3 a.m. in Karelia - and I'm outdoors with my camera, unable to sleep.
It's a strange summer - I'm hardly getting to my dance classes, let alone to the theatre. There's too much writing to do (and too much of it left too late). And I'm exhausted.
That's because I've just come back from Finland - I was in Eastern Karelia near the Russian border. There is light there at this time of year for 22 hours a day and even the night is flecked with daylight. As a result, my sleep patterns are all over the place.
I went to several services of sung matins at Orthodox churches. Ten per cent of the Finnish population is Orthodox, and the church (which along with the Lutheran Church is established) is strongest in Karelia, where many of its members fled from the former USSR. Scarcely surprising then, that the soundscape (church bells, church choirs) was sometimes more suggestive of Stravinsky than of Sibelius.
The experience brought alive for me the appeal of the Orthodox Church to intellectuals and artists in Russia and to dancers in such companies as the Mariinsky, something I touched on in a recent Tablet piece. Orthodox Christianity is steeped in a sociology of enchantment with an appeal to the senses that is immediate and overwhelming. I was more than a little seduced.
I took the picture below on the lake shore at Ilomantsi, which is close to the border with Russia. The Archbishop of Northern Finland blessed the waters on the occasion of the Orthodox Praasniekka, a celebration of the feast of St Eliza, patron of the local parish.
I subsequently wrote a story for The Tablet about this trip. Link
3 comments:
Hey Brendan -- I just stumbled onto this in a fit of insomnia but I'm glad I did.
I'm a former college dancer and adult convert to the Russian Orthodox religion. I like seeing bodies dance with soul; a lot of modern dance (esp the choreography) looks as if it wasn't about the human body after all.
I like Yeats too.
I think all these forms of beauty run together in a special channel, a place where real health and beauty run together, and it's not where the rest of the culture is regularly looking.
I'm glad to find you there too and ... I'll be back!
Angelina
Thank you for what you say. There is something about postures of reverence that makes one reverent. During the summer I also visited the Orthodox Cathedral at Tallinn in Estonia. The moment I walked in, I felt drawn in. As old women kissed icons, I wanted to as well. I am Catholic, and will probably stay Catholic, but I think I could become deeply attracted to Orthodox Christianity.
Best wishes - and good luck in your own work.
Brendan
Angelina, You may be interested in a piece I wrote recently for The Tablet about Finnish Orthodoxy.
Link
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