the upcoming Three Sisters

Louhi + Ilmatar + Tree of Life

Katja and Della and I, the 3 sisters, will be writing a regular piece for the New World Finn, a Minnesotan newspaper edited by Gerry Henkel. Our column will be called ...you guessed it! "The Three Sisters." For our first article, we have decided to write a collective piece on the symbolism of the interesting jewelery that Della bought back. She gave me Louhi and Katja got Ilmatar; for herself, she chose the Tree of Life. She bought them at Sommelo, a folk music workshop she attended in and around Kuhmo, Finland this summer. She went there to learn more about lamentation singing and kantele playing. You can find her in the middle, 3rd photo down, in the lamentation photos! (many more interesting photos here).

The jewelry, which we took off of our necks and placed on a large south-facing stone in the Hope and Memory Garden, is made by Antti Nieminen of Vaskitsa. Even if you don't know Finnish, if you click through his website you can see some of the outstanding pieces he creates. His pieces draw on ancient Finno-Ugric mythology. Needless to say, his craftmanship called up all sorts of ideas for us 3 sisters.

Check the next edition of New World Finn for what we dreamt up about these 3 evocative Vaskitsa pieces that afternoon that we sat in the tranquility of the Hope and Memory Garden on the shore of the McIntyre River. A long way from the forests of Finland.