Hello! From Minneapolis

[RobinMavis]

Hi Everyone. My name is Robin. I live in Minneapolis. My partner and I are heading into empty nest phase of our life! Hooray! ;-)

My heritage is Norwegian, Saami, and German on my dad's side, English, German, Welsh and maybe Jewish on my Mom's side but we haven't confirmed that documentation about Jewish heritage yet. A friend from a Saami facebook group told me about this forum after someone posted in the group claiming to be Noaidi (shaman), but was being verbally abusive to an Elder in the group.

My religious background is: I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran, converted to christian fundamentalism in my early 20's, then thankfully was excommunicated from the church in my early 30's. As I reflected about what spirituality meant to me without any ideas, rules or laws forced on me, I recognized that where I feel closest to divine is when I am away from the city, surrounded by nature.  But I hold no judgement against any other religion, I guess I'm kind of a universalist in a way :-)

I have profound respect for my Native American 'cousins'  world view and way and have been active over the last couple years in supporting Indigenous rights here in the US and around the world. I'm also very interested in finding ways to preserve world languages that are being threatened with extinction.

I had the profound honor of meeting several world Indigenous leaders last October at the Parliament of World Religions. In some ways that experience probably has changed the direction of my life.