Oni

"'Dance with this,' and I dance and as the wind stirs in the trees..." (235). The final line of the novel Power ends with reference to Oni, or wind. Oni is not simply wind for the Taiga people, but rather a source of life that sustains. As Omishto fans herself and dances, she creates her own wind. A wind that empowers her to be the woman she desires to be. The woman that she knows she can be. Does our breath create a wind for others, a wind which helps them fly? I really liked the idea of Oni that was mentioned throughout the text because for them this wind is what keeps them going from day to day. What keeps you going from day to day? Others' expectations? External pressure? God? Faith? For me, it is a combination of many things, but it is definitely an intangible presence.

Knowledge vs. Belief

Omishto says that "believing and knowing are two lands distant from each other" (40). In my opinion, knowing and believing have more in common than some understand but it is crucial to be able to distinguish between the two. To know something is based off of provable facts based on first hand knowledge of something that you have experienced. Essentially, believing is putting faith in some other input and accepting it as truth. The things we believe require no proof or evidence. We believe them because they are part of and support a larger system of beliefs that we have been forming throughout our lives. They are most often things that have no empirical evidence nor do we feel that they require any. Knowledge only takes a person so far, and at a certain point a person simply needs to believe. This is why I see knowing and believing to be similar because they are continual, when knowledge ends belief picks up. Knowledge and belief compliment each other and together they establish ourselves. It seems that Omishto is confused on these two, and thus is insecure about herself and is greatly influenced by her surroundings. Do you think Omishto is struggling to find herself in these two worlds: the old and the new? What does she know and what does she believe?