Iskra’s Story

As Kenzo spends an afternoon with Iskra, he hears her story.

She was born 24 years ago on the isolated island of Pikkua, a small community of only five oskunja, representing only about 200 people. She explains that an oskunja (oss-kun-ya) is like a work group, a semi-familial unit that together manages a fishing fleet, or a tend a farm.

Her parent’s oskunja tended the sheep flocks on the interior of the island, but growing up she always felt a deep fascination with the ocean. She would stand for hours watching the waves and wind when she was supposed to be watching sheep, and sometimes she thought she could see things in the waves, visions of the past, or the future, she was never sure.

As she got older, Kaikkea spoke to her in the waves, she says. It was never an obvious thing, never a command to do this or that. More of a gentle whisper, an assurance that she had a place in the world when she felt out of place, a whisper of friendship when she felt lonely, a whisper of strength when she felt weak. She took to spending more and more time by the ocean, neglecting her duties.

Eventually, it reached the point where her failures as a shepherd could not be ignored. Her parents spoke to the local hakeasa (hay-kee-sa), the speaker to Kaikkea for the community of Pikkua. She was an older woman, abrupt and stern, and perhaps disillusioned with the divine, because she told Iskra to forget her childish fantasies and get to work.

It was that night that Iskra fled. She ran from her oskunja, her family, everyone, normally an unforgivable crime among the Skaer, to disobey the hakeasa.

She would not share the full details of what happened that night, only saying it was a magical moment of divine revelation. In the moonlight water she came face to face with the full might of Kaikkea’s divine power, and was gifted a mark of Kaikkea’s favor, a luminescent teardrop that appears as though it’s made of water but is solid to the touch, which she now wears as a holy symbol of Kaikkea.

When she returned to Pikkua two days later, bearing the mark of Kaikkea, everyone could see she was blessed. The divine touch was plain on her face. Filled with divine purpose but not knowing what she was meant to do, she left, this time with the community’s blessing, and traveled. For four years she sailed from island to island, learning the voices of the ocean, confident in Kaikkea’s power and trusting that Kaikkea would eventually reveal her purpose.

Two years ago, the priesthood of the temple in Tollen became empty, and she was asked to take a turn serving, which she agreed to do, with Kaikkea’s guidance. Now, she is waiting patiently for Kaikkea’s purpose to reveal itself.