The Reindeer Riders

Dukha Shaman

Some of the world's greatest secrets and mysteries can be found beyond the boundaries of human civilization. With globalization encroaching more and more on those that try and maintain their unique ways of life, it's incredible to observe those that persevere. This is what makes the Dukha people of the Mongolian outback so fascinating. The nomadic tribe has lived in remote forests in northwestern Mongolia for centuries. During that time, they have developed a distinctive relationship with wild animals that is quite amazing. Through their own brand of animal husbandry, the Dukha people have learned to use reindeer as a means of transportation over the treacherous terrain they call home. They ride them into the deep snowy forests to hunt for food and collect antlers they can sell to nearby villages for basic supplies. Photographer Hamid Sardar-Afkhami recently documented them in a series of stunning photographs.

Nets of Being: Alex Grey's Visionary Art

"Great Net of Being" by Alex Grey

Every once in a great while an artist emerges who does more than simply reflect the social trends of the time. Such an artist is able to transcend established thinking and help us redefine ourselves and our world. Today, a growing number of art critics, philosophers, and spiritual seekers believe that they have found that vision in the art of Alex Grey. His portrayals of human beings blend anatomical exactitude with visionary depictions of universal life energy. Grey’s striking artwork leads us on the soul’s journey from material world encasement to recovery of the divinely illuminated core. In this Huffington Post interview, Grey discusses how he turned from suicidal nihilist to visionary artist, the convergence of psychedelics and Tibetan Buddhism, holding together a marriage involving two artists, live-painting with Beats Antique and the Disco Biscuits, and his unusual spiritual portrait of Obama.

Shamanic Revival in Tuva

Tuvan Shamans

While traditional shamanism continues to decline around the world, it is currently undergoing a revival in Tuva (southern Siberia). Tuva is regarded as the birthplace of shamanism. It is one of the few places in the world where the shamanic heritage has remained unbroken. Through the millennia, shamans have been very important in the area of the modern-day Republic of Tuva. Tuva is a unique place where no-one questions if spirits actually exist. They exist; the question is how to communicate with them.

In everyday life the Tuvan shaman is not distinguishable from other people, but when he is engaged in communicating with spirits he has to make use of a special dress and special instruments. Of these the most important and the one in most general use is the shaman's drum. It may be said that all over Tuva, where there is a shaman there is also a drum. The drum has the power of transporting the shaman to the spirit world and of evoking spirits by its sounds. Among the Tuvans, all their philosophy of life is represented symbolically in the drum. Photographer Vera Salnitskaya has published a photographic essay exploring the shamanic resurgence.

The Shamanic Drum as Cognitive Map

The Sami peoples of northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula in Russia practiced an indigenous form of shamanism until the religious repression of shamanic practices in the mid 17th century. The runebomme, an oval frame or bowl drum, was an important trance and divination tool of the noaidi, or Sami shaman. Sami shamanic drums depict their mythical representation of the world. Sami drumheads are decorated with cosmological rune symbols and drawings of heavenly bodies, plants, animals, humans and human habitations; sometimes divided into separate regions by horizontal or vertical lines. Sami drums are characterized by a central sun cross with arms protruding in the four cardinal directions. The cross symbolized the sun--the source of life. The horizontal or vertical lines represented the three realms of the shaman's universe.

The drum is a key to the cosmology of the Samis. The figures of the drum were a kind of cognitive map for the journey of the shaman's ego-soul between the three levels of the universe. At the same time it was the collective side of the drum, open to the public to be observed collectively and interpreted publicly by the shaman to the audience who shared the same cosmologic beliefs. The cyclic world-outlook of shamanism became manifest in the oval shape and the heliocentric figures of the drum. It was probably used, read and interpreted from different directions in a way that shifted annually in accordance with the seasonal variation. To learn more read "TheShamanic Drum as Cognitive Map" by Juha Pentikäinen. This article presents this rich iconography and ends on a comparative analysis of the "message" painted on these drums with Finnish folklore, its mythology and, especially, its ancient oral literature.