An integration of inner and outer

For thousands of years the Kalaallit (Greenlandic) people not only survived but thrived in a land of cold winter darkness and summer midnight sun, a place where nature was spectacular but unforgiving.

Survival required that practical knowledge and skills be integrated with a rich inner life, with the ways of the spirit world—the ancestors, the plant and animal spirits, the depths of the sea and the heights of the mountains—in this vast land that has never known war.

Within each person, family and community the seen and the unseen were woven together in the ceremony of life, of living in balance, a balance that is greatly needed in our present world.

What happens when you use the cards is an inter-weaving of the traditional wisdom from the Far North with the wisdom you carry within yourself. Each of us is a unique one-of-a-kind human being, so what you experience using the cards will be unique to you. The instructions in the book remind you over and over to pay attention to what emerges in you—physically, emotionally, in inner images, and in thoughts—when you first see each card.

Using The Ceremony Cards we can begin to feel the ancient wisdom and experience this inter-weaving of inner worlds with the five-sensory world. As Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq tells us, we can begin the process of coming home to ourselves, of allowing inner climate change—melting the ice in the heart so we can change and begin to use our vast knowledge wisely.

The Ceremony Cards also help those of us who have not spent our lives trusting our intuition, which is a kind of knowing where awareness goes beyond the ordinary five senses. The cards are like “training wheels,” useful as we learn to trust and stay balanced with our intuition, our inner knowing. In a musical metaphor, using these cards is like practicing scales. The concert then happens in the rest of our living.

A perspective underlying The Ceremony Cards

All that is, is One—The Great One. Separateness is a delightful illusion, one that creates our world as we know it. Living as we do most of the time in this sense of being separate, it is good sometimes to dip back into the One as a reminder of who we really are . . . or are not! Using a card deck as a divination tool is a way to touch this oneness of the inner and the outer worlds. While the whole world can be a mirror, it is easier to see the mirroring in simple context of the cards.

The intention for creating The Ceremony Cards

• Introducing The Traditional Teachings of the Far North—Kalaallit Nunaat—Greenland, a land that has never known war. This wisdom is much needed in the world.

• Creating new ceremonies that facilitate coming home to ourselves so that we can be at peace with ourselves, our community, and the world.

• Providing a simple vehicle for the indigenous people of Greenland—the Kalaallit—to use in reconnecting with their traditional wisdom that has almost been lost.

• Giving people in IceWisdom Circles and people who have attended events with Angaangaq a way to touch again and make living what they experienced in the Circles.