God Wears Many Skins: Sami Myth and Culture in Poems

Gelesen von Jabez L. Van Cleef

Jabez L. Van Cleef

The Sami, who call themselves "the real people," are nomadic indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia and adjacent areas of Russia. They practice an animistic religion which invests godlike qualities in animals such as the fox and the bear, and in certain features of the landscape. They believe that the sun (male) and the earth (female) mated to make a son, who then found a bride and fathered human beings. The earth and sun share our daily experience of living, as do all plant and animal creatures.

This form of dynamic interdependence has been expressed over time in a wealth of songs and stories told by Sami shamans and wizards. The stories are characterized by great reverence for our natural environment, which can form a strong spiritual foundation for sustainable living. A selection of these stories is now for the first time adapted into modern English verse, written and voiced by Jabez L. Van Cleef.

Jabez L. Van Cleef, who also wrote "All Is Beautiful: The Navajo Creation Story" for Podiobooks.com, has written poetic versions of spiritual texts from all of the world's great religious traditions. His voice in dramatic readings explores the fine distinctions between metered prose and music, by creating a spoken word sound environment that lulls the listener into a state of profound receptivity.

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