Two moons yet.
Quantum moons!
Moon Rising Above Reykjavik
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Author Archives: Harold Rhenisch
Dusk Over Thor’s Shield
In November, when sunrise and sunset colours continue in unbroken unfolding light from dawn, near 10 a.m., and dusk near 2 or 3 p.m., it comes so quickly that you can see it open and close through the spectrum, as if you are inside a film, a really, really wide-angle 4-D film.
Here is a fraction of a second of its wonder over the volcano in early November, as I walked through flaming heather and pink snow at þingvellir. I shot the image with two much sky to illustrate how unsettling it can be. One feels at times that one can fall right off the Earth and drown in air.
Looking Out From the Waterfall into Day’s End
Walk lightly on your way home. (It might be best to avoid the road.)
Seljaland
Svartifoss: River of Blood
Perhaps it’s called Svartifoss (Black Falls) because it shows itself on a black basalt cliff.
Bad Light Helps One See Clearly Here
Perhaps it’s because the red autumn birches turn black with distance, and still the fall flashes.
Autumn Rain Really Brings Out the Light of This Land
In either case, it’s not the cliff that is named but the water.
It seems that when blackness falls it is visible. Of course, that means it’s not black at all…
… or that whiteness is also a blindness, beyond human life. We marvel. Life, it comes from nowhere, flashes with life, and then returns to mystery.
Svartifoss in Its Pool of Birch Blood
~
Svartifoss, Skaftafell National Park, South Iceland
Welcome to a World of Light
It is easy…
… to be distracted …
…by ice …
… and its romantic stories of loss and the fleeting nature of experience…
… and to miss the light …
… and the darkness …
… together …
… in the eye.
Glaciers come from another world.
It is a world of light.
~
Jokulsárlón and Skaftafell
I’m Off to Spend a Month with the Trolls
Lots of fun for all!
See you in October.
Skold!
If you’re going to toss back an Einstök or a Gull, well, “Cheers, Mate!” might not do. “Skold!”, translated oh-so-lovingly, as “Skull!” will do. Oh, those viking types. They’re fooling with us.
Troll Skull at Gullfoss
Skold = skull = Schale (bowl) = skull(ing oar), ie scoop = sculpt, and so on. It is a space that fills with the energy that fills emptiness and brings forth life out of emptiness, so, to say it again, outside of trollspeak, “To Luck!”, or “Fortune be with you!” Yes, that’s right, every drink is a lottery!
Except in an early morning snowstorm in April, when you’ve been walking since 5 a.m. and the darned takeaway around the corner is closed tight, still, at. 9. What’s with that, eh! Oh, let’s ask the locals:
Right. Drinks all around, I say. Skold!
Changing Iceland
Only nine years ago, Icelandic tourism was a simple thing: you drove around the country viewing the things Icelanders found interesting, and they served you coffee, put you up for the night, and cooked a lamb for you. An old bridge, for instance…
… or a waterfall.
… a troll at Dimmuborgir…
… and some smooching among the birches, the trees that helped to gain them a country.
Now, pain.
In the waste water from a power plant. You, dear visitor, are an industry now. Iceland shows your face in a mirror.
Yet in the small towns now, far from Reykjavik, people are tired of us all; they want us to go away. In Grindavik, an old woman even rammed me with her shopping cart in the grocery store. “Fair enough,” I thought. But I remember the generosity and gratitude that began this madness…
… and trust it will continue.
How Big of a House Do You Need?
When you live on Earth, that is?
My Personal Iceland
Iceland calls to many people in many different ways. Svartifoss called me.
It changed my life.
May it change yours.
A Farm in Iceland 