Helena Soholm holds up the 5 directional flags of Korean shamanism in Dronningmølle, Denmark.
Arin Yoon
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Arin Yoon
It’s the day earlier than the ceremony and forty individuals from completely different components of the world will converge in Copenhagen to expertise a shamanic ceremony facilitated by 46-year-old Helena Soholm, a Korean American shaman, known as mudang in Korean.
In eager to know extra about shamanism, I got here throughout Helena’s work. Now we’re collectively in North Zealand, Denmark, together with conventional Korean musician Dong-Gained Kim, 58, who will accompany Helena through the ceremony.
After we arrive on the seashore, it’s nonetheless just a little overcast and the earth is frozen beneath a thick, white carpet of snow. Dong-Gained appears to be like out and proclaims, “The ocean welcomes us.” I say to Helena, “Sorry, I wished to do extra analysis about shamanism earlier than the journey, however I simply did not have time.” She responds, “Arin, that is a colonial manner of shamanism. You find out about it by experiencing it.” Helena and Dong-Gained bow to the 5 instructions throughout a pre-ceremony ritual. Heart is the fifth course.
Left: An providing of Korean soju, apples and mineral water throughout a pre-ceremony ritual in Dronningmølle, Denmark. Proper: Helena holds a fan and bells, shamanic instruments, to name the spirits through the pre-ceremony ritual.
Arin Yoon
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Dong-Gained Kim is a grasp percussionist and a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble.
When Korea was an agrarian society, villagers would march to neighboring villages, taking part in their distinctive music to assist one another work through the harvest season. Based on Dong-Gained, “Working in rice fields is back-breaking work, and so singing and drumming have been concerned. Because the labor obtained tougher, the drumming would get quicker and extra thrilling. And that was the primary second I discovered the idea of empathy in music.” He begins taking part in a 200-year-old gong and all of a sudden the sky opens up.
Fashionable healer
Helena is a transpersonal psychologist along with being a shaman. In her work, she integrates Western theories of psychology with Indigenous methods of data to facilitate therapeutic and development in trendy, technologically superior societies.
Helena poses for a portrait in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Arin Yoon
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Left: Knives, shamanic instruments, are used to chop damaging power. Proper: A hand drum adorned with pictures of a bear and her cub, was painted by Stone, an artist from the Squamish Nation.
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Shortly after her initiation as a shaman in 2018, she says she acquired a imaginative and prescient the place she noticed the ancestors of Korean adoptees who had been adopted into Western international locations, longing to attach with their descendents. She says she believes “clearing and honoring ancestral power is achieved by the restoration of the Indigenous thoughts, which may deepen an individual’s connection to self, others and land,” and so she facilitates ceremonies and pilgrimages for adoptees and others wanting to attach with their ancestral roots.
Helena is married to a Dane and has developed many connections in Denmark. She says her village is now international, “so wherever we go, my philosophy is we’ll create sacred house.”
Members
Among the many adoptees to take part on this ceremony in Copenhagen is Jannie Jung Westermann, 45, who introduced the providing for the intestine ceremony on behalf of Korea Klubben, an affiliation of Danish Korean adoptees. She was one of many first individuals concerned in gathering info for the investigation into the corrupt practices behind the worldwide adoptions of Korean youngsters, which amounted to a billion-dollar business between the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Eighties.
In 2001, Jannie labored with a Korean social employee to do a household search. She discovered that adoptees are sometimes not given their full information. Jannie was in a position to find her start dad and mom despite the fact that her preliminary data indicated that she had been deserted. Years after assembly her organic father, she labored with a non-public detective and located her organic mom.
Jannie Jung Westermann, the president of Korea Klubben, an affiliation of Danish Korean adoptees, poses for a portrait.
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On a visit to South Korea, Danish Korean adoptee Mai Quickly Younger Øvlisen, 41, heard Korean conventional music for the primary time. “I heard that voice of ache and of the individuals’s historical past and previous, as a rustic, and it was, like, ‘That is my voice. My voice is Korean.’ ” Now, she incorporates conventional Korean people music and shamanism into her musical follow along with her band, Meejah, which implies “medium.” On discovering her start dad and mom, Mai says, “I simply make room for it and open house for it to come back collectively, if it needs to.”
Mai Quickly Younger Øvlisen, 41, a Danish Korean adoptee, poses for a portrait.
Arin Yoon
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Unethical and unlawful adoption practices have been a systemic drawback in lots of different international locations, together with Greenland, which was colonized by Denmark. Kâlánguak Absalonsen, 53, was taken from her organic household after her father dedicated suicide when she was 3 years previous. Her mom signed adoption papers with out realizing that she was giving up her youngster as a result of, in her Inuit tradition, there isn’t a phrase or idea for adoption, considering, “when the snow disappears, they are going to come again.” However her youngsters didn’t come again. She despatched Kâlánguak letters, however her adoptive mom hid them from her. After I ask Kâlánguak what she remembers of Greenland, she speaks concerning the sound of snow: “When it is actually chilly, it has a particular sound.”
Kâlánguak Absalonsen, 53, poses for a portrait.
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Tom Pyun, 46, a Korean American author and consumer of Helena’s, flew from Los Angeles for the ceremony. His father died when he was 13, and his mom handed away all of a sudden in 2021 from COVID-19. He had been searching for various strategies of therapeutic when he got here throughout Helena’s work: “There was no likelihood to essentially say goodbye or get any closure, and I assumed that possibly a shaman would possibly assist me discover closure — what may have been stated or ought to have been stated.”
Tom Pyun, 46, a Korean American author, poses for a portrait holding images of his dad and mom.
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Anne-Marie Hansen, 44, is a Danish professor of design whose household lineage in Denmark will be traced again to the 1400s. She is inquisitive about rituals and discovering extra about her connection to Nordic pagan tradition. She stated she hoped the ceremony would assist her recuperate conventional information, revive cultural reminiscence and join with nature.
Anne-Marie Hansen, 44, a Danish professor, poses for a portrait.
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Ceremony
On the day of the ceremony, many members put on one thing from their native cultures to assist join them with their ancestors. As they trickle in, many add particular objects and mementos to an ancestral altar. Materials in pink, blue, white, yellow and inexperienced, representing the 5 instructions are laid out. Everybody selects a couple of items of torn cloth and, in a gradual procession, transfer to the rhythmic drumming of Dong-Gained and Hendrikje Lange, a Western shaman initiated within the Korean custom, towards a tree on the entrance of BaneGaarden, the positioning of the ceremony. Based on Helena, “Since there are lots of people there who’re from completely different cultures, we want some sort of exercise to drag us collectively so that everyone’s already setting themselves up, at their unconscious degree, to set off one thing deep in our minds.”
Anne Merete Gaup, a Sámi lady from Norway, prepares for the ceremony.
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Within the Indigenous circle, Aká Hansen sings a conventional Inuit track.
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Helena creates a circle with white cloth and invitations completely different teams of individuals in, beginning with adoptees. They begin leaping to enter a trance-like state. There are maternal cries of longing, deep ache and remorse. Within the Indigenous circle, the power and air shift. When the phrases, “Aya, aya,” come by Helena, Aká Hansen, an Inuit filmmaker from Greenland, bursts into track. With the European group, Helena has a tough time getting by, so she asks the opposite members to ship their power to this group. Many shut their eyes and place their arms. “There’s numerous blockage right here. A whole lot of masculine power,” Helena says. Lastly, a small group of diaspora members enter the white circle and there may be discuss damaged goals. On the finish, everybody jumps collectively and Helena blesses every particular person. The ceremony is adopted by a dialogue the place we be taught that the track Aká sang was the primary time she had ever sung it. It’s a track of Aká’s ancestors.
Kâlánguak is getting in contact along with her Inuit roots by bead artistry. In her arms, she holds a pair of earrings that symbolize her two fathers — her adoptive father and her organic father.
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Helena spends time with every participant. As she holds Kâlánguak Absalonsen, the Inuit ancestors say, by Helena, “Fly excessive, don’t allow them to drag you down.”
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The day after the ceremony, I ask members how they’re processing their experiences. Kâlánguak speaks of maternal power within the adoptee circle: “It was large to listen to the moms calling after us, ‘It is okay. I am right here. I like you. I like you. I like you.’ And, for me, it was a launch. I’ve heard all my life that my mom could not handle me. However that was not the case. Helena opened my coronary heart to obtain my mom with love.”
“I’ll take into consideration the ceremony for a very long time,” says Mai Quickly Younger. “It gave me a way of not being alone.”
An ancestral altar is roofed with objects introduced by the ceremony’s members.
Arin Yoon
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Helena Soholm closes the ceremony with a blessing.
Arin Yoon
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This reporting was supported by the Worldwide Girls’s Media Basis’s Lauren Brown Fellowship.
Arin Yoon is a Korean American photographer based mostly in Kansas Metropolis. See extra of her work on her web site arinyoon.com and her Instagram @arinyoon.
Photograph edit by Grace Widyatmadja. Textual content edit by Zachary Thompson.