Transient. In existence only briefly. When I think about things long enough, deeply enough, I feel like I suddenly descend into a rabbit hole, like Alice. My mind goes totally wild. As a result I thought that we humans are transient in the eyes of the universe. Our time here is so fleeting. How long will we be here if we think of it in hours, minutes and seconds? Poof. And our chapter will have been told.
Back at Härnösand Folk High we had a theme called Zero. During the weeks of that theme we worked in groups and made a timeline, consisting of images and text. We gathered all information and thoughts on this topic we could muster and put it up on the wall in the main corridor. I really enjoyed those weeks. If one person alone would research this topic–the timeline of our universe, from creation billions of years ago until present day–it would surely have taken forever. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to in six weeks gather information on this viewed from so many different angles. Cultures, beliefs, scientific, philosophical.
The funny thing about this timeline is that we had to scale it down and then put up our work according to when things took place. So you can imagine how one part of the wall in particular got cluttered with information. Whereas the other several billion years of wall before our time were quite bare.
I won’t illustrate such a timeline here. Instead I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally share Lilli’s and my walk through Sammallahdenmäki. Moss Cove Hill. A UNESCO prehistoric archeological World Heritage site practically in our little village’s backyard. According to UNESCO’s website it is “the largest, most varied and complete burial site from the Scandinavian Bronze Age, 1500-500 B.C.” So cool. One of my brothers and I once thought we wanted to be archeologists when we grew up. I still believe it must be such a completely fascinating line of work. Cuddling up to our few seconds of time here in this vast expanse of the universe. Well, you could say I got to try my archeologist hat on–Lilli, too–earlier in spring.
As a lover of nature, I ended up with more photos of the surrounding landscape than those burial cairns, but I managed to capture a couple. And we met a snake by one of these rock mounds, which made Lilli wary of stepping close to the rest of them throughout our walk. I was more afraid of disturbing the bones of whoever was buried there–that fleeting moment ago.
If you ever find yourself in Finland, in the Rauma or Lappi (the town, not the huge region up north) area, I really do recommend visiting Sammallahdenmäki. Until then, I hope you enjoy this little trek as much as Lilli and I did.
Lotta Villagefield 