Category: Photoshoot

Adventure, Arctic, Art, Awareness, Beauty, Chronic illness, Culture, DIY, Duodji, Everyday life, Hair, Health, Indigenous, Jewellery, Knitting, Landscape, Make-Up, Neurological, Outfit, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Quotes, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Self portrait, Sewing, Spirituality, Uralic

My creative energy

Ask the Mountains
Can I just say, this is the best photo anyone has ever taken of me? Susann, thank you for capturing my essence. Here I am wearing a headdress and silk liidni I sewed myself, and the gákti summer dress is made by Nadezda Johnsen.
Autumn wind…🧡🍂🙌🏼
Life is a lot of chopping wood and carrying water… I think that is how the saying goes 😉

“Your healing journey will, of course, include a consideration and use of all the best tools modern medicine can offer you, as well as the best tools holistic healing can offer you. From a deeper perspective, illness is caused by unfulfilled longing. The deeper the illness, the deeper the longing. It is a message that somehow, somewhere, you have forgotten who you are and what your purpose is. You have forgotten and disconnected from the purpose of your creative energy from your core. Your illness is the symptom: The disease represents your unfulfilled longing. So above all else, use your illness to set yourself free to do what you have always wanted to do, to be who you have always wanted to be, to manifest and express who you already are from your deepest, broadest, and highest reality. If indeed you have discovered yourself to be ill, prepare yourself for change, expect your deepest longing to surface and to be brought to fruition. Prepare yourself to finally stop running and turn and face the tiger within you, whatever that means to you in a very personal way. I suggest the best place to start to find the meaning of your illness is to ask yourself: “What is it that I have longed for and not yet succeeded in creating in my life?”’ (From Barbara Brennan’s book Emerging Light)

Adventure, Arctic, Art, Awareness, Beauty, Everyday life, Landscape, Photography, Photoshoot, Sápmi

Photo series: Arctic autumn, pt. 1

Ask the Mountains
Yellow birch leaves bathing in the sunlight. Ramfjorden/Gáranasvuotna.
Calm sea….
🍂
The yellow trees against the blue sky is a sight to behold. 💛💙
Very happy with this shot, was thinking for many weeks that I wanted to take this photo and feel like I nailed it just how I wished 😄👍🏻
This one is with phone camera, because I could not find my Panasonic camera (found it 2 days later, exactly where I put it!) Tinden / Sálašoaivi.
Another phone shot, but feel like I really captured the mood of the weather, even though it is bad quality! ☔️
Arctic, Awareness, Beauty, Culture, Everyday life, Finnmark, Hair, Health, Heritage, Indigenous, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Self portrait, Sewing, Uralic, Vajrayana, Yoga

What that means to me

Ask the Mountains
Vajra brocade jacket in green and gold I was lucky to find in local second hand store. It is handmade, too, wonder who made it and gave it away.

I wanted to make a post on the physical body. I have noticed in social media a trend called ‘body positivity’, and I wanted to share my own version of what that means to me:

  • Knowing that my body is made from the natural elements and is a result of thousands of generations
  • Reminding myself that all my cells are working hard to keep me alive every day
  • Eating traditional sustainable foods that my body easily turn into energy
  • Deep sleep and meditation to give body healing and vitality
  • Practice prayer and mantras to help body get rid of karmic traces stored inside the cells
  • Strength training to keep joints stable and posture straight
  • Keeping in mind how ancestors lived, and how they treated their bodies
  • Reminding myself to breathe with my belly, through nose and keeping my tongue in the roof of mouth, while jaw relaxed, as this feels most natural and it makes body relax
  • Tapping into body’s innate healing powers if I feel sick
  • Feeling how the body is an anchor that exists and keeps us in the present moment

Maybe I could add more later. What would you add? Thanks for reading, have a lovely day. -M

Adventure, Arctic, Awareness, Beauty, Everyday life, Indigenous, Landscape, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Sewing, Tromsø, Uralic

Photo series: Arctic summer, pt 1

Ask the Mountains
My mum staring into the ocean 💙
Little flowers in the sand at our hidden secret beach.
Beach view.
Our son got to see and play with the ocean waves. He was kind of scared, but also curious!
Prestvannet / Báhpajávri
Some lotus like flowers at the Arctic Alpine botanic garden.
In the forest 💚
Some gorgeous tulips outside the Polar Museum in Tromsø.
My beautiful coffee bag sewn by duojár Inga Nilsen Eira. It’s made from reindeer skin, wool and cotton bands, and braided reindeer skin string. Perfect to bring my coffee on walks and trips ❤️
Beauty, Culture, Duodji, Everyday life, Finnmark, Indigenous, Outfit, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Tromsø, Uralic

Lihkku beivviin – Happy National Day

Ask the Mountains
Me, our son and my friend and relative ❤ Láhppigákti. Coastal Sámi.
💙💛❤
Hat and traditional shawl made by me ❤💛
Traditional knit by his father’s mother. Belt is supposed to be on hips, but not easy when he is moving like a little maggot 🪱😄

Today, we celebrated the Sámi National Day, Feb 6th.

I have Kven/Finnish, Norwegian and Sámi heritage, and love to celebrate what I can while I can. I am deeply thankful for my connection to my heritage and my own heart, and wish you all the best 2022 possible.

May all beings be free ✨

Animals, Anthropology, Arctic, Art, Awareness, DIY, Duodji, Finnmark, Heritage, Indigenous, People, Photography, Photoshoot, Saami, Sámi, Sápmi, Uralic

More special?

Ask the Mountains

“People wearing their national dresses symbolise unity. A research conducted on this subject showed that youngsters wearing traditional clothes, irrespective of western pressure, had fewer behavioural and emotional problems. The reason being that they are in touch with their ancestral culture, religion and traditions and thus not confused about their identity or who they are.” Makes sense to me; feeling like you belong and have a community is very important. Nowadays, I think many of us feel a part of many different groups, because we live in a globalised world, and clothing can be changed, thus changing your identity. Maybe that makes our traditional and national dresses even more special? ❤

Here is the link to the study for anyone interested. It also sheds a light on the dangers of not allowing indigenous peoples to use and wear their own clothings, as we have seen happen all over the world.

Sámi man in gákti with reindeer pants and mittens. The shoes are nuvttohat, skaller, nutukas.. many names for same shoe. Different languages and dialects. Photo by Lola A. Akerström
Kautokeino Sámis. Guovdageaidnu in Northern Sámi language. Wearing pesks and gáktis. With traditional shawls, belts, mittens and hats. Northern Lapland/Sápmi.
Khanty woman Kristina Neva and baby in reindeer clothing with decor. Summer on the Arctic tundra. Photo by Bryan and Cherry Alexander.

Both Sámis and Khantys are Uralic peoples.

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, 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.