Ohunkakan

Welcome to my  Ohunkankan, The Council of Fools,  the little space I call my own. There is not necessarily a point to this space other than for me to share with those who would take the time to listen. It is a place where my thoughts and dreams spill out into the real world hopefully to infect others with fancy and thought.

“Ohunkakan” (or more properly “Ehanni Ohunkakan”) is a Lakota term that would basically translate to “story” or “Long time ago story” or “Fairy Tale” or “Myth” in common English parlance. I’ve chosen that word more for its Lakota connotation to me and my life. Being a person who grew up in family that was a melting pot of heritage (Lakota,Irish, African American, and some East Indian way back on my mom’s side) story is the element that is the tie that binds. No matter how good or bad things were (and believe me they were bad more often than they were good) they were never without a story of some sort to bring them into perspective.  The encounters and events of my youth left me with he impression that they were part of a greater whole. There always seemed to be more to come and that alone enticed me onward through the days.

I remember feelings more often than I remember most particular events. There was a particular event however, that would occur periodically at my house that would evoke the greatest feelings in me. That event was storytelling. It wasn’t something that happened regularly or formally, but when it happened it was, for lack of better words, magical. It was the moment when the walls came down and we shared. It wasn’t something that often happened with everyone present. Sometimes it even happened in secret. In all cases it was like someone reaching inside and handing me a piece of themselves as if to say “here, take this and see what it does in you.” Sometimes that little bit of soul would blossom into something completely different from what it originally was.

As I grew older story became my way of looking at, and dealing with the world.  I began to think of my life like a book that I was reading that had a main character that I could relate to so much that I would completely lose myself in him.  Sleep was the only time I put it down this book. I often imagined that I was dead and looking my life over and didn’t want to disappoint with a boring story.  I quickly became, at once, my greatest fan and my harshest critic as the grammar of my life was often shaky.

I eventually got to a point where I began to share the feelings that I had gathered growing up by wrapping them in words that became metaphors for them. These metaphors most often manifested themselves as general storytelling in the traditional sense, as well as roleplaying. After a while my circle of friends who shared these moments with me, as in addition to providing with new moments and feelings, began to urge me to put these tales and worlds to paper so they could have them when I wasn’t around.

So here it is. There is not much here but there will be soon. It will slowly grow bit by bit. The part that is here now (Ehdrigohr) is something that I want to dedicate to my better half, Karen. If my life is indeed some obscure piece of literature then she is the translation that lets me make sense of it all. Where once I was my greatest fan she has long since snatched that mantle for herself (though I am still my staunchest critic and often my own worst enemy) which carried me far at those time when I had ceased believing in the hero of my tale.

If you manage to find things of interest in here please feel free to come back when more is added and tell your friends. If you find nothing to your liking here then I apologize for wasting your time and am sure you will find things of interest to you elsewhere.

Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations)
Allen Turner

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