Honoring the past

Today, I've honored my ancestors.

I ventured into the realm of the Norwegian elk. I faced puddles and moss, elk droppings and hungry mosquitos. I warded off evil in the form of spiderwebs and dry twigs, strategically placed in eye-height. And I lived to tell the tale. All of this, to pick some mushrooms.

Let's go back a few hundred, oh hell, let's make it 1200 years. Scandinavia is ruled by long haired men with cabin fever. The winters are long, hard and boring. The summers are short and rainy. All work and no play makes Eirikr a dull boy. So his wife begs him to take his friends fishing or something. She packs his lunch (this is a Norwegian tradition dating back to the stone age), and kicks him out. He rows his boat aimlessly in the North Sea, until lunchtime. Then, he wolfs down everything in his lunchbox, including the little, red toadstool one of the kids accidentally put in there.

This is where the fun starts. Fly Agaric, or Amanita Muscaria, has hallucinogenic properties. O hai, said Eirikr, this is different!

And so the tale of the berserks begun. Let's not get into detail about the horrendous things the Vikings did while under the influence. All I know, is that they went straight to the forest for more when they got home. My point is simply that I, as my foremothers before me, went to the forest to find mushrooms for my long haired man.

Behold my treasure:

The maggots beat me to it. This was all I got after two hours of wading knee deep in elk droppings. At some point, I eyed an especially shiny Fly Agaric and wondered if it would make me burn and pillage the kindergarten when I went to pick up the kids. I thought better of it, and decided it was time to honor my mother as well as my great-great-great... oh, you get the gist. So I went shopping for mushrooms in stead. Whipped up a fabulously simple pasta dish with chanterelles and Albatrellus Ovinus (no english name as far as I can google, but in Norwegian it's called Fåresopp), some garlic, thyme, butter and parmesan.

The long haired man was happy. Then he went off to play with his friends. I will not be surprised if he loots and plunders the place. To honor his ancestors, I mean.

Head in the sand

I'm back to work after my summer vacation, and Oslo feels... well, pretty much the same. People talk more. Many are affected. But generally I would say Oslo hasn't changed a lot.

I've always kept my distance to what happens in the world. Wars are always fought, children are always starving somewhere in Africa, there are conflicts in the Middle East. Nothing has changed there, then. I cannot take it all in without going crazy, so I stick my head in the sand. I suspect most people do. 'Accept what you can't change' and so on.

But the saying doesn't end there. It also says 'change what you can't accept.'

Riots in London (Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten)

It's insane. I cannot fathom that in the western world, we feel the need to riot, burn, vandalize and kill to change things. At the same time, I do feel some kind of desperate need to shake people into sense:

New finance crisis on the steps? (Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten)

I say I stick my own head in the sand, because I can't change the world anyway. Well, American politicians can't say the same thing. They CAN change the world - and by sticking their heads in the sand, they STILL change the world, but not in a good way, as they have the means to do.

I believe in democracy, but sometimes I think the leader must make the decisions, even if they are unpopular.

Then again, I wouldn't want a guy like Bush (or Sarah Palin) to make an unpopular decision, so democracy is back on.

There will be blood (Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet)

Nobody wants to have known the Norwegian terrorist. Yet they spread his lore like a gospel. Multiculturalism has failed, The Others are taking over. Who The Others are, depends on who you talk to. If you ask me, The Others are extremists of all shapes and sizes. Extreme right, extreme left, extreme christians, extreme muslims, extreme atheists, extreme israelites and extreme palestinians. Everybody has an enemy. Moderates, for the most part. Those of us who think nobody has the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, Allah, Jahve, myself and Gaia. Those of us who think that if we could just sit down and TALK, we could probably come up with a solution where we could all coexist. That we don't ALL have to be supreme rulers of the universe. And if something has to be done, it's better to do it now and limit the damage, than drag it out and blame The Others when it goes to hell, and run off with the glory of being the 'savior' afterwards.

Can I change the world? Nah.

Should I accept it then? Nah.

Then what? Rant about it? Shake some people? Riot? Run for president? Nah.

I'll stick my head back in the sand.