The Awakener – Herättäjä
A performance for camera. Shot on one take, edited.
The Awakener (Herättäjä) is a rather obscure mythic character in Finnish folklore. It appears only to wake up someone by screaming the person’s name to his ear or slapping him in the face, usually in case of danger. Kalevala includes a verse about a cloth that stays awake while its owner sleeps:
Siinä mies makaelevi,
uros unta ottelevi:
mies makasi, vaate valvoi.
(Kalevala, 16 : 330)
“Due to numerous personal experiences with this phenomenon, I’ve come to think I have a personal awakener. It’s irrelevant whether we’re talking about an actual immaterial entity as folklore proposes or a psychological phenomenon as we might prefer to see it these days. Even if weird for a rational mindset, the phenomenon is real and even beneficent.” —NS