But they’re sweet.
And pretty.
Who needs trees?
Reykjavik Has Gone to the Birds
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Monthly Archives: February 2019
Glaciers are Tricksters
Anyone can see that.
Jokulsarlón
Sólheimajökull
But they’re also very friendly beasts. You just have to wait for them to come to you.
A kind of troll, really. Or, a whole family of them.
Snæfell
Big and sneaky.
Langjökull
Three Species of Icelandic Camouflage
Like the troll’s hair it nests upon, the white fleck of the gull hides in plain sight.
Islands, like Iceland, do the same in the middle of the sea.
Dyrhólaey
Out of Bounds
This photographer on Dyrhólaey is out of bounds. She crossed a barrier to get here. Thousands do.
Some die. Is this view not good enough?
Is this one not good enough?
What about this? So bad you need to die to get a different one?
We’d rather you were alive, really. Really. Besides, if you just turn around, you can see almost forever.
Then we could all go back and grill a lamb or something, drink some lava beer and have a great good time.
Well, ok, maybe not that.
Shadow Troll
It’s a thing for the end of those early winter days. Never a lonely moment in Iceland!
Dyrhólaey
A Different Perspective on the Reynisdrangar Trolls
They are famous, these ship-stealing trolls of South Iceland. You can see them off the point in the distance below, looking east…
…and looking west below.
But it’s the few from the north, from their lair, that shows how close they came to dragging those fishing boats in for dinner, and how alive they still are.
Never think a troll is dead. That would be a big mistake for your subconscious life, indeed.
Easy Identification of Elf City Sites
Elf farms and villages are craggy things to spot, but major cities hover inside the light. You can reach through the sun and… almost grasp them.
Pétursey
Evening is the best time for the sea to mix the Sun and the Earth and turn everything to salt dust in the air. Prepare for tears… of joy? of anguish? Ah, the elves are telling no secrets.
Approaching the Elves from the Dark Side of the Earth
Just a short jaunt west of the black sand beaches at the Dyrhólaey bird sanctuary, if you take the right back road, you can come upon the elves out of the shadows. It is best that they blind you with the light.
Pétursey, Iceland
An island on an island… or is it?
Icelandic Wool Dyeing Secret, shhhhhhhhh
So, you start off with a sheep. Seems simple enough. 
But then you want it to be pink. And natural. What to do?
It is all about place, month and the time of day.
Late October, 7:40 a.m., at Skogar.
Simple as that.
Waterfall as Spaces of Unity
Words teach us to see waterfall, cliff and light.
Alarlhryna
And shadow.
Alarlhryna
But they are one thing, together.
Gulfoss
Sjaelandafoss
Fossá
Even when they have no name!
Even with ice. Even in winter rain.
Svartifoss
Even with blood-red birches. Everything you add becomes the fall. It ceases to be separate.
Svartifoss
Even a river can become sky.
Bessastaðaá
Even sky can become a river.
Stekkalækur
Even underground rivers entering the sky from the mouth of the earth.
Hraunfossar
Even falls held within the Earth!
Dettifoss
They are all falls, not water, light, stone, air, water, grass or trees. They are always once thing together, all at once.
Systrafoss
This is a great mystery, not because it is unknown, but because it is vital.
Hengifoss
This teaching, and this view deep into human-earth relationships in Iceland, continually inspires me. The land is alive, as is the water, and any words that are hanging around start there first.
