Meeting Climate Change
by Melting the Ice in One’s Heart
Nowhere on earth is the temperature rising as quickly as it is in Greenland. Since the 1980’s, the average near-surface air temperature has generally increased by three degrees Celsius. In the meantime, the ice has melted so much so, that fire can once again be made with local Greenlandic wood.
However, according to the well-known Eskimo Shaman Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, the ice has actually been increasing someplace else—in the hearts of man. In order to counteract man’s escalating complacency, Angaangaq, together with other Shamans from around the world, held a Fire Ceremony in July of 2009. Photographer Sven Nieder, together with author Angela Babel, documented this special gathering at the northernmost point of the earth in a coffee-table book.
“One day, when the world needs it most, the Sacred Fire will return to the people of the high north.” Climate change seems to have made this ancient Greenlandic prophecy come true. Where, for ages, there was only ice, bushes and trees are once again growing. Each and every day, twenty centimeters of the island’s ice melts away. Local animal’s hunting behaviors have been seriously affected. In order to survive, polar bears have actually been eating one another.
One hundred twenty global citizens, among them sixteen Shamans and Elders from numerous continents, answered Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq’s call that summer. They traveled thousands of kilometers to the arctic circle in order to be the mediators between nature and mankind, emphasizing the Elders’ message: “Wake up! Become aware! We do not have any more time to lose! Even though the world has never been as connected as it is today, people are growing farther apart from one another and from nature, exhibiting more and more apathy. They simply accept their eventual destruction, even though a second earth does not exist.”
“Earthquakes, Tsunamis, hurricanes…our earth is sending us alarm signals because she is sick and needs help! But we turn a deaf ear and look the other way, pretending not to hear or to see,” says Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa from Zimbabwe. There is no longer any doubt that the inhabitants of the earth will have to adapt themselves to new climate conditions. The Amazon Region will eventually disappear due to the ice-melt.
Angaangaq is convinced that mankind will only be able to deal with this cataclysm “when we use our knowledge wisely and our hearts and minds come closer together.”
As the United Nations Ambassador of Peace, Dr. Jane Goodall also attended the gathering, “We have poisoned the earth. We breathe bad air and eat bad food. Our children are becoming ill,” says the well-known behavioral scientist. Why? “Because we have forgotten the wisdom of the indigenous people; because we have lost our reverence for nature; because we no longer hear its voice; because our hearts are frozen.”
Sven Nieder’s photos capture the vast expanse of the Greenlandic landscape. In portraits of the Elders, he documents their deep concern over the earth’s alarming condition. Angela Babel’s text complements the photos with a consolidated and touching description of the course of events during the Shamanic Ceremony. The book comes full circle with a greeting from Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq and an essay from author Dr. Christoph Quarch.
Rica Higa
Shaman Rica Higa from Japan is thirty-eight, lives in Okinawa and regularly travels through her home country with her husband, Yoshimaru, also a shaman, to say prayers and hold ceremonies at specifically selected sites.
‘With our prayers and our ceremonies, we hope to restore the world to its equilibrium again. We travel to the coasts, to the mountains and the lakes – but mostly, to atomic power stations. The reason for that is that Yoshimaru once had a revelation – that a natural disaster will set off an accident at a nuclear power plant which in turn will have unimaginable political and economic changes in its wake and that these will ultimately lead to a third world war.
We pray that this does not happen. We pray so that people wake up and recognise the dangers that they themselves have invoked. We pray to the gods that no disaster might occur. We pray that they might protect us until we are in a position to ward off this danger ourselves. And then we tell of what we experience at ceremonies in other countries and how people on other continents become involved for a restoration of the balance of our world. We are only at the beginning and our audience is growing only slowly. But we believe that we are working for a better world.
Many ancient prophecies from our ancestors say that Mother Earth will change. Cold regions, they say, will become tropical areas. If /When these prophecies become reality, the messages from our ancestors can help us to survive the change. So that’s why it’s important to preserve their knowledge. If we will begin to connect with one another, if we attain a greater awareness of the position the world is in and co-operate instead of fighting one another, then we will succeed together in altering this world, our Mother Earth, for the better.’
