During a recent exercise in finding writing topics, I was challenged to type “Desperate for…” into my Google browser. You want to know what I discovered? People are desperate for attention, approval, and affluence (usually they call that last one “money” or “a loan.”) Women are desperate for a miracle, a man, a baby, or…
Reading through Dr. Bernardo Quintana’s mythology treatise, Chiloé Mitológico, I’m struck once again by the background motivation of fear in so many of the rites and rituals, tall tales and strictly-timed tasks. Fear of the spirits and the sickness they cause. Terror of darkness and death and the dead, as manifested in the story of…
The name of the Chiloé Islands’ legendary ghost ship, the Caleuche, literally means “shapeshifter.” It derives from the Huilliche words, caleutún, meaning “to change condition,” and che, “people.” Possibly chosen because of the ship’s many transformations, the name could also refer to the changes in its crew from dead to alive, from torment to bliss,…
In my daughter’s recent graduation photos, I see her pose with friends and classmates from around the world—a vast and fascinating variety of colors and cultures, ethnicities and languages. As a holder of triple citizenship, she barely notices but instead integrates the differences into her multiverse. Amazingly, she’s never seemed to suffer from an identity…
