
and sharing stories to the young students . Traveling that far I also planned
to visit the Fjords to experience the
path of the Vikings. Vikings were the seafaring Norse people
from southern Scandinavia (in present-day Denmark, Norway and
Sweden) who from the late 8th to late 11th centuries pirated, raided and traded
from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of Europe, and
explored westward to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland.
I traveled overnight by a train from
Gothenberg in Sweden to Kristanstad in Norway. I was welcomed by my host at the Folk
high school (folkehøgskole
)- (Norway has nearly 70 such schools
that offer theatre and Arts for two years if you have finished high school and would
like to attend a Folk High school. )
What Is a
Folk High School?
Folk high
schools (folkehøgskole) are often called the world's freest schools.
These schools have no grades, no rigid curriculum and no exams. We happen to
believe that you learn better without this kind of pressure.
At a folk
high school, you get to practice what you learn, not merely immerse yourself in
its theory. Supervised and encouraged by dedicated teachers, you find yourself
a member of a small class, generally consisting of only 10 to 20 students.
A folk high
school year lasts nine months, from August to May. Most students attend folk
high schools right after graduating from high school (upper secondary school).
Most folk high school students are between 18 and 25 years, but a few schools
accept 16-year-olds, too. No folk high school has an upper age limit.
Joint
Classes
These are
scheduled classes that all students at the school attend together. They can be
anything, from literature, choir, dance, physical activity, social science,
Saturday seminars and philosophy.
My train passed through the icy rivers
and it was paradise on Earth. Little waterfalls of ice and ice fields stretched throughout the journey. The train even stopped at a station called FINSE
where cycles were parked on both sides of the railway track that was built
across the lakes of water and ice. The waves would come and splash on the sides
of the platforms. Most of the platforms were empty and for an Indian it seemed
as if people never existed. As I took
the bus first to my host at the Folkhouse
theatre school I passed through the Sognsvann lake.
It was late evening and there were boats with tiny lanterns hanging and truly it looked like Heaven on Earth. To me it seemed as if the Gods were waiting to ferry you across to the other world. Having completed my assignment I was excited to travel by the cruise to the Fjords.
I only heard the
waves lap the sides of the cruise and stretch themselves towards the mountain’s
feet so gently that they looked like
mermaids at sea. The Meditative journey made me unaware of my existence until
the cold winds tried to whisper the mysteries of the fjords in my ears.
As I looked up at the
twilight sky and then the mountain it felt like they were unfolding the
mysteries of a bygone era as they stood dark and majestic on both sides of the
sea. THAT MOMENT helped me touch the doorway of my inner self. I felt both awe
and wonder at the same time. The Silence was sacred.
This was the Gudvangen Fjord I was passing through. The word “fjord” is originally Old Norse and means "a place used for passage and ferrying". The fjords are a proof that the Vikings had their roots here.The waterfalls of Kjelfossen was breathtaking. It is one of the highest waterfalls in Norway. The falls are located near the village of Gudvangen in Vestland county. With a total fall height of 705 metres,the waterfall is listed as the 18th tallest waterfall in the world.
A fjord is a story of water, ice
and mountains. Fjords are long, narrow inlets with steep sides or cliffs. They
are formed through glaciers deepening existing valleys, and water and ice
gradually wearing down the mountain masses.
In Norway, we have had a total
of 40 ice ages of varying durations. During each of the ice ages, ice, melt
water and gravel have worn away the rock. The result after each ice age is
deeper and deeper valleys. The glaciers, water and gravel eventually carve out
such a deep valley that the sea starts to flood in. This is how the Norwegian
fjords were created.
The Norwegian fjords are truly a
stunning sight to behold. I reached Bergen from where I had to take the train
back to Gothenberg Sweden.
Well as I alighted I only missed one thing. No semblance of vegetarian food and I was hungry having had some baked potatoes for breakfast. I finally took the two sides of the bread they use for the hamburgers and added some Mustard and ate it hungrily. My mind was full…
Man will never be able to see the true
nature of life and death, as long as he believes himself to be an independent
entity- an inevitable byproduct of ego.
How and by what means then, can we
break though and transcend our habitual ways of life which is also Non
creative? It is for each one of us to seek and strive to add that little Cosmic
way to help our fellow citizens to see the Limitless possibilities of nature
and strengthen the positive thoughts of living and Dying to the past
meaningless ways and mend ourselves to help our Earth.
In the
1300s, The Black Death touched two-thirds of Norway’s population, which left
them economically and politically disadvantaged for years. With the deaths of
so many of their clergymen, who also happened to be the few people at the time
who knew how to write, Norwegian literature and folklore would remain an oral
tradition for a good 250-300 years more. During the Middle Ages, the rest of
Europe was writing down poetry and prose, but Norway had only their oral
traditions to rely on for the preservation of their history, customs, knowledge
and stories.
Norwegian
folk tales breathe life into the glaciers and fjords where spirits dwell and
trolls make their homes. Simultaneously grotesque and quaint, Norwegian fairy
tales are anything but a nursery or children’s story. Sometimes Norwegian fairy
tales are downright scary, but in being so, they are also gripping and
exciting.
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