DAV InsideAnde Somby

Ande was our shaman for a week.

He taught us how to find our ‘big antenna’ and opened us up to some sensitivities we did not know about.

He spoke of windows into life and transformations one needs to be capable of in or-der to keep a fluid thought process.

He spoke of androgenous shamans - those with multiple perspecitves:

the sensitivity of a man the sensitivity of the woman the sensitivity of the outsider

the male - female - otherness windows they gave these androgenous shamans multifaceted perspectives into life and great insight

Ande often mentioned the inside and the outsideThis is my account of the inside.

With a sensitivity and a strenght, the shaman is able to travel to the underworld and back.

to deal with strange place and ugly encounters.

His father told Ande a story of a stare-off with a wolf he once had.A weak wolf was being chased by a pack of other wolves and jumped into the Lavuu.

The man and the wolf looked at each other and ended up sharing the Lavuu and the fire for the night.

Later as he spoke with Ande, he told him the story and said: “ You have the eyes of a Wolf I once met...”

This gives an emphatetic wisdom towards animals.

This relationship with the wild gives man great responsibilites.

Everyone has an animal in them.

In the modern world, with all of our removal from nature through out standards of life, our technology, our hygene, our myth of the everyday, we move away from these animals that live inside of us.

As architects we need to be aware of this woven fabric of the everyday.

I wondered how the patterns on Ande’s clothes spoke about his history.

Athena, goddess of wisdom, was a proud and talented, young goddess. In times of peace, Athena taught Grecians about the arts. She herself was a skillful weaver and potter and always took pride in her pupils’ work, as long as they respected her.

One of Athena’s pupils was a maiden whose name was Arachne.

Arachne was known to have said,”I have achieved this marvelous skill due to my own talent, hard work, and efforts.”

Soon Athena heard of the boastings of Arachne and decided to speak to her.Arachne charged back to the old lady, “If Athena doesn’t like my words, then let her show her skills in a weaving contest.”

Athena accepted the contest challenge.Arachne’s attitude about her work showed that she felt her weaving was more lovely, but Athena felt it was an insult to the gods. ”Vain girl, since you love to weave so very much, why don’t you go and spin forever.”

Athena had turned Arachne into a spider.

So it is said that all spiders have been punished for Arachne’s boasting, since they are re-quired to live within their own webs. Since then spiders have been called arachnids.

And we have shunned these otherwordly insects into the dark world - our phobia of nature.

Heed the ancient myth of Arachne’s thread:

The Other World

Ande’s joiking was his way of speaking with the landscape.

As he joiked he told us to listen to all the noises coming from outside of the Lavuu.

It was as if it was amplified. cars. boats. yells. bulldozers. it was as if there was a full scale attack going on outside.

“Joiking is traveling into the deep”

Music is letting out the inner fire

After a few days in the Lavuu, we started to let our bodies’ minds take over and let our-selves be free of our preconception of where we were.

We really traveled into the depths.

The Lavuu took us there.

We created numerous new rituals in the Lavuu.

eating

singing

storytelling

building

Then Ande revealed to us that he was around for some pivotal mo-ments in Norway’s Sami history.....

He told us stories of his childhood.

Stories of his fathers life - a life inconceivable to him.

Ande’s father was a Reindeer herder.Sometimes he would get stuck in the outdoors in snowstorms.

He would have to sleep in between rocks through these deadly storms.

He would not wear socks - but would instead fill his shoes with a grass that would keep the warmth much better.

It was a state of mind - a toughness of dealing with extreme environments.

He possesed an intimate knowedge of the land and of his animals.

The Reindeer flock is a society.

You can’t off just any animal, you have to be able to read the flock- and the atmosphere between the reindeer.

He told us how the Sami and the Vikings had a good relationship during the Pagan times.

It was not until the christian colonization of Norway that they started to attack Sami beliefs.

He told us about the rifts the landscape. The rifts in Sami connections as children were sent off to Boarding schools.

There seemed to be an existential shame that was created in the Sami identity.

The anger at this betrayal and at these rifts -the loss of Sami culture got Ande riled up to a point where and he decided to become a Joiker.

And I belive it is his exposure to these injustices that moved him to study Law .

We cooked a reindeer.

The end