When you are caught by a veið, or a plane of gaping energy, that can devour you without a trace…

… where everything (and soon you too) is thrown, or strewn, around without sense…

… it’s best to create memory, and sense, or you will be lost, literally. Cairns like the one below are the Parthenons of Iceland. Don’t touch.

And don’t make more! That would be like destroying Shakespeare.

Even if the highway-building crew starts it, please resist translating cairns, energy gathered from throws to make wide space close, into an image of yourself as witness. This isn’t magic or art. It’s architecture and language. The path to history through them should remain open. If not, why go to Iceland?

~

Images from between Hafragilsfoss and Dettifoss, as well as on Highway 85 to Vopnafjörður.