Monthly Archives: February 2020

The Price of Settlement in Iceland

The foundational principle of Iceland is “settlement.” after 1100 years of it, we see that nothing has changed. In Olafsfjörður (for example), everything still comes from away.

And buildings are larger than they need to be. They too are settlements.

Even the driftwood, even the art, even the temporary housing made from shipping containers, comes from away.

Or so it seems to someone from away. However, to an Icelander, I think it comes from the world, which is synonymous with the sea.

And you can’t see it.

The result is Reykjavik.

Iceland in Winter

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Lóndrangar looks out over the Atlantic at mid-day, in the dim light when the darkness shines as brightly as the sun. It is a time for going inside things, for going in the deep intimacy of a human bodily connection with the Earth. Everything is hushed, and the world is full of memories and future plans.

It is those you walk through, and they look like heather and rock and snow and they feel like wind and cold, and yet you are warm. You are a fire, cupped in a sheltered spot. You make yourself. When summer comes, you walk out into what you have made, and the fire is everywhere. It is now, too, but you must walk very softly. You are inside the sleep of the world.

Guarding the Nest in Iceland

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Trolls, whose eggs are green (just look!) do it like this:

Gulls, whose eggs are also green, by gosh, do it like this:

Kollsvík

This greening of the land is a thing to be admired. I’m all for more of it.

A New, Partially-Formed Iceland Egg Greening Up Nicely in the East Fjords

Waiting for News from the Great Northern Ocean

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A Secret Beach in the North

Who could possibly say the land and the sea are not alive? Beats me.

Trolls are Always Arriving or Leaving

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They never stay long.

A Troll in Its Haunt, Kollsvík

While they’re there, they’re great fun, though.

Going Deep in Iceland

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At a certain point, you see with your chest, not with your eyes. Here with the tide rushing out at Kolgrafarfjörður at sundown around 2:30 pm on the shortest day, the light might be in the air, but it’s really in the water, which you “see” with its substance.

In other words, light is a substance as well, which this photograph, which can only capture the energy within it, can only hint at. You have to be there, because only a body can experience this. However, renting a car at Harpa at 10 a.m. and rushing out to Snæfellsnes, and back to Reykjavik in time for a quick snack and the 8 pm. Northern Lights Bus Tour will only keep you in the light’s energy. You won’t become the sea. There’s not just one Iceland in the same place at the same time. And it’s not just the sea. It’s the Earth as well, here from Ríf four days later, looking up to the glacier.

I think this is what Gunnar Gunnarsson meant in his 1936 essay “Thoughts on Nordic Fate” (Nordische Schicksalsgedanke), when he spoke of salvation — not in the modern sense of rescue through Christ but in an older sense, of the healing of separation. His answer was to go home to Iceland, but I’m not sure it has accepted him yet.