pandora Posted June 1, 2006 Author Share Posted June 1, 2006 Hi, Kastor! I doubt it's important to many modern Finns, but to my grandpa, it was very important. I guess it was a way of giving cultural identity when he was growing up in Finland. Anyway, thanks everyone for your responses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 I almost picked up a copy of the Kalevala a few years back. All Indo-European folk culture is very interesting to me, being that I of course descend from that particular racial group, and to me, awareness and appreciation for one's ethnic and cultural heritage is just one fact of a healthy self-image. One day, I'll re-order the Kalevala again, once I get through some of my current things. I'm not Finnish, however. I am mostly Polish in background (I think) with Russian and German lineage to boast of also. But for me, exploring those backgrounds was a wonderful experience. If it weren't for me making the biggest mistake of my life and getting mixed up with my ex (and the resulting severe depression that followed which like a fimbulvintr killed off everything in my soul), I'd probably still have a lot of that original spirit left in me. But no matter - I'm on a possible road to reclaiming that magic, if I can. But learning to appreciate my ancestral culture and heritage was of immense benefit to me; learning to appreciate the beauty of what a person is goes a long way in building a good self-image, and had I not done that, I might have indeed flung myself out that third-story window in New Bedford. Even today, it's still a wonderful thing. There's just something naturally envigorating in researching one's ancestral heritage and finding ways to appreciate that in one's life. It's one of the good things I took away from my time in the White Nationalist movement, that ability to learn to appreciate what I am and love it for that reason alone, and it has helped me to learn to appreciate all cultures and ethnicities, especially where the Abrahamic cults haven't ruined or perverted them. I also abandoned Xianity for Asatru, now that pandy mentioned it. I needed the spiritual decompression chamber of Deism first, and I learned much during the time when I wholly subscribed to that one philosophy alone. Today, I can define my ancestral gods and follow the natural Heathen path of my forebears, enriched with the wisdom a reason-based outlook provided. Wisdom is the way of Odin, after all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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