This past March, I had a wonderful time singing at The Viking Experience festival in North Carolina. I connected with the great festival director Angela Hostetler-Reid during the NC Scandinavian Christmas Fair one year, and since then, she has invited me to sing at her festival for the last two inaugural years. Having attracted around 4,000 people this year, I am so happy for her success! Being surrounded by folks who love this historical era like I do, I am happy to cultivate my community in such a momentous way.

One necessary condition for me regarding each Viking project I do is that it is inclusive. Unfortunately, there is a contingent of this community that holds racist claims to the Viking heritage. Angela makes absolutely clear that this festival has zero alignment with that interpretation and belief system, and of course I am so thankful that she does. Being of a multicultural background, Norwegian being one of them, I along with this NC-based organization espouse the credo that Viking teachings embrace difference, travel, and gaining knowledge from others completely different from ourselves. Odin writes about this in his Hávamal. A lot of the Vikings found in excavated burial sites are of mixed race, as the Vikings traveled far and wide during their summer raids. My 6-foot-tall, white-blonde haired and pale blue-eyed Norwegian-American grandfather first married a Native-American woman; when she unfortunately passed away, he then married my Filipina grandmother who he met when in the Navy during WWII. Vikings for centuries have highly valued multicultural exchange and love, and it continues to this day. The word for "idiot" or "fool" in Old Norse translates to "home-bound" in English - someone who wants to stay in their comfort zone of understanding. Even if you can't travel the world, you can still expand your mind and heart by having multiracial friends, reading books, articles, visiting websites and social media of folks of different backgrounds, and benefit from the Viking practice of actively learning from multitudinous knowledge sources.

Singing for this crowd is a deep pleasure and privilege! I look forward to doing more such events, and if you have info about gatherings where you think folks would appreciate hearing covers of modern Viking folk songs (in my best and humble attempt at Scandinavian languages), PLEASE reach out to me! Thank you!

Tags: viking festival