{"id":11289,"date":"2025-02-11T07:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T12:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11289"},"modified":"2025-02-16T13:27:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T18:27:36","slug":"not-paranormal-just-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11289","title":{"rendered":"Not Paranormal, Just Different"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An interesting recent discussion between two indigenous American authors got me thinking about the issue of paranormal. (And, not for the first time, wondering what\u2019s \u201cnormal,\u201d anyway, in these times?) Some elements in the books of Ramona Emerson of the Din\u00e9 (Navaho) tribe and Marcie Rendon, a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa (Ojibwe)\u2014both multiple literary award-winners, by the way\u2014might fit into a broad paranormal category, but they reject that characterization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emerson is the author of two books in her series featuring Rita Todacheene a forensic photographer, able to see in her mind the circumstances of the crimes she is meticulously documenting. (Find her remarkable books here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) Rendon, who is also a playwright and poet, writes the popular Cash Blackbear crime series, featuring a young Ojibwe woman, whose guardian is a sheriff, which brings her into occasional contact with violent crime. The fourth book in Rendon\u2019s series, Broken Fields<\/a><\/em>, will be available March 2025. Blackbear\u2019s visions and intuitive abilities help in solving crimes, and the author explores the problem of missing and murdered indigenous women. In both authors\u2019 books, you find a rich source of information and perspective on the protagonists\u2019 cultural milieu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent webinar, Emerson interviewed Rendon, and they mentioned the \u201cparanormal\u201d issue. Publishers and agents when musing about what they\u2019re looking for in manuscript submissions today increasingly mention their attraction to paranormal elements. It\u2019s not clear exactly what they have in mind. But it is something both women claim to not write. They haven\u2019t decided to paste on some not easily explained or supernatural element. \u201cIt\u2019s just part of who we are,\u201d Rendon said, \u201ca different belief system.\u201d In it, dreams are important, she said, and they discuss them each morning. In my dream last night, I was looking for something I couldn\u2019t find\u2014typical!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her character Cash Blackbear\u2019s visions let her see beyond objective reality. In the Ojibwe culture, such thinking is part-and-parcel of daily existence. In part, that\u2019s because the wisdom of the ancestors guides them through life, and people talk to and \u201csee\u201d their ancestors frequently. And not only because they are \u201csurrounded by spirit houses\u201d (little houses built atop graves mounds). Despite these frequent contacts, interactions with ancestors or the spirit world are done within certain parameters, certain specific rules. Personally, I\u2019d like to understand more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, because this is such a different way of thinking, acceptance is hard for people raised in a culture that emphasizes rationality and scientific proof as the keys to understanding the world. From the inside, as Emerson portrays Rita Todacheene, this different way is also hard to simply dismiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another recent book that draws on this type of thinking is Jennifer Givhan\u2019s 2023 novel, River Woman, River Demon<\/a><\/em>. Givhan is a Mexican-American and indigenous author whose story weaves together the otherworldly and the everyday swirling around a murder. It isn’t a novel I would ordinarily gravitate to, but Givhan made it a powerful story, and I\u2019m glad I read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reaching for my more comfortably familiar analytic hat, I can\u2019t help wondering whether stories like these are achieving resonance in this era when the rational seems to have flown out the window. Maybe people are seeking a little wisdom from unconventional sources to help them get through. But that would be selling these books short. These are compelling tales from a less conventional point of view that deserve to be read and thought about in any time period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting recent discussion between two indigenous American authors got me thinking about the issue of paranormal. (And, not for the first time, wondering what\u2019s \u201cnormal,\u201d anyway, in these times?) Some elements in the books of Ramona Emerson of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1288,174,3,29],"tags":[2166,2247,2248,2249],"class_list":["post-11289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-first-draft-blog","category-mystery","category-writing","tag-detective","tag-indigenous-americans","tag-navaho","tag-ojibwe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2W5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11291,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11289\/revisions\/11291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}