Time and again, Gunnar wrote that poverty is the greatest wealth. Here’s an example from his childhood fjord. Here, every farm i needed a source of fresh water. The smaller the farm, the more precarious the source. Here’s the water source of a small croft near Bringubakki.
Look how the water flows with life within the remains of winter’s cold, just as the life flows through the family that brings it into their house. This small, austere pleasure of this correspondence is a great richness.
So, you came in the summer. The grass was awfully nice. So pretty. And you were bathed in light and danced.
Here are the deeps of the island, that you missed:
Look how the light has a left the sky and gone into the things of the world. The sun shines from there. You’ll have to come back. There’s no way around it.
The only thing that separates a 4×4 hill climb course and an early winter road is a little blue sign.
To make it even more fun, dusk comes at 2:30 pm in November.
Whee!
In mid-November, there is no break between sunrise and sunset, just a switch in the spectrum. Here’s the pink morning light at Hafnarskógar, looking up to Hafnarfell.
As you can see, when you live in such light, you become inspired.
And the moon shines all day. Here it is around 2 pm, looking out Rauðanes way. Enough to inspire anyone.
At this time of day, the blue and pink start mixing it up.
An hour later, over on Rauðanes, it gives a last splash…
And then darkens …
… and both deepens and thins at the same time …
Tungokollur over Borgarnes
… until the next morning when it begins again, later yet.
It’s a wonder every Icelander isn’t a painter.
Forget parking in Reykjavik. The 4x4s are so big, you can’t. Seriously, you are hooped. There is parking, though. 
Only 7 hours from Reykjavik, dear!
The 4×4 is to get off the road to where there’s room. Just a tip.
~
Jokulsárlon
Where there are waves, there is a shore.
They are all different shores.
Some are within you.
You are within some.
Some are bits of drag from the sky moving off the sea and over the island.
Others are the sky taking the island to sea.
These are the shores of life. Gunnar used them as a symbol of Christianity and the hard choices of ethics.
He refused to accept that they were in our control, as strongly as he knew we must cross them.
But that’s why you go to Iceland, right?
To learn your place?
“A volcanic wasteland”? Hardly. Here are some terms to help you navigate the intricate environment of Iceland.
Pile or hillock:
Tussock, or Mound:
Note that on this island, those are both islands. Here’s another eyeland on an island, aye.
Mess, heap or scatter:
Makes you thankful for eye lids! Here’s a nice variation on the tussock and island theme:
Tuft:
And here is a…
Drift:
Note that it’s in the lee of an artificial pile called a wall. Here’s a variation on the wall, made not of stone but of sod and a couple flowers (in the lower left below):
And as for drifts, well they can be of stone, too, not just of life. When that’s the case, they are alive and are called a flow, as in a lava flow:
Now, put them together in the so-called volcanic wasteland, and you get…
Islands within islands within islands in a sea of sand.
Volcano meets the sea:
Kopasker
Volcano meets the sky:
Myvatnsveit
Volcano meets time:
Near Dettifoss
Volcano meets ice:
Myrdal
Volcano meets iceberg:
Jokulsárlonsandur
Volcano meets ancient soils (and cooks them red):
Volcano meets birch trees after a conversation with a post-glacial flood river:
Ásbyrgi
Volcano meets glacier:
Snaefell
Volcano meets itself.
Near Dettifoss
Volcano meets snowmobile:
Myvatn
Lots of fun meeting new people!
The basalt rocks of Myvatnsveit are particularly loyal. Even when frost breaks them apart they fall apart together.
They become islands and worlds. On an island of glaciers, they are untouched.
In this context, you are the glacier.
Your walking levels the land.
Worried about ash blowing around in the wind? It’s beautiful and mysterious isn’t, and makes your photographs, well, blur.
Seljaland
But if you go closer anyway, look who you will find dancing in the wind.
Bog Cotton!
So, blurriness, you see, is something to walk out into in the wind. When I did, it made me think I was a child of the wind myself. Oh, wait. I am.
A Farm in Iceland 