Januar 2017 airberlin magazin - Hallo Kuh!

TRADITION / FINNLAND
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kreises besucht hat. Jetzt steht er im Kiefernhain
neben dem Hotel und scheint den Bäumen zu lauschen.
Seine Arbeit als Archivar in Helsinki hat
er vor drei Jahren aufgegeben. Jetzt macht er eine
Ausbildung zum Schamanen. „Beim Schamanismus
geht es darum, so viel Zeit wie möglich in der
Natur zu verbringen“, sagt er. „Die Natur ist für
Schamanen die Quelle allen Wissens.“ Er berührt
einen Baumstamm und schaut hoch in die Wipfel.
Um die Hüfte trägt er einen rituellen Gürtel, in
der Hand hat er einen Trommelstock. Ein grünes
Tuch hat er auch dabei, womit er sich die Augen
zubindet, um sich bei seiner Meditation inmitten
der Natur auf seine innere Wahrnehmung zu
konzentrieren. Er erzählt von den finnischen
Urahnen, die schon in der Steinzeit hier im hohen
Norden Finnlands lebten. Ihre enge Verbindung
zur Natur war überlebenswichtig. „Die Schamanen
waren damals die Mittelsmänner zwischen
der Natur, der Welt der Geister und der Welt der
Menschen“, sagt er und verschwindet zum Aufwärmen
in einem Tipi am Seeufer vor dem Hotel.
Ein offenes Feuer bietet dort Schutz vor der Kälte.
Gegenüber vom Hotel, fünf Gehminuten
entlang einer schneebedeckten Straße, liegt das
Museumsdorf Pohjola. Es ist benannt nach dem
„Nordland“, einem der mystischen Hauptschauplätze
in der Kalevala Geschichte. Ein >
#2. DIE
WAHRSAGERIN
THE FORTUNE-
TELLER
ERJA
MANNERSUO
WERKZEUGE:
Hühnerknochen,
Kräuter
TOOLS: Chicken
bones, herbs
FÄHIGKEITEN:
Wildkräuter
bestimmen, die
Zukunft kennen
SKILLS: Finding
wild herbs,
knowing the
future
VORHER: Arbeitete
im Gesundheitswesen
BEFORE: Worked
in the health
industry
NACHHER:
Macht berittene
Naturführungen
AFTER: Offers
horseback
nature tours
an ancient Finnish tale that’s like a cross between
the tale of King Arthur and the biblical Genesis
story. Similar to Grimms’ Fairy Tales, The Kalevala
was passed on orally for generations, only being
written down in 1835, in the form of an epic poem,
by a Finnish scholar of mythology called Elias
Lönnrot. And like Grimms’ Fairy Tales, The
Kalevala deals with good and evil. The hotel
celebrates its connection to the epic: a wall
hanging in the foyer shows the sampo, a magical
device featured in The Kalevala, which bestows
boundless prosperity and happiness on its owner,
not unlike the Holy Grail.
Hotel guest Kaarne Karjalainen is someone
who is intimately familiar with The Kalevala. The
31-year-old has just returned from a Folk Healer
Conference in Ruka, up near the Polar Circle, and
is just passing through. Right now he’s standing
in the pine glade next to the hotel and seems to be
listening to the trees. He gave up his work as
archivist in Helsinki three years ago, now he’s
training to be a shaman. “Shamanism is about
spending as much time as one can in nature. To
shamans, nature is the source of all knowledge,”
he says. He pats one of the tree trunks and looks
up into its crown. He’s wearing a black jacket and
a woven belt. He also has a green cloth that he
uses to cover his eyes when he wants to focus on
his inner perception to reach a meditative state.
He talks of the first people to live here in the north
of Finland as far back as the Stone Age. They
relied on their intimate connection to nature for
their survival. “The shamans were the
middlemen between nature, the spirit world and
the world of men,” he says. He needs to warm up
and disappears inside a tipi by the lakeside in
front of the hotel where a fire is lit.
Five minutes down the drive of the hotel and
across a snow-covered road is the museum village
of Pohjola. The word pohjola is sometimes
translated as “north country”. This is one of The
Kalevala story’s main settings. A huge wooden
gate guards the entrance, and the huts are made
from heavy, dark tree trunks. A Game of Thrones
fan might be reminded of Castle Black.
The main building houses a Gothic banqueting
hall. Here Erja Mannersuo, the hotel’s fortuneteller,
is getting ready for a session. She worked in
the health business in Helsinki before moving to
Kuhmo to get back to nature. She bought a farm
and now leads horseback nature tours, and picks
wild camomile, nettles and dandelions to turn into
salads, teas and natural dyes. She is into the
medieval period in a big way. Right now she is clad
in handmade reindeer boots and a wolf-skin cape.
A chicken-feather handbag completes her outfit.
“Real Louis Vuitton,” she jokes. A knife is stuck in
her belt. “The Middle Ages were an exciting >