• Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    The Great Loneliness

    Ideas of the Ultimate In his book, The Masks of God, volume 1, Joseph Campbell quotes an Eskimo shaman, Igjugarjuk, who said, “The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.” [1] Igjugarjuk spoke those words in the context of a discussion about Sila. The different groups of Inuit have different notions who Sila is. Perhaps she is breath, soul, form. On the island of Nunivak, the people understand Sila to be a great spirit who speaks to them in…