Author: Ask the Mountains

Uralic artist who loves photography, painting and nature. Born and raised in the European Arctic. I practice Dharma within the Amrita Mandala lineage. Welcome!
Acrylic painting, Adventure, Animals, Arctic, Art, Beauty, Indigenous, Landscape, Photography, Sámi, Sápmi

Always shifting

Ask the Mountains
“Just like water, snow and ice, life is always shifting, changing forms.” (This photo is from february 2017).
Beautiful texture and shapes in the frozen water.

One of my paintings inspired by the icy landscape:

Click to see bigger versions
My little pregnant polar bear. Wrote a post earlier about this painting 💜 Here she is framed.
    Adventure, Arctic, Everyday life, Landscape, People, Photography, Poems, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi

    Away, away..

    Ask the Mountains
    Senja island. The pointy peak is Segla. Hiked it once, amazing view. Apologies for grainy mobile shot, it doesn’t do it justice.
    I love driving. One of my happy places, for sure.

    “Away, away,—to the mountains away,
    Where the pine trees murmur and sway,
    And the foamy waterfalls sing and spring
    Over the boulders gray.

    Hills—
    Blue and green hills, near and far,
    The farther they lie, the better they are.
    The near ones I can climb and see
    But the beautiful far ones call to me”

    – Unknown

    Arctic, Beauty, Everyday life, Hair, Health, Indigenous, Landscape, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Uralic

    Snart november

    Ask the Mountains
    Fant meg en fin plass i fjæra til å meditere samt se på fargespillet på himmelen som alltid skjer nært mørketida.
    Alle bildene er tatt med mobilen, så beklager kvaliteten 🙈
    Frost 🍂
    Pastellhimmel.
    Regnbuefarger.
    Kaldere vær betyr store jakker og ullsjal ❤ Er ikke så mange jakker som passer over magen lenger 😄🤰 Månedene flyr forbi, er allerede i siste trimester 💜🌌

    Hvordan takler/liker du mørketida?

    Anthropology, Arctic, Awareness, Culture, Genealogy, Indigenous, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Uralic

    Ancient DNA shows the Sámi and Finns share identical Siberian genes

    Ask the Mountains

    “The first study on the DNA of the ancient inhabitants of Finland has been published, with results indicating that an abundance of genes reached Finland all the way from Siberia.

    This article I am sharing is from phys.org

    The genetic samples compared in the study were collected from human bones found in a 3,500-year-old burial place in the Kola Peninsula and the 1,500-year-old lake burial site at Levänluhta in South Ostrobothnia, Finland. All of the samples contained identical Siberian genes.

    Siberian origin remains perceptible

    The ancient DNA has also been compared to modern populations. Siberian origins are still visible in the Sámi, Finns and other populations of the Finno-Ugric language family.

    “However, it has been mixed up with the European genome. Of all European populations, modern Sámi are the most evident representatives of the Siberian genome. As for the title of the modern people with the largest Siberian genetic component, that privilege goes to the Nganasan people living in northern Siberia,” says Päivi Onkamo, head of the SUGRIGE project at the Universities of Helsinki and Turku.

    The project succeeded in mapping out the entire genome from the bones of eleven individuals. From the Kola Peninsula, the bones of six individuals were collected from a 3,500-year-old burial place, while those of two individuals were found from another location dating back to the 18th and 19th century. In the case of the bones found in the Levänluhta site in South Ostrobothnia, the entire genome was mapped for three individuals.”

    You can go to HERE to read the full article.

    Some other Uralic/Finno-ugric peoples with roots from Ural mountains, Siberia are the Nenets (previously called the Samoyeds), the Khanty, the Mansi, the Selkup and the Mari people. We also have very similar traditional costumes and of course traditionally being nomadic, following the reindeers, and sharing same langauge family. Maybe I will write a post on our traditional dresses.

    These findings also makes sense with my own FamilyTreeDNA results, although commercial DNA test kits are not super accurate:

    🙏🏼

    Arctic, Art, Beauty, Culture, Dharma, DIY, Dzogchen, Everyday life, Genealogy, Indigenous, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Sewing, Spirituality, Uralic, Vajrayana

    Things that are yours to keep

    Ask the Mountains
    Traditional headdress by me, shawl hand-me-down. Photo by Sebastian Wilches 2020.

    Some things I truly believe are yours to keep, that no one can take from you:

    Your spiritual practice. In my case, it is vajrayana buddhism. It has saved my life in many ways – both in dealing with chronic illness, but also the normal existential stuff like finding purpose and joy 🙂🙏🏼📿

    Your ambitions and dreams (if they come from a place of pure motivation and love). In my case now, it has been starting a little family with children 💜🤱

    Your ethnicity and ancestry, no matter how lost or scattered it is in this modern world. In my case from my personal experience, I feel very connected to my home in the Arctic and being uralic/finno-ugric. I didn’t as a kid and teenager, at all, but now as I am older, I feel like I can “own” it more. I don’t speak any of the uralic languages, and feel a sadness about this. A disconnection from my own culture. And a feeling of not belonging to a community, when they can’t speak to me. I hope my son will not feel as disconnected. But I have found other ways to express this – primarily through art and duodji. Not all languages are of verbal nature, but are equally important, I think. 🎨

    Your creativity. Not necessarily arts, but anything you find a solution to that involves stepping out of the habitual intellectual mind and into a state of spontaneity and flow.🌊

    Your struggles. This sounds negative, but for me I mean that my struggles are valid. I have a body that has its big share of physical problems, and I don’t mean to whine. At all! 🙂 Just to express that this is my reality, and that chronic (perhaps invisible to others) illness can happen to anyone, any time in life.💙

    Your love. This one sounds cheesy but I think we all can feel love and that we have love as a basic human need. To receive it and give it. And we all have different ways of showing it. I like giving gifts for example.. but am not so good verbally expressing how I feel. I like receiving kind loving deeds, but not to be smothered. So understanding how we show it differently is important too. I also believe that as humans we have the capacity to love many at the same time. Whether it is friends or partners, plural. Romantic, familial or platonic.❤

    Arctic, Art, Beauty, DIY, Indigenous, Landscape, Outfit, People, Photography

    Complementary colours

    Ask the Mountains

    Did you know there is a reason why orange+blue and yellow+purple work together so well? 🧡💙💛💜 They are considered complementary colours! “Complementary colours are pairs of colours which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale colour like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two colors. Complementary colours may also be called ‘opposite colours’.”

    Arctic, Awareness, Beauty, Culture, Dharma, Dzogchen, Indigenous, Meditation, Spirituality, Vajrayana, Yoga

    Gold hidden in its matrix

    Ask the Mountains
    “You might ask, ‟If I have Buddha nature, why can’t I perceive it right now?”
    It is because, like gold hidden in its matrix, that nature is hidden by our habits that we have accumulated since beginningless time. These habits have been created by our disturbing emotions and then reinforced by the actions that those disturbances have produced.”

    ~ Shechen Gyaltsab
    Animals, Arctic, Art, DIY, Landscape

    Hibernation

    Ask the Mountains
    32 x 24 cm, acrylic on multimedia paper
    “Dvale”. Means hibernation. Only pregnant polar bears hibernate 💙 was hard to paint her intirely inside the den, so she is just laying at the entrance waiting for her cubs.

    “During the fall, if a polar bear is pregnant, she digs a den into a snow drift. She then climbs into the hole and stays there to give birth and care for her cubs for the first few months of their life. She and her cubs will not emerge from the den until the spring. Male bears and non-pregnant females continue to roam and feed throughout the winter.”

    One of the absolute top animals on my list I wish to see in my lifetime.. Guess I need to head up to Svalbard for that!

    Arctic, Art, DIY, Everyday life, Jewellery

    Mandag

    Ask the Mountains
    Ramma inn dette bladet jeg malte for litt siden 🍁🎨
    Plantene mine ☺
    Kunst.
    Gjorde en giveaway i påska, her er det lille maleriet mitt (til høyre) i sitt nye hjem ☺
    Fikk en fin håndlagd gave!✨
    Dagboka mi 🦄 Elsker å skrive og føler det hjelper mye å få ting ned på papir. Også er det er pluss om den er søt.
    Animals, Art, Dharma, DIY, Hair, Pets, Photography

    Onsdag

    Ask the Mountains
    Kom meg ut en tur idag i finværet 🌞 Fortsatt kaldt, men mye lysere og snøen har begynt å smelte for fullt.
    Anskaffet meg en fredslilje. De er kjent for å være luftrensende. Elsker å omringe meg med planter. Håper jeg klarer å holde den i livet 😄🌿
    4 små 15 x 15 cm lerret. Skal prøve å lage en liten sesongserie; et maleri av sommer, av høst, vinter og vår!
    Solskinn og et ikonbilde fra Bulgaria.
    Loke på sjeselongen 🐶
    Adventure, Art, Everyday life, Landscape, Photography

    Ask the mountains – blog upgrade, new domain

    Ask the Mountains
    Me and my little racer car, Laura.
    Grøtfjord beach.

    Just updated my domain and header. All in all, still the same blog with same content; art, photography, occasional personal thoughts and ideas, adventures, health related stuff and maybe some tantra/dharma. The name Ask the mountains comes from my favourite song by greek artist Vangelis and swedish singer Stina Nordenstam.

    Animals, Art, DIY, Landscape, List, Photography

    World penguin day

    Ask the Mountains
    Acrylic on canvas from last summer.
    Photo by @tobiasvisuals
    So cute. Widowed penguins in Melbourne.

    Some cool penguin facts for world penguin day:

    – There are currently 17-26 types of penguins, depending on definition (I read many conflicting definitions). Emperor, adélie and macaroni penguins being my favourites 😁

    – Male penguins searches their habitat for the perfect stone to present their chosen female. They mate for life and they both take care of their offspring.

    – Penguins are defined as birds although they cannot fly. Their wings are made for swimming. They are great in water, but a bit awkward on land.

    – Penguin feathers are shorter and stiffer than most bird feathers, which makes penguins more streamlined in the water and traps more air to keep them warm.

    Southern rockhopper penguin, native to the Falkland Islands. Amazing photo 😄👌🏻
    Macaroni penguins. The most abundant penguin species.
    Emperor penguins. Tallest of the penguin species. “These penguins nest almost exclusively on Antarctic sea ice, making them the only bird species that never sets foot on land.”
    My little emperor penguin painting. Mother and baby.
    Fairy penguins, native to New Zealand.
    Adélie penguins, small and fierce.
    Everyday life, Landscape, People, Photography

    Spring in Tromsø, part 2

    Ask the Mountains
    Hair dresser. Norwegian and sámi road signs.
    People sitting at Solid café.
    Bastard bar and Huken pub.
    Taxidermy wolf with the cathedral in the reflection.
    Shop window.
    Sticker in window for a sámi publishing company.
    The candy shop
    Running girls statue by Italian artist.
    Hampen.
    Melting snow.
    Skansen.
    “One day everyone will die, every other day we will not.”
    New restaurant by the bridge.
    All the dry shampoo.
    Utepils
    Rakettkiosken.
    “Alt blir bra” – “Everything will be okay”.
    Arctic, Beauty, Culture, DIY, Hair, Indigenous, Outfit, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Sewing

    Feeling most like myself

    Ask the Mountains
    Always feel the most beautiful in my own handmade clothing and/or traditional clothing. Woolhat and skirt made by me 🙂
    Photos by Sebastian Wilches, edit by me.
    Not sure what I am doing with my hands, I never know how to hold them…(:
    Photo and edit by Sebastian Wilches (@wilchesfotografia)
    Kofte and wool hat made by me
    Mittens by my ‘mother-in-law’ Kristin (@dachsedilla)
    Photo by Sebastian Wilches, edit by me.