THE OLD FRIENDSHIP OF BLUEBERRIES AND SWEET FERN:

Yekaterina, when she left all to follow Christ, remembered a common but very special kind of Russian believer: the poustinik. Every so often some peasant, and less frequently a wealthy person in Russia, like Pyotr, would get rid of his or her things and take to the poustinia. That word means desert. The poustinik however did not go to a literal desert. He only put on rough linen clothing and went to live in the barest, simplest house in the village. There, with no lock on the door, he lived with nothing but the Bible, his daily bread, and his clothes. The poustinik was no hermit. On call, day or night, he lived to help others. Whether that meant feeding the sick, counselling a distressed sinner at midnight, or quick helping a farmer get his hay in before it rained, did not matter. He lived in the “desert” of freedom from personal ambition and let Christ use him however it suited. All his free time he spent in his house or garden alone.

Peter Hoover with Serguei V. Petrov, The Russians' Secret: What Christians Today Would Survive Persecution?

Ah-Weh-Eyu (Pretty Flower). Seneca Native American. 1908.

Vintage real photo postcard. Photograph by J.L. Blessing, published by The Blessing Studio, Salamanca, New York, United States.

monument valley

Young Nanai girl The Nanai are a Tungusic people of Eastern Asia who traditionally live along the Heilongjiang, Songhuajiang and Wusli rivers of China and Russia. Roughly translated, their name for themselves means “People of the Earth” (Nanai) or “People of the lower river” 赫哲" (Hezhe).   To the Nanai, fish were most valuable and sacred. In the summer months, they fished all season long, with the sturgeon being greatly respected. In winter, they ate dried fish. Large fish weighing over 50kg were turned into clothing by drying and pounding the flesh with a mallet until it was smooth and malleable. This custom earned the Nanai the nickname “Fish-skinned Tartars” (鱼皮鞑子, Yupi Dazi). They are a generally Shamanist people with great reverence for the bear (Doonta) and the tiger (Amba). They believe that all things in the universe possess their own spirit which wanders freely throughout the world. They worship the natural world and pay tribute to the sprits of the Sun, Moon, Mountains, Water and Trees, and believe that a great serpent once arose from the Earth and gouged out the great valleys of the land. The Nanai practice a lengthy and elaborate funerary ritual which assists the soul of the deceased in travelling safely to the underworld. After death, a persons soul is moved into a temporary shelter made out of cloth, before it is transferred into a small, wooden doll called a panyo.  The panyo is taken care of as if it is a living person; for example, it is given a bed to sleep in each night, with a pillow and blanket to match its miniature size.  Each night this family member puts the panyo to bed and then wakes it in the morning. The doll has a small hole carved in its mouth so that a pipe may be placed there, allowing the deceased to smoke.  In the final part of the ritual, called the Kasa Tavori, the Nanai feast for three days as the soul is transferred from the panyo into a full-sized, human looking wooden figure.   On the final day, this wooden statue, possessed with the soul of the dead, is strapped to a dogsled and transported by the shaman on a long and dangerous journey before the sun sets. This journey marks the start of the soul’s transition into the Buni, or underworld, where it will reside for eternity.  📸 Alexander Khimushin

This is a very old Islamic tradition, still alive in parts of Turkey. When a white blanket of snow covers everything - people go to the tops of mountains peaks and scatter seeds and food for the birds through the snowing season so as not to let the birds die of starvation. This deed was started by the Muslim caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz and is narrated in various books of history and quoted as “Go and spread seeds on the tops of mountains - may the birds not die of starvation in a Muslim country.”

Sego Canyon, Utah

Taken March 2021

H'lulu - Butterfly Mask

Dean Hunt

The skull of the Magdalene at St Maximin in France