For Icelandic National Day, June 17, Icelanders gather in celebration., with speeches in town squares, national flag dresses for girls (or at least princess party dresses for the very young set), blow-up carnival rides, lots of coffee, and, as you can see from this photo taken in Reykjavik the day before, at least one politically-pointed unicorn..
Reykjavik’s shop windows: an informal national gallery with a point.
Barn at Snotrunes
This…
… is how …
… it is done.
Are you surprised?
At Starmyri 2A, they already know. Here’s the gas station, lovingly decorated with whale bones, sheep heads and pretty rocks, with a view out over the lagoon that lured the road east when it formed.
The birds were singing in this sculpture last night. It was the only sound.
Vellir Farm, Rauðanes
Vatnsdalarhólar
The hills are famous as being too many to count. The forests, well, that is another matter. And the sheep, whew. They were out the other day, waiting to be taken to the high country. Sheep everywhere!
Gunnar Gunnarson’s dream was to transform his novels about Icelandic country people into a farm employing Icelandic country people, and run it like a novel. Unfortunately, Gunnar got the idea from living for thirty years in Denmark, where he picked up this well-meaning but colonial idea. The contemporary. and up-dated version of the best of Gunnar’s idea of translating a book into life is the Icelandic love of building a forest and then holidaying within it, to return to an Iceland renewed from the degradations and desperations of its poverty, back to the beautiful, forested land in the mid-Atlantic. In other words, Gunnar was on the right track, except he forget to plant the trees!
This is the way parking is enforced in Akureyri.
Consider yourself warned!
Everyone writes.their.own sagas now.
Have fun in Iceland. It’s having fu with you.
In Iceland, solstice is a time for sheep, mammalian…
… trolishl…
… or elvish…
… to put on their finery …
…and party.
You, too, I hope.
Ah, volcanoes.
They make beautiful things.
Or beautiful things appear in the mind.
Barking Troll
In a remote valley in Iceland, under a volcano, one can spend an afternoon among treasures.
I sure did.
The wealth of the dwarves, my ancestors called this stuff.
The wealth of men, too, I think.
And the wealth of the water..
And mystery enough.
And light within the stone..
This is old wisdom.
Totemic wisdom. Like this sheep amulet below.
This is the deeps of the mind and body, meeting in the light of the air.
This is what you get when you walk straight into the Earth. You’ll know where when you’re there.
A Farm in Iceland 