I am not much of a phone talker, but once a month I anticipate a particular phone call. My heart leaps with joy when I hear the distinct ring of an outside call on my dorm room phone, and when I pick it up, I hear the welcome sound of phone fuzz and a broken "Lau—ren?"

The conversation usually begins with the common "how are you", and then I listen as my friends in Alaska describe their recent wolf and wolverine hunts or the way the winter sun paints eerie colors of pink and purple on the snowy tundra or of their good-feelings that there is fresh oogruk (seal) meat on the table.

These cherished conversations take me out of my life at Macalester and allow me to reflect on experiences that continue to shape my life. I first met this Inupiaq Eskimo family when I traveled to Alaska during the summer of 2000 as part of an independent study project I designed through my high school. This project was the capstone of a school curriculum I was involved in that teaches students to learn through experience in the world. I was able to design a project exploring an area of personal interest. I did not know the exact details of what I wanted to study, but I knew that I wanted to be up north. The Arctic is a place that has long fascinated me, not only because of its barren majesty, but also because I have been curious about the kinds of internal strengths that a person must have in order to survive the harsh climate. Ultimately, the project I designed explored the "power of the self."

This project allowed me to spend time in three healing communities: I did a Vipassana meditation retreat in Washington State, was part of a healing circle of shamanic practitioners in Fairbanks, Alaska, and visited the family of a community healer in the tundra outside of Kotzebue, Alaska. All three of these experiences were unique, yet each gave me an essence of what I sought to explore.

When I practiced Vipassana meditation I spent ten days in complete silence, doing nothing more than looking inward and discovering qualities about myself that previously went unnoticed. Had I not traveled inward to learn an individually-oriented way of healing, I think I would have had a shallower understanding of the healing communities in Alaska.

Spending the two months in Fairbanks and with the Inupaiq Eskimo community healer in the tundra was an incredible experience where I met people with a tremendous drive to carry out what they called their "life's work." For the shamanic practitioners, that meant providing a service for the community by helping those dealing with problems like death, depression, and illness. The community healer in Kotzebue told me: "all a person needs to survive is already inside of them."

When he told me this I thought "Well, of course!" since it seemed like a fluffy statement. But then I spent hours listening to this man's achievements and witnessing the great respect he garnered from the community for being the most honored hunter, craftsmen, and tribal doctor of that region of Alaska. His actions in life seemed to be a testimonial to what he said.

What I learned three years ago scratched the surface of the project, and only now am I coming to understand much of what was shared with me. I continue to practice Vipassana meditation and keep in touch with the healers that I studied with in Alaska. This project represents so much to me; it is more that just an "experience" that has generated wonderful memories, but rather this project continues to live on through many facets of my life—such as getting phone calls from my friends in the deep tundra of Alaska!

At Macalester, I have continued studying the role of shamanism, but in another northern region of the world — Mongolia.